A FILM services company with credits including Black Mirror, Mission Impossible and the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, is seeking partners in Scotland to help deliver a series of diversity training events.
Digital Orchard, which supplies technicians and technical services to movie and TV productions, has developed a number of diversity initiatives through its Digital Orchard Foundation. This is a division of the business focusing on empowering underrepresented groups in the film and television industry, including women, individuals from ethnic minority groups and disadvantaged areas and those with visible and non-visible disabilities.
It recently hosted the first of four 'Off the Record' events, a virtual event series developed during lockdown to discuss what the barriers are to wider representation in the industry.
"We'd like to run with some of these specifically for Scotland," said Digital Orchard Foundation director Kate Rolfe. "With all of our events, we are keen to work with partners who share our ambitions and want to contribute to change."
Digital Orchard, which has a team of around 50 and bases in Edinburgh, Cardiff and London, also runs a touring event called Talent Bar, where people from underrepresented groups can network and get support to make their next career transition.
"Talent Bar is a platform for helping people to enter or progress their careers in the industry by networking with employers, mentors and training providers and we do hope to bring that to Scotland soon," Ms Rolfe said.
The Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements have helped raise awareness and action on diversity issues. Digital Orchard Foundation has also developed a new equality training package for crew and production teams, called Equality in Focus, and hopes to deliver this in Scotland with industry partners.
It includes unconscious bias training and guidance on actions that can be taken by individuals and organisations in the industry to make change for good.
Digital Orchard was set up in 2011 by Edinburgh-born founder and director Callum Just, while he was working on the set of Pirates of Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He attended Bonaly Primary in south-west Edinburgh and George Heriot's School before completing a film degree at Royal Holloway, University of London.
"I got my first break in Scotland on A Lonely Place to Die, which was shot up in Inverness," Mr Just said. "It was after that that I got work on Pirates of the Caribbean and that got me fully started in my career."
The company hires out digital imaging technicians, data wranglers and video operators who help production crews manage, view and back-up the footage they shoot daily.
Digital Orchard also runs a post production department offering services including colour grading and, in partnership with Kodak, a film scanning operation for productions shooting in 16mm, 35mm and 65mm film stock.
The company opened its Scottish operation in 2017 while working on Outlaw King, the Netflix historical action drama about Robert the Bruce.
"We were starting to see an influx of bigger budget productions and high end drama from people like Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV," Mr Just said. "We've always had quite a strong contingent of Scottish and Welsh technicians. A lot of them primarily work out of London, but have family or bases locally."
The creation of studio space in Scotland for big film productions would provide the infrastructure the industry needs to grow.
"It would play a significant role in improving diversity in the industry here, providing opportunities for those who might not have otherwise considered a career in film," Mr Just added.
The Covid lockdown had brought film and TV productions to a halt within a week, but the industry was now starting to return.
Other Digital Orchard credits include the coming-of-age comedy How To Build A Girl, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Murder on the Orient Express, Peaky Blinders, Downton Abbey and the Avengers movies Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy.
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