AN influential figure in regional cinema, Bill Lawrence, has become the Showroom and Workstation's first creative director.

The former head of film at the National Media Museum in Bradford and a board member of Screen Yorkshire is relishing the challenge of the new role and making it his own. "It's a title which in one sense says nothing and in another quite a lot," he observes.

"It's a new job and a new place without any real previous parameters. I have a previous track record in which I always seem to start jobs where I am not following anyone else," says the man whose career has gradually edged south from where he grew up near Middlesbrough.

The brief gives responsibility for all of the complex's creative programming which not only includes the latest films, seasons and retrospectives but exhibitions and projects across different art forms and the entertainment in the organisation's social spaces.

But he is essentially a film man. Like many of his generation he had his first experience of cinema at Saturday matinees and laid the foundations of his film knowledge by watching them on late-night TV.

"I didn't think about what I was watching until I got to university where films were shown in some context and I was interested to discover that my favourites as a teenager were actually deemed classics."

Before long he was running York University film society as a way of ensuring that he got to see all the films he wanted to.

"After a while I got that out of my system because that is fatal as a film programmer."

But student life could only last so long.

"With a maths degree I faced the prospect of being a teacher or an accountant but I wanted to do something that meant something to me, something I felt a passion for and a social interaction," he recalls. "

I was constantly trying to figure out what it was and even though I was going to see three or four films a week it wasn't that obvious."

But just as he graduated a part-time job running a film theatre in York came up and his pathway became clear. Soon he was combining it with being administrator for film and video workshops at the York Art Centre.

This experience of working across different organisations meant he was well qualified to take on a bigger challenge in 1991, moving to Bradford to become senior film programmer for two venues, the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and the Bradford Film Theatre.

The job rapidly expanded and during his time there the Pictureville Cinema opened and Lawrence oversaw the establishment of three festivals, the Bradford International Film Festival, the Bradford Animation Festival and the Bite the Mango, the largest Black and Asian film festival in Europe.

In 1997 he became head of film for the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, creating a new department responsible for delivering and directing the museum's film programme. He left after 10 years.
"There came a time where I felt the priorities of the museum and I weren't going in the same direction and also 16 years in the same place is a long time and it gets to the point where you become part of the furniture and it is harder to get things done," he explains.

Then came the opportunity in Sheffield. "Working within the Showroom and Workstation complex is exciting because it means working not only with film-makers but also creative people in other areas.

"There was a good example the other day when I was talking to two different Workstation tenants in succession and realised there were ways they could benefit each other but they were unaware of each other. So I suggested getting them talking to each other."

Lawrence sees the organisation as part of the ambition and the vision that can establish something culturally significant in the heart of Sheffield. "With the Digital Campus nearby we can have our own mini-Salford development and raise the profile nationally of what is happening in Sheffield," he says.

The proposed Film Festival Centre, the extension of the Showroom and Workstation building into Sheaf Square, will be key to taking things to a new level.

Meanwhile there is the programme for one of the largest independent cinemas in the country. Among initiatives the Showroom will be introducing are daytime shows for senior citizens under the banner of Early Doors. There will be more world cinema with extra late-night and afternoon screenings.

A monthly Beginners Guide to the Cinema session will be launched with Citizen Kane being shown in a context where audiences will be helped to understand why it is always No 1 in lists of the greatest films of all time. There will also be an education series on the history of the horror film

"We are looking to try and connect the ideas with what we are showing so that people will find a context for them, if they so want," says Lawrence.

Perhaps filling the gap that late-night TV no longer provides.

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