Broadcast post-production facilities involved in feature film work will now be eligible for a slice of a new annual£10m National Lottery/Film Council fund set aside for training in the movie

Broadcast post-production facilities involved in feature film work will now be eligible for a slice of a new annual£10m National Lottery/Film Council fund set aside for training in the movie business, thanks to the blurring of the boundaries between the two industries.

The Film Skills Fund, a new initiative comprising both industry and public investment, is being made available by The UK Film Council and Skillset to various film industry sectors for training - and post-production has been given ?specific priority?.

Thanks to the multi-genre nature of the post market, any facilities - including TV operations - that have a foothold in film can apply for money to help with training their staff.

?One of the real benefits of Skillset managing the new Film Skills Fund is that due to its remit covering both film and television, where there is overlap this will be addressed to the benefit of the whole industry,? a spokesperson for Skillset told Broadcast.

Large post facilities will be able to apply for grants for organising structured traineeships for runners, bursaries for hiring training managers or money for developing current staff. Individuals can apply for bursaries for self-development where there is a specific skills need.

If the funding initiative works the blueprint could be used to put together a similar scheme to benefit the broadcast industry.

The£10m annual pot is made up of£6.5m of lottery money with the rest coming from contributions from the film world's Skills Investment Fund - a voluntary levy managed by Skillset and monitored by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport that takes 0.5% of the production budget of any publicly funded UK film - and contributions from both national and regional screen agencies and other public sources. Skillset will also lobby the government to get further funding to match the amounts put in by the industry. The fund replaces the current£1m a year Film Council training fund.

The Film Skills Fund was announced at the launch of Skillset and the UK Film Council's ?A Bigger Future, the UK Film Skills Strategy? at the Warner Village cinema in London on Wednesday (10 September).

Skillset is the sector skills council for the audio-visual industry.

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