The filming of one of next year's blockbusters in Redcar could put the seaside town on the map. Steve Pratt talks to the man who's putting the region on the screen.

he framed posters on the wall reflect that Northern Film & Media is moving on, fittingly enough for an organisation charged with promoting the moving image industry in the North-East.

The Billy Elliot poster had pride of place two years ago when I spoke to chief executive Tom Harvey. The legacy of that North-East set film that proved a hit on both sides of the Atlantic has been built on with NFM taking time out to formulate ways to meet the rapidly-changing moving image industry.

Nowadays, the poster collection encompasses a diverse range of movies with North-East connections, from low budget independent drama, Frozen, to the big budget Harry Potter blockbuster movies. The schoolboy wizard demonstrated the value of mass exposure through cinema and DVD. After Alnwick Castle was used as a location for the series, visitor figures rose from 62,000 in 2001 to 270,000 in 2004.

Now comes the French invasion as the seafront at Redcar is transformed into 1940s Dunkirk - literally a bomb site with tons of rubble, craters, bombed-out houses and tanks half-buried in the sand - for the film version of Ian McEwan's bestselling novel, Atonement, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. In addition, 1,000 local people are needed as extras when filming begins at the end of the month under the direction of Joe Wright, who made the most recent screen version of Pride And Prejudice.

"It could put that part of the coast on the map," says Harvey. "Keira Knightley and the same team that made Pride And Prejudice are making a film in the region, and the region needs to find a way of marketing that."

Representatives from local authorities will gather at Redcar racecourse on Tuesday for the NFM's Filming Friendly launch. "We're working with all the authorities to help make the experience of filming good for both sides," says Harvey. "The idea is they could have a staff member responsible for looking after film companies.

"Atonement is going to be an amazing thing for Redcar. Few big historical films are shot in the world any more and this one is going to be shot in our region."

The chance for film fame hasn't escaped Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, which agreed to filming after detailed talks with Working Title Films. "The profile we'll get during filming will be fantastic," says Councillor Dave Fitzpatrick, the council's cabinet member for culture, leisure and tourism.

"It's got to be good for the tourism trade, hotels, bars, restaurants, taxis and painters and decorators, for example. The potential of the profile from a blockbuster movie is probably immeasurable."

The arrival of the Atonement film crew coincides with NFM's relaunch after a review of funding schemes and application processes. The value of having a vibrant moving image industry is illustrated by the figures - in 2004/2005, productions coming into the region brought in £8m of local spend.

Established four years ago, NFM grew out of the Northern Screen Commission, Northern Production Fund and Northern Media Training. The main funders of this, one of nine regional screen agencies across England, are UK Film Council and One NorthEast.

"We've done very well in the first period, creating a lot of activity and had some big successes. Now it's looking at the next few years when moving image is going to play an increasing role in people's lives," says Harvey.

Big movies like Atonement attract most publicity but NFM is concerned with all forms of moving image, including the web. "That's giving all sorts of people access and understanding, and ways of participating in and building their own networks," he explains."

Under the agency's restructuring, funding schemes will look at whether proposals will have an economic or social impact. As well as supporting businesses, the aim is to encourage people to develop their own talent

"The challenge is to be more commercial or more competitive and, therefore, more creative and successful," he says.

"What it does mean is having to work in an international market. The media sector is global and no one is going to have much business if just confined in the regional market, because it's not there any more.

"We've been supporting community film makers. We do a lot with film clubs, as well as outreach and education events. Hopefully, you have a machine that helps the sector grow, and helps the region and the population understand the moving image industry."

The re-think has made the application process simpler and more straightforward, but still challenging, to help new formats, new people and new platforms for moving pictures.

Aware of the bureaucracy created as organisations grow, NFM is introducing Acclerator, a fast track application system that sounds like X Factor or a TV talent show, in which hopefuls try to please a panel of judges. "There's no paperwork. People come up with the idea, pitch it to the panel and are challenged with taking it further in some way," says Harvey.

Development funds will also be available to companies from outside the region if they're working with North-East writers as a way of "plugging" writers into the national network.

Makers of short films, a traditional calling card for talent, are being funded to produce work. Fifteen short films originated in this way were shown recently at Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema before hitting the festival circuit. Films for the Community Channel, one of the new platforms now available, have been funded.

Feature film funding remains a problem because, unlike some other agencies, NFM lacks a production budget, although it does help develop projects.

Bringing more production into the region is another objective. Harvey feels that being competitive with the South is "almost impossible" as they have big studios and plenty of available technicians. But he feels the region could be, if not the cheapest place to shoot, then certainly the easiest.

One setback has been cuts in TV production in the region, as both the BBC and Tyne Tees virtually abandon programme-making. Robson Green's ITV detective series, Wire In The Blood, continues to be filmed in the region by Newcastle-based Coastal Productions.

Green set up the company specifically to bring work to the North-East and give something back to the area where he was born and where he got his chance to be an actor.

That's an exception. The BBC's Newcastle-set police series 55 Degrees North lasted only two series and now the axing of BBC1's children's drama favourite Byker Grove after 17 years is a big blow to local production.

"That was worth £30m to the region and 700 jobs," says Harvey. "It means a lot to have a long-running drama in the region. Hopefully in 18 months to two years time, there will be more drama coming out of the North-East."

The loss of production means that technicians are having to move south for work, so there isn't a readily available pool of talent when films do shoot here.

Harvey says: "We've changed an awful lot on how we do things but essentially we're the same organisation. We've always been about investing in people and their companies.

"We haven't changed what we are and what we do, but what we have changed is how we do it. Your strategy shifts but your ideology doesn't."