Ireland is reeling in the big names to film TV and movies

Victorian drama Penny Dreadful is worth €33m alone to the economy, says Lisa Jewell.

IN the last two years there has been a huge growth in the number of TV and film productions shooting in Ireland. The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht says production in film and television has increased by 42% since 2011, spurred by international TV dramas being shot in Ireland.

In the last year, Penny Dreadful, Quirke and Vikings have booked up studio space and increased spending. Love/Hate continues filming in Dublin, as does Moone Boy in Co Roscommon and at Ardmore Studios in Co Wicklow.

Penny Dreadful, a Victorian thriller series, has contributed €33m to the economy in jobs and services: 350 Irish cast and crew have been employed alongside stars Timothy Dalton, Eva Green and Josh Hartnett. The eight-part series wrapped at the start of March, after a seven-month shoot at Ardmore Studios and in inner-city Dublin, which doubled for London. The show’s creator, John Logan, said Ireland was “a truly inspirational place to film” and that Dublin’s “unspoiled architecture perfectly captures London at the turn of the last century.”

The variety of locations in Ireland is attracting TV productions here. Conor Dennison, who was an art director on Penny Dreadful, also worked on the first series of Vikings. “That was shot in the Wicklow mountains and the scenery around there is breathtaking and can easily stand in for the fjords in Scandinavia. The locations themselves are very adaptable, but the quality of visual effects has improved greatly, too,” he says.

What else is fuelling this influx of TV productions? “I would say to a certain extent there’s always a natural peak and trough in the industry, particularly in film, which can take a long time to put into development,” says Andrew Lowe, who jointly runs Element Pictures.

“The thing with TV drama is that it is more stable and long-term than film projects and I think Ireland has managed to be very successful in the last few years, in high-end drama, because it has a lot to offer. The Section 481 tax incentive is absolutely a big part of why we’re as busy as we are.”

The incentive encourages investment in Irish-made films and TV shows that make a significant contribution to the economy. It allows tax relief for investors. The rules of the incentive changed in 2008, when projects could derive a higher benefit, of up to 28% of their eligible expenditure, and the ceiling on this expenditure on any one film increased from €35m to €50m.

“That significantly enhanced the value of the incentive and we’ve seen the results in the last few years,” says Andrew. “It’s clear that Section 481 is a central driver in all of this, but it’s not the only factor. Projects don’t just drop into someone’s lap because of an incentive — having a highly professional and trained crew, like we have in Ireland, is another big factor. There’s huge regard, internationally, for Irish production crew and there’s a real trust that they deliver the production to very high standards.”

The UK has recently changed its tax incentives and this has had a knock-on effect, as we’re now on a par with our closest neighbours.

“We need to keep ourselves competitive and, ultimately, the best way for us to protect ourselves is to retain control of the project. If you’re developing the material in the first place, you get to decide where to film it,” Andrew says.

An upshot of the UK film and TV industry’s busyness is that locations and studio space become limited there and demand spills over to Ireland.

“The likes of Gravity and Star Wars tend to take all the available shooting space in the UK studios, so if you’re looking for somewhere with enough space to do a long-running TV drama, Ireland is going to be top of the list,” says Andrew.

Lack of space could become an issue here, too, as could staff, because of the increased demand. Experienced workers are travelling in from other countries.

“I think it’s a good question to think about — ‘could there potentially be capacity issues’?” says Andrew.

Ashford Studios, which is a state-of-the-art €22m studio in Ballyhenry, Co Wicklow, opened in 2012 to provide supply for Vikings, and is the base for the Canadian-Irish production.

There have been more employment opportunities for film and TV professionals in the last couple of years. Dennison’s career path has followed the rises and dips in two fields — construction and film.

After qualifying in 1995, he worked for a couple of years as an architect.

“I got a call to do some drafting on a film for a couple of weeks,” he says. “Drafting is sketching out the actual architecture of a set.” Conor’s first film job was on Ordinary Decent Criminal and two weeks’ work turned into five months.

“Being freelance, I struggled the first two years, but there was work coming through. In 2004, I was flat out with King Arthur. The Celtic Tiger was in full swing and the industry was still good, though it had slowed down a little. Costs had risen, because wages had gone up — we’re talking huge money for some trades,” he says.

As the construction industry was booming, Conor went back to architecture, but work dried up after the property crash in 2008. “I was surviving, but then, in 2011, an old mate of mine in the industry asked if I wanted to do some drafting on Titanic: Blood and Steel.”

Now that Conor’s finished on Penny Dreadful, he will work on an architectural project until another film production.

“The ideal thing would be for Penny Dreadful to get renewed for another series, as that would be a solid few months for the cast and crew again,” he says.

Penny Dreadful starts in May on Sky Atlantic.