Written by Shona Smith on Nov 5, 2019. Posted in Production News

BBC family adventure series The Snow Spider is first recipient of Liverpool City Region Production Fund

The Snow Spider will shoot for six weeks across Wirral, use a vacant school as a makeshift studio and carry out VFX work in Liverpool. Commissioned by the CBBC and BBC Wales series, the Leopard Pictures series is the first recipient of the Liverpool City Region Production Fund launched in April and will see the company expand their base in the city.

The five, thirty minute episode fantasy drama is a screen adaptation of Jenny Nimmo’s trilogy, from BAFTA award-winning writer Owen Sheers, tells the story of a boy who receives enchanted gifts from his grandmother on his ninth birthday.

Managing director of Leopard Pictures, Kristian Smith said “Leopard Pictures is committed to making content and telling stories from the North. Liverpool is the perfect home for us. With many of us in the Leopard team having strong links to Wirral and Liverpool, we are determined to continue to grow our Liverpool base, with new people joining the team through 2020. We’re incredibly grateful to Liverpool Film Office for helping us make our latest drama series”.

Shooting on location in Wirral for six weeks, extra filming will take place in Wales. A vacant school will be used as a temporary studio during the shoot. Liverpool Film Office helped Leonard Pictures source locations, crew and to ensure relevant permissions were in place.

Leopard Pictures have committed to growing their Liverpool base for as many projects as possible, and using city-region based organisation Sparkle VFX in the post-production process, rather than taking that element of the work to London.

Head of Liverpool Film Office and LCR Production Fund Manager Lynn Saunders says ““It’s wonderful to be in a position where we can financially support our first project, giving us a direct stake in the production which allows us to encourage more local employment, use of local businesses, as well as training initiatives for those looking to break in to industry. We’ve helped facilitate productions over the last 30 years, and we’re thrilled to venture into this new way of working which can only have positive, tangible benefits to the city region.

To this end, as part of the funding agreement, Leopard Pictures will take on six trainees to give them on-set experience, assist in camera and lighting, make-up and work in the production departments.

The GBP2 million fund launched in April. Since launching, over forty formal expressions of interest have been made, and further high-profile investments are expected to be announced in coming months.