Animation Alliance get Arts Council and BFI to pledge support to Independent Animation
Animation Alliance UK, a collection of animation practitioners, researchers and advocators has today published a response to their lobby to the Arts Council England (ACE) and the British Film Institute (BFI).
The umbrella association, which represents independent animators based in the UK, wrote to the ACE and BFI last July requesting greater clarity from the organisations with regards to their commitment to investing in independent animation.
Whilst it has been well documented that animation production in the UK has received a significant boost with the tax credits afforded to TV and film productions, there isn’t currently anything in place which, in the words of the group, supports independent animation, something brought to life with “experiment, innovation and creative risk”.
This is a valid point, as apart from the worldwide recognition brands such as Bob the Builder, Peppa Pig and Shaun the Sheep give the UK, many of our past accolades and awards come from independent animators with multiple Academy Awards, BAFTA and international festival wins, so why hasn’t their future been secured as a part of the tax breaks? The answer is that they are funded differently and so Animation Alliance UK requested that ACE and BFI to respond to that fact and demonstrate their support for indie animators.
Responding to the letter a small representation of the group were invited to a meeting in December. The results of that meeting and the commitments both funding bodies have made are as follows.
BFI will:
- Define its remit and responsibilities with regards to animation, and will do this as part of Film Forever 2 (April 2017)
- Do some further informal sector consultation as part of the wider Film Forever 2 consultation
- Will consider its ongoing support for animation as part of Film Forever 2.
Arts Council England will:
- Define its remit and responsibilities with regards to animation
- Do some sector consultation with animation practitioners and organisations (as part of its stakeholder consultation in 2016) in order to identify the needs of the sector
- Explore how they can support animation through our existing funds, namely Grants for the arts.
We’ve yet to see the work accomplished, though we will do over the coming years. The Animation Alliance has questioned the current commitment that Arts Council England has to animation, which has claimed to have invested nearly £1 million into animation. It was noted that many projects funded and classed as animation, were only animation in part, incorporating dance or other art forms and therefor not giving a proper account for wholly animated projects that had been financed. A breakdown of projects can be viewed here.
You can read the full response to the letter from ACE and the BFI on the Animation Alliance website here. If you’re interested in becoming a member of the Animation Alliance you can join the mailing list here.