Over 300 attend film studio's careers information evening

Over 300 people packed into Mullingar Library on Tuesday evening for Hammerlake Studios' information evening for people interested in a career in film production.

Director of development and operations,Tom Dowling, outlined to attendees the range of employment opportunities that will be available to local people if councillors' agree to a material contravention of the county development plan which will enable Hammerlake to move ahead with its plans to construct one of the largest film studios in Europe on the outskirts of Mullingar.

Other speakers on the evening included locations manager Gordon Wycherley, Lorraine Higgins, Crew Academy West manager, and Emer MacAvin, Screen Ireland's skills development executive.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner before Tuesday's information evening, Mr Dowling estimated that when the studio is fully operational at least 30 per cent of its 1,000 production staff will be local.

He also revealed that he has been speaking with representatives from different bodies, such as Longford Westmeath ETB, Screen Ireland and third level institutions, to identify what training programmes are needed to ensure that the project can hit the ground running.

“I’ve been talking to lots of people in the area about training and how we’re going to find these pools of people, and how we’re going to upskill them to work in the business.

“...One thing is building the studios, the other thing is filling the studios with people – you need that skill set. So you need to build that skill set.”

Hammerlake plans to run another information evening in Athlone in the coming weeks.