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People & Places In The News
THE BEST
SELLING THESMOKE
Following in the formidable foot- steps of the London Film Commission’s founding director Christabel Albery, Sue Hayes is under no illusions about the scale of the job she is taking on.
As the new commissioner she will co-ordinate the work of the dedicated staff at the Euston Square offices, attracting inward investment, maintain- ing the ever growing industry database, and working closely with the Commission’s various sponsors to sell the capital as an ideal base for new film and TV productions.
She will at least have impressive help, since Lord Attenborough has agreed to act as patron to the LFC. All this comes after the extensive ground- work laid by Albery - scion of the the- atre owning family - who has worked tirelessly over five years to establish the positive and efficient reputation that the commission enjoys.
Her background in production, mostly television but with some feature experience, gives Hayes an important insight into the needs of the producers who come to her for help.
Having also acted as director of the Edinburgh TV Festival for three years, Hayes jokes that the idea of dealing with committees and persuading them to do things that they might not want to on occasion is something she is used to. But the most important quality she shares with Albery is in being another fierce advocate for the capital as a film- making base, and a proud supporter of the many technical and creative ser- vices available within it.
“If you work in the television or film industry, The London Film Commission can help with crews, facilities and loca- tions, and it’s open to everybody who works in the audio visual medium. That includes IMAX, television, new media, corporate films and, of course, features. It is a fantastic resource.” ■ Anwar Brett
www.london-film.co.uk
FORCEIN THENORTH
The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford - the West Yorkshire Victorian city that furnished locations for Billy Liar, The Dresser and,
more recently, East Is East - is
no dusty treasure-house of
frames, prints and tapes.
Regularly named ‘Museum of the Year’, it’s a dynamic - and hugely popular - collection, exploration, explanation and cel- ebration of images of every kind.
First opened in 1983 as a
Northern outpost of the Science Museum, it underwent an extensive - and expensive - transformation, with £16 million from the Heritage Lottery and other funds, and was re-opened in 1999 by Pierce Brosnan, hours after he finished shooting the last Bond movie.
The redesigned galleries chart the progress of photography from its begin- nings to the latest digital developments - portraiture, photo-journalism, on-line innovations, all can be enjoyed and experiencedbythevisitor,withmany inter-active displays.
The television exhibits include working studios, as well as the possibil- ity of viewing an exhausting variety of broadcast programmes. The animation displays have the original cels or mod- els of many familiar faces, from Disney to Aardman’s creations, while industry figures of another kind - such as Lord Puttnam - have loaned an impressive array of Oscars and festival trophies.
But it is in its presentation of cinema that the shimmering, glass-fronted build- ing comes into its own, with three sepa- rate auditoria. There’s Pictureville, sure- ly one of the most comfortable in the
country, certainly with the most adaptable screen that boasts the only three-projector public Cinerama in the world; the first IMAX cinema in Britain and, after the renovation, the first place in Europe to use the IMAX SR 3-D projector; and, third, a new ‘art-house’, the Cubby Broccoli Cinema, which,
like the others, has a full-time, daily pro- gramme of new releases and classics of world cin- ema, in repertory or extended runs.
Head of Museum Amanda Nevill is quietly confident but not com- placent about the evi- dent success of the pop- ular city-centre site: “Last year, after a major redevelopment, driven by the Museum’s need both to re-structure to cope with audience numbers and to re-
invent itself for the digital agenda, it welcomed just under one million visi- tors. It has brought a new, loud and fiercely independent voice for film, both for its creators and its audiences, out of London.
“It is not a comfy voice, it has atti- tude, it has high expectations, and it is ambitious. The festivals presented by the Museum in particular - the international event in March, ‘Bite the Mango’ show- casing Asian and Black Cinema each September, and the Animation Festival in June - allow audiences in the region to contribute and shape the current and future film culture of the nation.”
‘The Art of Star Wars’ Exhibition offers a different kind of filmic force in Bradford until Spring 2001, while a new series of on-stage interviews with film- makers should have some other stars from before and behind the camera heading up North to introduce their work over the months leading up to the 6th Bradford Film Festival next year. ■ Phillip Bergson
Photo above left: Sue Hayes of the London Film Commission
Photos above right: Amanda Nevill and a view of the museum
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