Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has revealed that more than 50% of participants in Digbeth-based 'bootcamps' have gone on to secure jobs in the creative industries, with 14 graduates currently working on the new Peaky Blinders series. He gave evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee as part of a BBC Royal Charter Review inquiry.
Bootcamps Driving Local Employment
Knight told MPs that the bootcamps, coordinated in Digbeth and involving the BBC and creative hub Kudos Knight, are part of his grand vision to make Birmingham a TV and film production mecca, dubbed 'Brummiewood'. The initiative aims to upskill local people, particularly those from challenged areas, by providing hands-on experience on real productions rather than theoretical training.
“We have done bootcamps where we have invited local people from the area, a very challenged area,” Knight said. “We have looked at postcodes rather than identifying communities or groups who may not be represented. More than 50% of those people have gone on to work. That has happened not because we sit them down in a lecture hall, but because they have been working on real things and meeting real producers.”
Digbeth Loc Studios and Kudos Knight
The bootcamps are part of a broader initiative by Kudos Knight, the creative partnership between Knight and producer Kudos. Development Producer Rem Conway, leading the project, was behind This Town, the first series from the Kudos Knight slate, and is developing a drama about William Shakespeare based on a concept by Bafta-winning Happy Valley star Sarah Lancashire.
Knight emphasised the economic and social benefits of hiring locally: “It makes much more sense to have local people working in our industry and walking or getting the bus to work rather than paying for them to stay in hotels after coming from London or Manchester.”
Second Unit Training for Peaky Blinders
For the upcoming Peaky Blinders series, Knight plans to develop a 'second unit' staffed by trained local young people. This unit would shoot supplementary footage like sunsets or trains, allowing trainees to learn by doing. “They then present that to the real production and say, ‘This is your second unit shot, is it okay?’ Maybe 95% of the time it is not good enough, but they are meeting the real people, finding out what is right and what is wrong,” Knight explained.
Diversity and Common Sense
Knight, who is from Birmingham and whose father worked as a blacksmith where one of the studios now stands, stressed the importance of including people from all backgrounds. “If you have 100 people available to you to be your workforce, why not consider all 100? Why preselect 20 of them? The advantage of choosing from everybody is self-evident: you are going to get the best people. The idea that somebody from a working-class background fundamentally will not be able to do this just is not true. It is not a question of altruism; it is a question of common sense.”
