With many of the employees being engaged in war work, available manpower was reduced to one third and half of the studio space was requisitioned, only sixty films were produced annually. New realism in wartime pictures and a demand for documentaries gave a whole new look to British films. Initially, many cinemas closed down for fear of air raids, but the public needed a way of escaping the reality of war, and turned to the more genteel, sanitized versions available in the cinema. The majority was war related, The Stars Look Down; 49th Parallel; Convoy and This Happy Breed. There were also other subjects, the wonderful Brief Encounter; Thunder Rock; The Wicked Lady; The Man In Grey; Kipps and Oliviers Henry V. New directors, artists and writers came to the fore, David Lean as a director, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat as writers and Richard Attenborough, Michael Redgrave, David Niven and Stewart Granger were elevated to stardom.