Here’s Televisual’s recent interview with Simon Downing, head of factual and docs, Discovery UK and Ireland.
This is the fifth in a series of films – The Televisual Factual Films – for factual producers and filmmakers.
He sets out what shows have worked, upcoming programmes including Kings of the Wood by The Repair Shop producer, Ricochet, about group of carpenters who make items and objects for deserving members of the public set in bluebell wood, and what he’s looking for next.
Televisual Factual Films is a new series of open access films to support the UK factual production community. Televisual has produced films hearing from factual commissioners from across the major platforms that fund UK factual content.
The films are intended as an alternative to yet more Zoom recordings. Running from between ten to 18 minutes, these concise films provide the business and emotional intelligence to support Indies in their creative development and pitches.
The Televisual Factual Films have all been shot two-camera with professional crews (from Procam Take 2 and Run VT) and have been edited as if for broadcast (at Clear Cut and Sky Production Services) with illustrative show clips to make them concise, informative and above all watchable.
Accompanying the films is a new magazine Televisual Factual Briefing with all the headline information Indies might want to make sense of the UK commissioning landscape. The magazine was sent to all Televisual subscribers with the Winter issue and is also available as a free, open access digital e-zine here – bit.ly/TVLFactBrief
We have a comprehensive line-up of films coming up – Interviews with BBC commissioning editors Claire Sillery and Jack Bootle are already online here
The interview with Alf Lawrie, head of factual entertainment, Channel 4 is here.
Televisual also caught up with some of the UK factual community’s leading voices at the Grierson Awards to hear their thoughts on opportunities, challenges and the future of factual production. Interviewees include Will Anderson, Sam Richards, Alan Yentob, David Dehaney, Simon Chinn, Christopher Hird, Jess Search, Luke Hyams and Danielle Graham. You can see that film here
Still to come:
A+E Networks‘ Dan Korn outlines what he’s looking for from Indies both large and small for Sky History and Crime and Investigation
Sky’s Poppy Dixon cover all of the Sky factual genres with Barney Shingleton looking at Indie funding
Lucy Willis talks across the Channel 5 slate and Paramount+
Jo Clinton-Davis shares ITV’s specific needs
And Hilary Rosen walks us through UKTV’s factual range
The Televisual Factual Films are all being posted on televisual.com and will all be open access and don’t require payment or even registration.
Jon Creamer
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