SuperTed creator attacks film funding 'bureaucracy'

Mike Young left Wales for Hollywood 27 years ago after the success of SuperTed

The creator of the cartoon SuperTed has criticised the involvement of Welsh government "bureaucrats" in film production.

Hollywood producer Mike Young said he was having to make his next movie outside Wales due to a lack of support.

Ministers said they "maximise" best use of public funding and disappointment for some producers was inevitable.

Young's upcoming film is about the former Cardiff City player Robin Friday.

But he said he was "taken aback" by the way the Welsh film industry was organised when he applied for support from the Welsh government's media investment fund.

Young is currently writing a new series of SuperTed, nearly 35 years after the original

He told BBC Wales: "We have put together a lot of financing for this movie, we've got some big stars in it.

"I went through a process with the Welsh government and they basically passed on it, and it looks like we are going to have to be shooting it in England or Ireland later this summer."

The Welsh government said it was supporting the creative industries in Wales, which have a "global reputation" and a "very strong pipeline of projects seeking to film here".

It said independent industry experts provided advice on commercial investments and the Welsh government's media investment budget, backed by advice from Pinewood Pictures, was "delivering tangible results".

"We would be rightly criticised for not taking strong measures to protect and bring value from our investments," a spokesman said.

"It is therefore inevitable that this will bring disappointment to some producers, but we will continue to work with them to find ways in which to assist their productions to be filmed in Wales."

Young's upcoming film will tell the story of former Cardiff City player Robin Friday (l) who died aged 38

Young has had a successful career in animation and film since TV series SuperTed launched on S4C in 1982 and his latest film Norm of the North had its Welsh premiere in Brynmawr, Blaenau Gwent, on Tuesday.

Young said public funds that support the creative industries should be directed at commercial projects, and criticised the involvement of "bureaucrats" in making decisions about funding new films.

He said the Welsh government had "got to gather around them people who really know how to package films and how to market and sell them, rather than bureaucrats".

Asked about the Welsh government's film investment budget, he said: "The sense I had is that there's a very uneasy relationship between the politicians and the people who are appointed from the industry to monitor the thing."

He conceded he "may have a twisted view" because his application for funding for his Robin Friday film was turned down, but said the government's creative industries policy "needs to be commercial".

"I'm a very commercial director, and I think that if the industry is going to work in Wales then they've got to become very commercial," he said.

"You can make all of the esoteric films that you want... but at the same time, if the industry is going to stand on its own it needs to be commercial."