Creative England launches crew database

Creative England is to launch its new crew database at its forthcoming crew networking evening at Elstree Studios.

The free database will cover all of the English regions and is being launched at the same time as a national locations database. The two will help complete the one stop shop service Creative England offers to productions filming in the English regions.

Creative England opened its doors as a single entity to take over from the work of the Regional Screen Agency network in October 2011. For the last year it has been developing and populating the two databases so that it is able to offer a comprehensive service to productions, from assisting with finding locations for a shoot to providing a list of local, available crew, anywhere in England outside London.

The service is free for crew, production and facilities professionals to join, and Creative England also offers a face-to-face networking service, in the shape of the regular, nationwide crew nights.

The Elstree event on September 19th will be the eighth in the nationwide programme, and comes just a couple of weeks ahead of Creative England’s first anniversary. More than 1,200 professionals in film, TV and digital media have so far attended crew networking nights in Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Brighton and Sheffield, and further events are due to take place in later in the year.

Roger Morris, Managing Director of Elstree Studios, said: “The launch of the Creative England database at Elstree is very important for the whole East of England region. As probably one of the most prolific areas for film and TV production, not only is the regional database important for the East of England, but also the fact that its linked with the resource service across the whole of England giving producers and programme makers really for the first time easy and well informed access to this vast and impressive creative database.”

Elstree provides the perfect setting for the launch. Creative England opened an office at the studios in April and it is already a major creative hub in the film and television world, with shows such as Dancing on Ice, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Big Brother, and The Voice having been recorded there recently.

Feedback from the events so far has been very positive, with both crew and facility houses having secured work through the crew night at the recent Sheffield event on an ITV Drama currently in pre-production in the Northwest.

The events are part of Creative England’s remit of ensuring continuity of the vibrant film and moving image culture outside London. The organization is responsible for supporting the regional film and television industries outside London and their convergence with the digital media sector.

Kaye Elliott, Creative England’s Head of Location and Production Services, said: “We’re really excited to be able to launch the database at Elstree, which has been the home of so much terrific TV and film production. The crew nights have really taken off as they offer a variety of ways to help people get on and develop their careers. The databases will be an extension of this service, for both those working in crew and facilities and those looking to source crew and locations across England’s regions. We’re all about encouraging TV and film production in the English regions, and with these databases we’ll be able to help with everything from finding crew to hotels and facilities. It’s all part of the one stop shop service we are aiming to provide.”

Creative England’s team will be at Elstree on Wednesday, September 19th from 6pm-9pm. The evening will be sponsored by two partners: Brookson accountants, who offer specialist accountancy services for media and creative freelancers, and Towergate Professional Indemnity, which provides bespoke insurance services for the media industry.

To sign up to the Elstree crew night click here or for further information, follow @CEnglandprodn on Twitter.