Rewriting the Script: From Inspiration to Industry

The Sir Graham Wylie Foundation is passionate about turning inspiration into genuine career opportunities for young people in the North East wanting to break into the film industry.

As a member of Tyneside Cinema’s brand new Talent Unit, I was invited to the North East premiere of Don’t Forget Me: the story of how the tragically short life of Eddie Cochran inspired generations of rock and roll legends. While audiences were brought together to commemorate this young man’s talent and legacy, I had the opportunity to speak with Sir Graham Wylie himself about his own ambitions for the young people of the North East.

A Conversation with Sir Graham Wylie

For him, the ambition is simple and pertinent to Cochran’s story: to “inspire”. The fundamental aim of his charity is to “educate, help, and inspire young people in the North East”. While he felt as though he had achieved his first two objectives, he explained it was “the ‘inspire’ bit that we hadn’t quite worked out how to deal with”.

The Tyneside Cinema Talent Unit is a new creative hub for young people from the North East wanting practical experience and guidance into the Film, TV and adjacent industries. When asked about his motivations to fund such a project, Wylie described how it was the missing piece to his charity’s objectives – “the inspiration bit was really important to me” he says “and this seemed like the perfect way to inspire young people to be creative in this industry”.

He also went on to explain that film, in particular, is one of three core interests for young people today: “for me it is about music, it is about film, and it is about sports”. As the foundation already supports music and sports, the natural next step was to fund a project that inspires young creatives to explore their passions of film and television.

Newcastle and the North East: a Hub of Talent

But why the North East? Despite working here all his life, Sir Graham Wylie tells us that he has travelled extensively and has offices both around the country and around the world, but points out, with a smile on his face, “if you want something done, you go to Newcastle”.

It is the region’s “brilliant” work ethic that Wylie praises the most, home to the “hardest working people” around. He explained how the work landscape has changed over the years; from “ship building and coal mining” when he was a young child, to medicine, to technology and of course to the arts. With creative industries becoming a proud part of the region’s identity, there is no doubt from Wylie that the people of the North East are capable of achieving greatness: “it’s great to see the city change and evolve, but that work ethic has always been there.”

Now he wants to help grow the infrastructure and put the North East on the map, not just as a location where studios can shoot films, but as a place with its own complete film ecosystem. Where local creators can dream about, conceive, develop, finance, make, and premiere projects, and then distribute them around the world. It is this ‘work ethic’ that convinces Wylie the Talent Unit is not solely to inspire, but to create tangible opportunities and career pathways into the industry.

Ambitions for the next generation of creatives

When asked about what he wants to see the project achieve, he says the answer is “quite simple”: to get at least one young person from the North East a job in the industry. He explains that the Talent Unit will, at the very least, give people the “grounding” to get a job in the industry, and at the very most, create the region’s next “superstar” director, scriptwriter, artist, photographer etc.

As audiences gathered that night to celebrate Eddie Cochran’s enduring influence, Sir Graham Wylie’s ambitions for the Talent Unit looked firmly towards the future. The hope is not simply inspiration, but to give young people the skills and confidence to make lasting careers in the industry.