Written by Tom Deehan on Mar 22, 2016. Posted in General Interest

American Executives seek out Northern England for possible filming locations

Through an investment supplied by UKTI’s Northern Powerhouse Fund, the British Film Commission have launched an initiative to highlight locations and facilities in Northern England to the American film industry. As part of this initiative, six key executives from American Production Companies made the journey to Northern England last week to explore what the area has to offer.

While the United Kingdom enjoys a prosperous film industry, the majority of inbound productions travel to London and the south of England.

Adrian Wootton, Chief Executive of the British Film Commission and Film London explains: “the north of England is home to an exceptional concentration of some of the country’s leading creative film and television companies, superb facilities and breath-taking locations. These elements combined with the UK’s generous Creative Sector Tax Reliefs and local incentives make it fertile ground for international productions of all sizes, helping to attract the kind of productions which touch audiences around the world. With the success of the tax reliefs helping grow local infrastructure, develop crew bases and nurture creative talent, it makes complete sense for us to be championing these regional creative industries on the global stage.”

Chancellor George Osborne added: “the North of England is an iconic backdrop to some great films and TV shows… already the Northern Powerhouse film and TV industry is a magnet for global investment, and this week’s initiative is a real opportunity to showcase our home-grown talent to companies around the world… we are committed to backing this success story which is why we introduced highly competitive tax reliefs, which in the last year alone supported over £1 billion in direct investment into the UK.”

Part of what makes the UK such a popular filming location are its lucrative tax incentive schemes. With separate programmes aimed at both film and television productions, projects shooting on location in the UK are eligible to receive a tax rebate of up to 25%, changing to 20% after an expenditure of GBP20 million is incurred.

The list of productions to have filmed in the UK include major upcoming blockbusters such as Star Wars: Episode VIII and Captain America: Civil War (pictured above).

A similar initiative was launched in February 2016 to increase the amount of funding into Yorkshire’s film industry, which currently operates its own additional incentive programme and has been accessed by high-end productions such as Peaky Blinders.