Neil Hatton was appointed Chief Executive of the UK Screen Alliance in February 2016 after a lengthy career in post-production stretching back to the early 1980s.
The UK Screen Alliance is the trade association for companies providing services, infrastructure and expertise to the film, TV and commercials industries in the UK. It represents the business interests of Visual Effects, Animation, Audio & Video Post-Production, Special Effects, and Freelance Editor Agencies as well as Film & TV production studios.
Neil was a prime mover in the setting up of the post-production trade body in 2004 and in 2017, as CEO, he forged an amalgamation of the UK Screen Association with Animation UK into a single body now renamed, the UK Screen Alliance, bringing the animation studios, producers and distributors into the portfolio as well as facilities. There are now over 80 companies in the UK Screen Alliance, including Pinewood, Double Negative, Framestore, MPC, Industrial Light and Magic UK, Cinesite, The Mill, Aardman, BlueZoo, Jellyfish, Locksmith, Lupus, Molinare, Encore and Technicolor.
The UK Screen Alliance’s primary function is advocacy and much of Neil’s role is dedicated to lobbying government and its agencies to improve and optimise the business environment for its members. He participates in Creative Skillset’s Film Skills and HETV Councils, The BFC’s National Advisory Board as well as BFI steering groups. He is a founder partner in Access:VFX which champions inclusion and diversity.
For more than 20 years, he worked at MD/CEO or owner level within post production houses in Soho like Frontier Post and Azimuth. In 1992, he pioneered non-linear editing and became the first person to cut a long-form documentary on an NLE in the UK. Over the years, he has gained many primetime editing credits on all the mainstream channels for programmes like QED, Horizon, Arena, The Grierson Documentary Awards and Ground Force. He was also post production supervisor on the platinum selling DVD “En Vivo” for legendary rock band, Iron Maiden.