Written by on Apr 29, 2015. Posted in On Location

British Film Commission fam trip takes North American TV delegates across UK

A week-long familiarisation (fam) trip organised by the British Film Commission has taken a North American delegation across the whole of the UK for the first time. The trip was designed to showcase the UK’s TV filming potential after recent enhancements to the TV tax credit.

Executives attended the trip from FremantleMedia North America, Pivot, eOne Television, Skydance Television and Universal Television.

The tour included a visit to Pinewood Studio Wales, which recently hosted the pilot for Kurt Sutter’s new TV drama The Bastard Executioner and will soon be a production base for a remake of The Crow.

Delegates also toured Titanic Studios in Belfast, the long-term home of Game of Thrones, and Wardpark Studios, the adapted studio facility near Glasgow that has hosted historical drama Outlander.

In Bristol the tour visited The Bottle Yard Studios, which has become a gateway to South Wales and south-western England over the past year or so. Back in London, the delegation visited The Imaginarium, a studio specialising in performance capture that was co-founded by Lord of the Rings and Hobbit veteran Andy Serkis.

Debra Bergman, SVP Scripted Production for FremantleMedia North America said of her visit: “The fam trip provided invaluable insights into UK film and television production, showcasing their infrastructure, talented crew base, locations and regional subsidies.”

Last month, the UK government made the 25% TV tax credit much more accessible to international producers by reducing the required spend from 25% to just 10%.

In the tax credit’s first full year, TV production spending in the UK soared from GBP 50 million to GBP 395 million, according to BFI figures, with nearly 60% coming from international shoots.

(Image: HBO)