The UK Government is being called on to boost British TV production by launching filming incentives similar to what’s already available for features. Producers say the UK is losing ‘cinematic’ TV like The Tudors to countries such as Ireland and Hungary that offer TV filming incentives.
It’s been weeks of careful filming in national parks and helicopter shoots for Peter Jackson and his Hobbit team. The filmmaker has recorded another video diary of his experiences shooting the films on location across New Zealand in footage that takes us up to mid-December of last year.
Overall 2011 was a good year for Pinewood Shepperton, with the studios showing an impressive 24% rise in film revenue on the previous year. The healthy overall figure masks a slight dip in the second half of the year.
[slideshow id=261]Dutch feature Nova Zembla has doubled Iceland for northern Russia and captured everything in 3D. The film charts the exploits of 16th Century explorer Willem Barentsz, who stranded his ship on the Russian islands of Novaya Zemlya when he tried to find a northern passage to Asia.
Scotland should offer its own specific filming tax breaks, a Scottish TV executive says. Alan Clements is Head of Content at STV and spoke this week at an Edinburgh conference, The Scotsman reports. He argued that filming tax breaks for Scotland could help the country compete with Ireland.
[slideshow id=258]Alberta in western Canada isn’t short on eye-catching natural vistas and many of these have been captured in a new tourism campaign. Circle Productions produced the new series of commercials compiling 16 separate spots that promote the province in both summer and winter.
San Francisco may be the setting for new TV show Alcatraz, but Vancouver is the main filming location. The JJ Abrams-produced show filmed exteriors in San Francisco for a few weeks last year, but the bulk of the first season’s shoot took advantage of British Columbia’s filming incentives.
Sri Lanka lies in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. It offers over a thousand miles of beautiful golden beaches fringed with coconut palms. It’s said to offer the best tea in the world and is also well known for its blue sapphires.