Directors Digest — Friday 22 November 2024

This week, a new report suggests film and TV studios are concerned over the maturity of AI, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight urges the industry to defend entry level jobs from being usurped by AI, BAFTA has announced the winners of this year’s BAFTA Scotland awards and unveiled this year’s breakthrough cohort.

Read about it in this week’s Digest.

News

•  Findings in Deloitte’s Tech, Media & Telecom 2024 report issued this week show that Film and TV studios are concerned over the maturity of AI, but cost savings play a big role in the industry adopting the tech. (TVBEurope)

•  Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and Banijay Entertainment chief exec Marco Bassetti have urged the industry to defend entry level jobs from being usurped by AI, at Web Summit 2024 in Lisbon. (Broadcast)

•  BAFTA has unveiled its 2024 breakthrough cohort. See the full list of this year’s breakthrough cohort from the UK here. (BAFTA)

•  The National Audit Office has released a report on the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Studios, calling for it to do more to generate new intellectual property. (Televisual)

Opinion

•  “Try and employ young people. As a producer, I haven’t worked out how to engage with that community, and if we don’t, we’ll die.” Sister’s Jane Featherstone said this week during an on-stage conversation at the British Screen Forum. Read more take aways from the conversation here. (Screen)

Director Interviews

•  Documentary filmmaker and member Duncan Cowles on giving silent men a voice in his documentary Silent Men. (Guardian)

•  Director and member Udayan Prasad, one of the first Indian born British filmmakers working in the industry, discusses how the landscape of diversity in TV and film has changed since his career started in 60s Britain. (Televisual)

•  Gladiator II star Paul Mescal interviews director and member Ridley Scott on bringing the long awaited sequel to the big screen. (Guardian)

Awards

•  Congratulations to all the winners at the BAFTA Scotland awards this week. Shout out to our members, Kevin Macdonald and Saul Metzstein who took home the Factual and Fiction Director awards respectively. You can see the full list of winners here. (BAFTA)