Birmingham City Council is developing plans for a film studio, the head of the its film office has said.
As it was revealed that production crews ploughed £3.8 million into Birmingham in the last three months, Susie Norton, director of Film Birmingham, said she was working on a proposal for a new studio alongside regional agency Screen West Midlands (SWM) and the council's regeneration department.
Ms Norton said: "We believe a Birmingham studio would help to boost the level of investment by film crews in the city.
"If we want production teams to come to Birmingham in the numbers that they do to other major cities, such as Manchester, then we need a studio."
The announcement follows last month's revelation in The Birmingham Post that city production firm Hotbed Media travelled to Leeds to film its new Channel 4 quiz show Win My Wage because of the region's lack of studio space.
Ms Norton's comments also came as Film Birmingham released its production report for the three months to June 2007.
In a quarter blighted by poor weather, Film Birmingham received 61 requests to film in the city, resulting in 105 production days. This compared to 75 requests in the previous quarter and 102 days of filming.
In comparison, film body North West Vision & Media said it had 69 requests to film in Greater Manchester between April and June, with a total of 366 days of filming.
Ms Norton said: "The Manchester film office has existed for longer than Film Birmingham and its figures are slightly skewed by the investment it receives from the BBC and its commitment to a regional base in the area."
Film Birmingham was founded 18 months ago after a decade where the council lacked a department dedicated to the promoting the city as a location for productions.
Currently a team of just two, the body is also responsible for processing requests to film in public spaces and monitoring the economic impact of productions.
But since its foundation, the office had seen the number of requests to film in the city rise 44 per cent, Ms Norton said.
A quarter of all requests in the last quarter were to film on New Street, with Victoria Square the second most popular location and shots of the Bullring from council-controlled highways coming a close third.
Of the 61 requests, 17 came from factual programmes - such as ITV's Britain's Best Dish, Channel 4 series Wife Swap, Embarrassing Illnesses and Streetmate, Channel 5's The Gadget Show and VH1's Nation's Favourite Music City - many of which are produced by companies in the region.
Birmingham was also the venue for 11 documentaries including Fantasy Fiction and How Dirty Can I Get from the BBC, MTV's Totally Jodie Marsh and Channel 5's I Didn't Know That.
Stephen Badham, production liaison officer for SWM, said the efforts being made to attract filmmakers to the region were beginning to pay off.