2025 in Review

One year on since becoming our Film Office Manager, Jonny Shelton reflects on his first 12 months with the team, and how Screen Staffordshire has come to life

The cliché ‘time flies’ seems to only become more apposite as time passes, but I really can’t think of another example in my professional career – and perhaps personal life – where this has been more appropriate. The last twelve months have made up my first year with We Are Staffordshire, and in the county Council. Where on earth has the time gone!?

Well – now that I sit and think about it, an awful lot has happened. Short of giving you a thorough rundown of everything (too long, trust me), let me run you through my rationale and some highlights.

From the moment of preparing to interview, two things were transparently clear to me. The first was that we needed more production – a lot more, to justify the investment of public money that has gone into this three-year pilot scheme. Knowing that we had a specified amount of time to give the film office best efforts within, it made sense to me that the single best way to get more production was by showcasing our offer to the UK’s Film and TV sector – via our locations.

There are lots of brilliant things that a successful film office can do to create meaningful impact for its populous, but in my view, when operating in our specific parameters (fixed investment, fixed timeframe, and no immediate plans for team expansion or extension of our pilot beyond three years), locations quickly became the priority for at least our first year. Why? Because they are what the sector travel for.

The sector doesn’t travel for crew, crew travels for them; the same goes for local suppliers. We need people to make film and tv in Staffordshire, so we needed to identify the optimum locations where this would be most likely to happen. I’m lucky to have done a similar role to this before, for some 6-7 years – in drama, feature and other formats, and I feel blessed to have shaped an understanding of what types of locations these might be.

Fast forward; I have visited, photographed and catalogued some 150 locations, roughly 1.6x per working day in a calendar year (mostly in the first nine months). This might sound like a lot, even too many – but remember, we are 9x districts, boroughs and a city, we have over a million residents and at its longest, our county is 93 miles long (I suspect there are at least another 150 worth looking at).

Location Scouts see these images first on our Locations Directory, and then their creative seniors – Directors, Production Designers, Heads of Production and often Line Producers too – will see what their Scouts have found, via us.

As I write this, I am taking and making calls arranging our 25^th, 26^th and 27^th production recces of the year – all at locations I have visited this year. I can’t divulge much, but I am confident that in the next 6-12 months, some of these recces will turn into world-renowned productions getting on camera in the county, bringing their very healthy local economic impact with them.

The second thing that was of equal priority is slightly more nuanced, and something that will inherently take longer to bed in; mindset, which comes via a huge number of people and organisations buying into this project – at this stage, largely based on my ‘selling’ of it. This, on occasion and from a lot of experience previously, can be as tricky as it is essential.

When productions shoot in Manchester, Liverpool, increasingly Birmingham and other production hub areas of the UK, they are met with the right mindset by all that are involved – because these areas have been in this game for much longer than us and supported a range of productions more frequently. Over a period of many years (Liverpool Film Office is older than me), the sector, and supporting its unique methods and aims, has become woven into the fabric of these places, and therefore the thinking of its people.

Whilst a film office is undoubtedly the first port-of-call for a production, not all the solutions will be provided by us – that would be unrealistic; this does not stop at the film office or its lead. It is powered by the view of those that we work with – our local populous, other public bodies and the private sector primarily. If we do our job well, there will be times when I have to call these people and ask them to drop absolutely everything because a production need something now, and we need ‘yes, and’ rather than ‘no, but’, wherever possible – and, occasionally challengingly, irrespective of how senior they are.

This sector works at such a pace; it’s full of freelancers, its product can often be made pretty quickly (when compared to other projects or endeavours a local authority may be involved in), it has a small number of decision makers who are reasonably light on their feet, and they do not perceive borders or timescales in the way that I would estimate most other sectors do – and certainly not the public sector at large. Additionally, over 80% of the TV Dramas and Feature Films made in the UK in 2024 were inward investment pieces, largely from the USA – another key factor to consider, as their approach is slightly different to that of a UK broadcaster.

For success, we must not only mirror this part of the Film and TV sector’s culture, but embody it as an approach. If we don’t, we are at very serious and real risk of other areas beating us to the prize, and of developing a reputation that we are unable to facilitate production needs in a timely or fitting manner – and of that notion spreading.

How does one set about doing this? Initially with very careful thought; identifying those who have the keys to unlocking our potential, listening to their position, and sharing ours, in hope that we can find common ground and a route forward.

To that end, I am pleased to say that, without going away and updating my tracking (on my to-do list and very important too!), I have positively lost count of how many people and organisations across Staffordshire have expressed an interest in the work we do, and how many of these views have culminated in very pleasing meetings where we have been told that they are ready to help. Some of these, as alluded to above, are edging closer and closer to the outcomes we want; productions shooting here, in no small part due to key personnel occupying a new mindset and muscle group often far from their own.

Within our aims around ‘mindset’, we’ve had to bring forth a brand for key stakeholders to buy into (vitally important as an entity that can represent trust and reliability). Therefore, to my immense pleasure and as a result of the hard work of a lot of people, Screen Staffordshire was officially launched to an audience of over 100 attendees at Hoar Cross Hall on a beautiful summer’s day in June.

I’ve written a lot, probably too much; before I come to a close, I am overjoyed to have found paid work for freelancers in Staffordshire this year, something I’d like us to do much more of in the future, and I’ve loved the opportunity to put us on video via Visit Britain’s #StarringGREATBritain campaign (click here to see more), doing so whilst working closely with our LVEP (Local Visitor Economy Partnership); it looks so good on camera.

Much of what I have run through above will need to continue into my second year and beyond – although our objectives will shift slightly, as I am now a third of the way through our overall pilot. Keep your eyes peeled for developments from us on our Permitting System and fam. trips as we progress forward, and see you all at FOCUS in December!

Jonny Shelton

Film Office Manager, Screen Staffordshire

Finance Officer, Royal Television Society Midlands