How your Church could become a filming location

A Guest Blog by Dr Nancy Sheridan

Many historic houses, castles and cathedrals are used as filming locations for feature films and television dramas. However, the number of such locations is finite, and the media are always looking for new locations.  Churches, chapels and meeting houses could be suitable locations and this could provide a new source of income for places of worship. In a Guest Blog Architectural historian and adviser Dr Nancy Sheridan explains how her work for Heritage4Media could offer help to churches seeking new income to pay for maintenance and repairs.

Heritage4Media (H4M) recently carried out 5 years of exhaustive research assessing the impact of the media sector to the sustainability of our built heritage.

This research not only revealed the enormous economic benefits and the amount of cash coming into the heritage sector from the film and television industries, but also identified that there was no communication channel between the heritage and media sectors, despite a clear reliance between the two.

Hence historic building owners who needed income for repair bills, and film professionals who needed new spaces to push their creative boundaries, could not find each other. There are of course location agencies that offer this service, however, the research also revealed that filmmakers are becoming far less able, or inclined, to pay vastly expensive location agency fees.

H4M is therefore now in the process of creating the most transparent communication network between historic buildings of all forms and functions, and the global film, television, and broadcasting industries.

Linking the media to buildings

H4M is absolutely not a location agency, i.e. we do not have vast databases of long forgotten clients, and more importantly, we do not charge the media fees for linking them to our buildings which is why we are being so well received.

Rather, we are a team of architectural experts and film advisors with a passion for sustaining our built heritage and the knowledge and experience to raise the profile of historic buildings to the media sector, particularly privately owned sites and ecclesiastical centres that often get overlooked in favour of institutionally-owned properties.

We recently met with the Head of Heritage Policy in Whitehall, and presented the findings of the research, and the aims and objectives of H4M, all of which were very well received. Equally, key individuals who run the guilds and bodies that represent the global filming industries are also fully engaged with what we are doing, and have described H4M as a “specialist”, “niche” resource that “will become a major addition to the international film industry”.

Help for your fabric find?

heritage 4 media

However, there must be an element of proactivity in order to make this happen. Therefore if you wish to consider the media sector as a channel towards your fabric fund, please get in touch with Dr Nancy Sheridan at H4M on 01666 822436 / 07736 364722 nancy.sheridan@heritage4media.com, or Christopher Edwards on 07858 944438 christopher.edwards@heritage4media.com

Posted by Administrator on October 31, 2013

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