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Category: Visual Effects

Getting a job in the industry!

Getting a job in the animation/VFX industry from REALTIME’s Pete Leonard

So, you’ve found a job on our website that you think you’d be perfect for, or maybe you’ve been following us long enough to know we are the right company for you. Great stuff!

Thing is, just how do you (best) go about getting a gig here?

I think I can help!

There’s an inexhaustible number of tips, advice and information out there on what you can do, so I’m going to break this down into chunks so it’s a bit more digestible and useful.

 

MAKE THE APPLICATION

Well that figures of course – until we become clairvoyants, but that’s some way off.

In the meantime, there are a number of core elements that we’d advise here at REALTIME to grab the interest of the hiring managers and get yourself considered.

  • Be clear on your specialism – It’s a good place to start and feeds well into your next career objective. The team is broken into different departments and simply seeing that someone is (for example) a professional CG Lighter will stand out more than someone who is less clear about their primary area of expertise.
  • Show your Enthusiasm and Attitude – In the content of your email, don’t forget show yourself off! We pride ourselves on creating a fun, hardworking culture. Are you the type of person who comes to work with a smile and stays the extra half hour if needed? Give us an example…
  • Link your (best) work/showreel – this will be the biggest thing we go off in terms of your suitability. Regardless of education, experience or anything else, THIS supersedes everything. So, make it great ?
  • Tell us about yourself… no really! – We’re interested! We will be spending a lot of time with each other so it’d be grand if we know something about why you work in CG, what your interests are, and more. This can be at the top of your CV, a cover letter or some other cool little way of presenting yourself (hint hint), but naturally it’s important for both of us so we can fit.
  • Attention grabbing CV – it doesn’t have to look like that cool flyer you saw last week (although that would be nice), but be sure to quickly and concisely present your objective (what you’re looking for) and your core skills (packages and CG focus) – it doesn’t have to be long either (2 pages is more than enough). Run it by others to get a second opinion, but this is your elevator pitch, so be sure it’s impactful.
  • Why us? – Sounds obvious but if you want to work here, we want to know why. It helps us understand what interests you about our company and why you’d be a good fit.

 

OK, BUT WHAT KIND OF SHOWREEL GRABS YOUR ATTENTION?

Good question – here’s some tips on that:

  • Relevant examples – like many studios we have carved out a niche in game cinematics (pre-rendered, and real-time) and Automotive. So, we do need to see some images or trailers of work that is commensurate with our projects. The world of CG is vast, and we need people who have some understanding of that niche we operate in. The reel is your best way to exhibit this.
  • Quality! – Over quantity. Every time. We spend quite a lot of time on our shots providing them with a final look, feel and finesse. Which requires dedication, a good eye for detail and composition, and perseverance. We need to see at least a couple of examples that show the same commitment and approach. Don’t be afraid to cut content – if it doesn’t show you at your best, then less is definitely more. Remember older work can flesh out your reel, but it can also make one of us ask how good your eye is, and why you’ve kept it in there…
  • Breakdowns – These are so useful! Whether it’s wireframes, layers & comp passes, texture maps/wraps, it all helps, as well as just having the finished article. If you’ve perused our site long enough, you will see we have breakdowns of projects like SMITE and Dropzone in areas such as VFX and Animation. It allows people to see how we delivered the end product. If we can see how you got to yours, it tells us a great deal about your process and approach. A picture paints a thousand words, n’all that.
  • State your contributions – For large scale projects and professional shots, there are many pairs of hands that come together to create the end result. So, a simple statement about what you did in each shot allows us to focus on the right areas and judge your work more fairly. It does you justice and saves us time. We like that (so thank you?).

 

GREAT, I GOT AN INTERVIEW!

Top banana! We are particular about the kind of things we look for in applications and reels, so you’ve shown real promise – let’s not fall at this hurdle.

  • Set goals and prepare – It doesn’t have to be a bucket list but think logically about what you want to express to us. What is your greatest asset as an artist, or producer, or whatever? What strengths will you bring to REALTIME that we could use? Think about what you want to get across so that you will be well prepared.
  • Practice – If you’re super comfortable at interview then very well done – 95% of the population is very jealous?. For the rest of us, we have to have a plan of how we are going to present ourselves. But you’ve set goals so you can practice how to communicate your abilities. You HAVE set goals right?
  • Be yourself – Easier said than done for most (including me). We all have strengths, development areas and our own quirks. So, feel comfortable in being open on these – we’ll appreciate the openness and honesty, we’ll be able to connect with you a bit more, but most importantly: YOU’LL feel more confident and at ease. Anyway, we are a bit eclectic ourselves, so you’ll be in good company.
  • Be Passionate – Speaks for itself. People do this job for the love of it! So, we need you to show us what makes you love what you do.
  • Bring any extras you like – That can be a laptop or flash pen with WIP shots you wish to talk us through, a simulation in Houdini you are experimenting with, or weekend classes engaged in landscape or life drawing – it all helps and will provide some further insight into your passions, and how you communicate – we do a LOT of that in the boardroom anyway so best to get used to it.
  • Questions – It’s a 2-way street and you are choosing us as much as we are choosing you. So, questions are not only welcomed, but we consider them essential and we won’t be able to take you as seriously if you don’t have any for us, about our company, work or future direction.

 

THANKS… ANY LAST WORDS?

Just a few:

  • Get organised – you’d be surprised how many people can fail to plan their trip or arrive in a timely fashion. This is your first impression so best to plan your trip and account for potential obstacles (within reason of course).
  • Research – Find out as much as you can about us beyond what you already know. Our Marketing Manager gets a ton of stuff out there on our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as our website so be sure to use them to glean as much about us and our activities as you can. It really helps at interview and avoids those awkward silences. Result!
  • Booted and Suited? – You can come in a suit if you want, but it’s not required, and the dress code is casual in our studio. I’d say strike a balance. Casual is fine but pick out some of your smarter options.

Pete always makes time to give proper feedback to applicants, so why not have a look at our careers and drop him your showreel on [email protected]

How to plan the CG elements for your TV show

Welcome back to another blog in our TV VFX for Dummies series. We’re taking a look at the wide world of visual effects, demystifying the scene, breaking down the jargon, and making the process that little bit more approachable. In today’s piece, we’re looking at how to approach the planning of your CGI elements…

The quality of your CGI work will make or break your production. Poor CGI can take a viewer out of the experience, leaving them with a less than favourable view on your show. You don’t want it to become a forgotten piece of media or the joke of the week on Twitter.

A large aspect of creating high-quality CGI assets is planning their integration into the plates you are shooting effectively. We’ve talked about the CG process before in broad strokes. But whether you’re planning to create a CGI hard-bodied asset such as a plane, tank, or car, or something more ambitious and central to your story like a CGI animal or creature, planning how they will be used in your final project from the earliest stages is crucial.

 

Planning your CGI assets

The entire CG process is a long and complicated one with plenty of technical jargon. But today we’re going to focus on some specific elements that need completing in the early stages of the project.

 

Creating your characters

This stage is all about developing the overall look for your creature or the world you are trying to create.

If you are creating a creature, you will need to start by visualising how the creature is described in the script. If you are working on a creature or character from a well known book or story, there may be pre-existing ideas of what the creature will look like. In this case you will be working to develop something based on the clients existing ideas for the creature.

If there are no existing drawings of the creature, or you are working on an original series you will be collaborating with your clients Showrunners, Producers, Writers and Production Designers to help create something that works for the story and the aesthetic of the show.  The creative team will need a concept of what the creature looks like and how it might behave in a scene before they commit to filming. Ideally you do this work in pre-production, when your clients creative team have time to give feedback on your design work.

One of the first things you need to do is lay out some initial character designs in concept art. These sketches help visualise the character or creature you are trying to create. If you are creating a mythical creature of some kind, such as a Dragon or Elf, it is often also helpful to assemble mood boards with reference images of other Dragons or Elfs from other series or films to help inform the design process. Clients will often want to steer away from designs that already exist and reference images can help the VFX studio refine the design approach for the creature. You need to explore different options to find something that matches the overall tone and vision of the creative leads of the production. 

Ultimately, it will come down to the showrunner, producers, writers and director or production designer to feedback on these early designs to start shaping what the final creature or character will look like. In feature film work, you will be driven by the production’s own concept artists and designers, whereas in episodic television, a VFX studio’s own creative teams can collaborate with the production’s in-house creative teams to develop creature and character ideas.

Once you have a creature concept your client is happy with, you can move on to creating a 3D sculpt of the character.

 

Creating your environments

When creating environments, you will often have to create a completely different ‘world’. This could be a medieval village full of magic or a futuristic cyber-punk city. If it’s based on an already-established book series, it might even be somewhere the audience is familiar with.

When developing ideas for different ‘worlds’ it can be very helpful to create concept sketches to visualise any environments you want to create. Again as with creature work, it can be helpful to create mood boards with reference images for what the ‘world’ might look like. Thse can help to clarify design and tone. Often the clients creative team will have reference images and ideas of their own. However they will also be looking to their VFX studio to help visualise the ‘world’ and create it. It is a collaborative process and in episodic TV, clients will tend to lean more creatively on their VFX studio to generate ideas. In feature film production, there tends to be more early design work led by the production.

When you are designing these worlds, you need to think about the entire geography of the city or town and work out where all the different locations are that feature in the scripts. This mapping out of the ‘world’ of your story will help you plan what 3D elements you will need to build and what areas will remain unseen.

If you have a big budget, you will want to see the whole city or town. But if you have budget restrictions, you may only be able to show the key places most relevant to the story. In almost all cases you will want an ‘establisher’ to reveal the environment, but a consideration for making these work is to include characters from your story.

Once you have created some sketches and reference images that meeting your client creative teams approval, you can start to move onto creating 3D environment work to create mock-ups of environments based on approved concept sketches. These can be based on pre-built library stock assets, such Kitbash3D. 

If you are working at a higher budget level, tools like Houdini can be used to ‘procedurally’ create whole cities and environments. Houdini can ‘learn’ how to create buildings and props (based on parameters set by a VFX artist) and replicate these buildings and props and place them randomly into cityscapes. It’s for this reason that studio movies increasingly use Houdini to create the worlds they are building – whether they are mythical like Disney’s recent remake of Aladdin, or photo-real, like the depiction of a photo real Philadelphia for a flying fight sequence in Shazam. Both cities and all the related props were creating using Houdini.

 

Previsualisation

Commonly referred to as simply ‘previs’, this is where you start to see how the asset you are creating will look and move in the final series or film. This is usualy in a full CGI space – with the characters and environment all in greyscale. Previs is commonly used in animation and feature film production, but as high end tv budgets have risen, it also been used in episodic television.

Previs can be a useful tool to help budget and schedule more efficiently. It can be an expensive tool, so it is often best to pick key set piece sequences that are at a budget level that justify the cost. It can also be helpful to create 2D storyboards or animated storyboards of these sequences ahead of commissioning the previs to really determine the visual approach, camera moves and overall shot count of the previs being created.

Previs is a where you can run through several important questions that will affect the final look of the asset or creature you are creating. How big will it look in frame? How quickly will it move? If it is an asset on its own, how does it fit with the world? If it is a CGI crowd member, how will it look when you have 10, 50, or even 100 people?

This won’t be the final look as more work will need to be done on the asset, but you can start to see the visuals come together. At this point, you likely won’t be able to see them in the exact scene as it will be in the finished production. That step comes next.

 

Postvisualisation

When you have your actual footage, the postvis process will give you a brief look at how the assets and film blend together. Basic grayscale, untextured models can be put onto your actual plates so producers, directors, and executives understand how the asset will behave in a scene.

This is an important part of the process if the asset in question is a key component of the production, as with the tripods in War of the Worlds. Regardless, it is still important to know how the VFX will behave in a shot.

Whether this is a large asset like an alien or something as subtle as the fog or smoke that surrounds a scene, it is crucial you can conceptualise how this will interact with the characters in your story.

CG is so pervasive in TV production today that it can’t be avoided. If you want good-quality VFX work, you need to plan ahead. No matter how subtle it is, it still needs planning and still needs an expert opinion.

If you need CG assets for your TV production, consider REALTIME. Our team are experts on the topic and are more than happy to guide you through the entire process. If you would like to hear more, get in touch with me at [email protected].

Pete Leonard joins Futureworks’ Industry Advisory Group

We were super excited when Pete was approached by Futureworks to become a member of their Industry Advisory Group. Pete has been working in the industry for over 15 years’ and loves everything CG so when he was asked to get together with some of the industries experts and chew the fat on trends and best practice he was over the moon! 

Futureworks provides world-class education and training in Sound, Music, Film & TV, Games, Animation and Visual Effects – based in the centre of Manchester, UK. Their facilities include state of the art studios and high-spec production facilities, which have been built to industry standards. Here’s our Art Director Stu and former Animation Lead Will testing out the mo-cap suite. 

The Futureworks Industry Advisory Group meets biannually and is comprised of representatives from leading creative media businesses and members of Futureworks’ academic staff. The group’s main objective is to increase the depth of knowledge and key skills that the students possess in preparation for their future careers. The IAG also works to ensure that Futureworks helps to promote diversity among its students, fostering more women, BAME, LGBTQ+ and more minority groups into the industry.

By utilising the knowledge of industry experts, like Pete, the students will be given the best opportunity of being ‘job’ ready for the creative industries when they graduate.

Pete’s worked with Games companies for many years helping build teams, and source talent. He’s now doing that for us and is our go-to guy for recruitment, outsourcing and helping on production where required. He’s been on teams that have won DEVELOP awards multiple times and is very passionate about this industry so can’t wait to share his knowledge with some very talented students.

Here are some of the other companies involved:
Sumo Digital: https://www.sumo-digital.com/
Rare Games: https://www.rare.co.uk/careers
Verbal Vigilante: https://www.verbalvigilante.com/
Women in Games: http://www.womeningames.org/
Woodwork Music: https://woodworkmusic.co.uk/about
Fuzzy Duck: http://fuzzyduck.eu/
Scruff of the Neck: https://www.scruffoftheneck.com/

 

 

Why should you find a VFX studio for your TV ASAP?

I thought I’d share with you four reasons why you should find a VFX studio for your TV production as early as possible.

Every TV production is a collaborative process. It needs to be a well-oiled machine where every party – the creative lead, the director, the producer, the writer, the Director of Photography, the Production Designer , and all the other HOD’s- pull together for the greater good.

This will often include an outside party. If your production needs any CGI, you will need the expertise of a visual effects studio. On the list of things you need to do, finding someone to handle this aspect might fall somewhere near the bottom. But partnering with someone early will pay dividends later on. Here’s why you need it can pay dividends  to find a VFX studio to work with sooner rather than later.

 

It can help you plan effectively

There are very few areas of your production where you will want to take a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ approach. You plan your shooting  schedules and every department has some element of prep time to plan for the production. You work towards an official air date. Why would your approach to your visual effects be any different?

Locking down a VFX partner early on will allow you to plan your CGI  and 2D visual effects in greater detail. This will have a knock-on effect with your overall schedule and your eventual shoot. 

It can also help you come up with ideas for environments or characters early on. You can also  find out what is and isn’t possible technically and use previs and tech vis to help plan where and how the VFX will fit into scenes and sequences.

Another crucial benefit of working with a VFX company early on in development is that you can develop a more realistic idea of what your VFX budget is likely to be. The more developed the ideas become for VFX, the more accurate the budget estimates are likely. VFX studios can also work with clients to help reduce VFX costs at an early stage. Cheaper VFX methodologies can be suggested or sequences can be storyboarded and Previsualised to help get a more definite idea of shot count. If the shot count can ‘locked off’ before production starts for a set piece or sequence that can help to contain VFX budget overages later on.

 

It can increase your productivity and efficiency

If you’re the producer, you’ll have a lot on your plate throughout the entire production process. It’s an act of spinning plates and if one plate falls, the rest will too. You need to find a way to run the production efficiently while being the most productive you can be.

Finding a VFX partner can help with this in two ways. For one, handing off that work to someone else gives you one less thing to worry about. You can turn your attention elsewhere safe in the knowledge that the VFX is in hand. Second, it’s another thing crossed off your list. If that isn’t productive then what is?

 

It can help with any creative blocks

Running a production is like completing a puzzle. It requires a lot of creative, out-of-the-box thinking and last-minute problem-solving. And, if you’re like any other person in the world, sometimes you can reach a bit of a block. 

Creative block is something we’re all familiar with. If you find the perfect VFX studio early on, you’ll have a second, outside party who you can bounce ideas off.. They will have a different insight into production that might give them an alternative perspective you had never considered. Don’t forget they’re creatives too; they’ll be as familiar with problem-solving as you are.

 

It will make the final product better

No doubt some of the world’s greatest creative accomplishments were the result of a last-minute burst of brilliance. But the vast majority will be the labour of long-term dedication, hard work, and planning.

Your TV production is no different. Organising your CGI early on will mean it has more time in production, leading to a better final result. While it is possible to come up with VFX solutions in a short space of time, it isn’t preferable. Giving the studio plenty of notice will allow them to give the CGI the time it needs.

And, in the end, you’ll have a production you will love, critics will love, and audiences will love! Organising your VFX might seem like a hassle now, but the sooner you sort it out, the better your final product will be.

At REALTIME, we have the skills and expertise to give your production that extra special something it needs. We have a history of successful collaboration and would love to hear about your next project. Feel free to get in touch with me at [email protected].

DRAMA SUMMIT LONDON – KEY TRENDS

I recently attended the Drama Summit in London which has grown to become one of the most important events for the International Television drama sector. The three-day conference was attended by over 1700 UK and International delegates drawn from producers, financiers, broadcasters, distributors and Streaming Content Platforms. So, I thought it might be useful to pull together some of the key trends from the Drama Summit that are coming through in our sector.

 

Local Stories working Internationally

A consistent theme across the conference was that very local stories, from within specific cultures and with universal themes (especially love stories) were working really well Internationally. One that’s ticked all of these boxes is Netflix’s Home For Christmas. Netflix’s VP Of International Originals, Kelly Luengenbiehl, talked about series which is about a single 30 something woman who pretends to her family she has a boyfriend and then has 6 weeks to find one to bring him home… for Christmas.

Other examples included Irish series Endeavour, Fleabag and Outlander. There were also examples of shows shot in one language and then adapted into English versions, including S4C’s Keeping Faith and Hope, both shot simultaneously in Welsh and English, and the French series Dix Per Cent, (Call My Agent), set in the world of actors agents which is being re-made for the UK market by W1A and 2012’s Tony Morton.

 

The rise of foreign language / internationally set stories

Commissioners and distributors also talked about the rise and success of foreign language stories. Netflix’s Spanish language series La Casa De Papal (Money Heist) is their most streamed foreign language series. Netflix said that 50% of their subscribers had downloaded a series that was not in their native language in the last year – up 25% from the year before. This is an extraordinary figure and is in part being driven by the streaming content providers, who are investing in local language production globally and who can distribute shows Internationally through their platforms to much larger audiences than was previously possible through independent film releases or on terrestrial and cable TV.

Series with International settings were also seen to be performing well, with shows like Sister Pictures Cheronbyl and Giri Haji (set in London and Tokyo), HBO Max’s Tokyo Vice and Damien Chazelle’s 1920’s set Parisian musical series The Eddy being cited as examples of this trend.

 

The YA, Fantasy / Historical boom

Another trend that seems to be gathering momentum is the number of series targeting the Young Adult (YA) audience, many of which include fantasy, magic and/ or historical settings.

Netflix showed pre-release clips from The Witcher at the event, which was adapted from a well-known series of Polish novels which has already been re-commissioned for a second series and which is their highest rating series to date. Other YA and fantasy / historical shows in the pipeline include Letter To The King (Netflix) and Season 2 of the BBC’s His Dark Materials. Amazon have also purchased the rights to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and Netflix have the rights to C.S Lewis’ Narnia books – both are looking to create YA skewing episodic series from these IP’s.

As the streamers drive audience demand for YA shows, the BBC are making conscious efforts to target the YA audience. The BBC’s reach of the 16-24 audience fell under 50% for the first-time last year. As part of their fight back to increase the appeal of their channels to this audience, there were two panels at the conference featuring shows, part funded by the BBC, targeting this demographic.

One of these shows was The Watch. The panel featured the showrunner Simon Alan, Producer Richard Stokes from BBC Studios, Commissioning Editor Sarah Barnett from BBC America and Producer Rob Wilkins of Narrativia discussed the development of the forthcoming 8-part series which has been adapted from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels.

Simon Allen and the team have taken steps to broaden the appeal for the series from the loyal Pratchett fanbase. Simon Allen said his experience in the care system as a child helped him to empathise with the characters who are powerless in their world. With a writer’s room that included, as described by Simon Allen, an Iraqi nonbinary drag queen, a working-class bloke from Burnley and a Granny from Wales and with colour blind casting the show is clearly hoping to increase its appeal to a younger demographic. Commissioner Sarah Barnett (who also commissioned BBC America’s Killing Eve) said Simon should adopt a ‘mean and queer’ tone, for the series. This I something that certainly helped to provide a distinctive tone for Killing Eve, which BBC America have commissioned for a third season.

Simon Allen said The Watch is about the chaos affecting our societies and what happens when lawlessness goes unchecked. Simon summarised by saying they have borrowed some mythology that they hope will power the series for multiple seasons. The team showed brief clips from the series, being shot on location and at Cape Town Studios in South Africa. With fantastic sets and costumes and an electrifying performance from Game of Thrones Richard Dormer who plays the lead Sam Vimes, The Watch looks like it will provide some spirited competition to the streamers YA output.

There was also a panel featuring another BBC funded, South African shot series, namely Mammoth Screen’s Noughts & Crosses, airing on the BBC this winter. The series is the long-awaited adaptation of the Malory Blackman novels of the same name. Malory Blackman was inspired by the Romeo and Juliet love story and placed it in an inverted parallel universe, where history has unfolded differently, with African people dominating globally society economically and culturally, with European economies and peoples being very much the underdogs.           

 

Shorter runs and the return of event programming and the schedule

Several speakers talked about how audiences were now looking for shorter runs of series, so 6-part series or 3-part series. Audiences don’t have the same appetite they used to for the 13-part returnable series. Serials with closed storylines like Chernobyl are increasingly popular.

Another discussion point was the move away from ‘binge and burn’ of series being dropped on to streaming services at once. There is something of a return to releasing episodes of big event series each week, to help drive anticipation for new shots. Apple TV + launch series The Morning Show is released weekly and Disney + have released the Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian the same way.

Several broadcasters and streamers also talked about the importance of event programming and seasonal programming, with a preference for content that comes with marketing ‘hooks’ to help drive audience awareness.

 

Peak TV & The Streaming Wars

The overall sentiment at the conference was that these are good times for the TV drama sector and that despite some concerns about TV drama reaching ‘peak content’ and there being an oversaturation of content – for now there seems consensus – we can have more of a good thing.

From a production point of view this is being driven by demand from the many new and existing commissioners for TV drama. New streaming content platforms who have recently launched in the include Apple TV +, with the Morning Show (star studded an a rumoured $300 million series budget) and BBC / ITV’s Britbox (launched to with little fanfare and no original content) and the Lionsgate backed channel Starz, launching a direct to UK app in the UK for its library of content which includes shows like The Spanish Princess and Good Omens.

Other ‘traditional’ studios who have entered the streaming space include NBC Universal with their platform Peacock. This will screen new original series, derived from the Universal Library. Launch shows include the second reboot of Battlestar Gallactica and a new episodic version of seminal sci-fi novel Brave New World, made by Universal owned Amblin Entertainment. Peacock is also available to Sky subscribers. Sky now also include Netflix as part of their package and will continue to offer HBO’s content through their platform in the UK – which in future will be available to US consumers via HBO Max, the streaming platform due to launch next year.

On March 31st Disney + will launch in the UK, featuring, with launch series The Mandalorian from the Star Wars franchise and a huge arsenal of library content from Disney, Pixar Marvel and National Geographic – the combined content from the Disney / Fox / Hulu mergers and acquisitions.

The Paramount / Lionsgate / Mgm streaming platform Epix were also active at the Drama Summit, discussing forthcoming series on two different panels, which include Pennyworth, a UK shot Batman ‘origins’ story and Godfathers, a gangster series set in Harlem starring Forrest Whittaker. Epix will also feature Carnival Films new ‘prestige period’ drama series The Gilded Age.

Whilst much of the demand is being driven by US studio and streaming content players, UK production companies and talent are doing really well from the continuing growth in International drama production.

 

Driving up talent Costs?

But not every cloud has a silver lining – the dramatic growth in UK production has led to an escalation of crew and talent costs – and a shortage of both. This has driven production budgets up and lead to a fiercely competitive environment for both talent and commissions. A decade ago, there were under 20 really active UK drama production companies. Now there are well over 150 and many have ITV or BBC Studios investment or US / International studio investment.

 

Leading to direct talent deals

The competition for talent has meant that studios and streaming content platforms have started to develop direct deals with writing, performing and producing talent. Amazon referenced their rumoured £20 million a year deal with Fleabag writer/performer Phoebe Waller Bridge. There has also been much trade press coverage about other talent deals, with Grey’s Anatomy Producer/ showrrunner Shonda Rhime’s $100 million deal with Netflix kick starting the arms race for talent, other big Netflix talent deals include the one with Glee and American Horror Story Producer Ryan Murphy and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B Weiss.

Closer to home, the event featured Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, co-founders of Stolen Picture talking with their CEO Miles Ketley about their development slate and partnership with Sony Pictures. Their first show Truth Seekers is a comedy written by the duo with a team of writers and they have an ambitious and diverse slate which includes an adaptation of the Rivers Of London novels, The Technicolor Time Machine, based on novel by Tim Harrison a staff writer on the Star Trek TV series, which is about some filmmakers who use a time machine to return to the Viking era to film a Viking movie. Simon Pegg is also adapting a Neil Gaiman novel. Stolen Pictures also have an initiative to incubate and work with new talent, because both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost acknowledge that it is a much tougher environment for new talent now to get a foothold in the industry.

 

Meaning increasingly shows need to be packaged to secure finance

The increasingly risk averse nature of commissioning was a consistent theme across most of the panel sessions at the conference. Most commissioners and funders stated the importance of having a well-known or recognized IP, acting talent and writing, directing and producing talent with an appropriate track record to realise the project. Although several producers acknowledged that even with these elements in place, it could be difficult to secure writers and schedule acting talent if they were fortunate to secure a commission. Many felt packaging was essential to start the conversation with financiers.

One company working in this way who featured in one of the panel events is Carnival Films, whose founder and Producer Gareth Neame has a long-standing collaboration with actor turned writer Julian Fellowes, which started with their collaboration on Downton Abbey. They have another ‘prestige period’ drama series, Belgravia in production, based on Julian Fellowes novel of the same name. Fellowes and Neame are also working on The Gilded Age, set in 1880’s high society in New York, which is being funded by HBO and Universal Television.

Another panel featured Sally Wainwright and Faith Penhale talking about their collaboration on BBC / HBO’s Gentleman Jack, the adaptation of Anne Lister’s diaries which will return for a second series in 2021. With Ann Listers diaries running to three times longer than Samuel Pepys’, Sally Wainwright is hoping there are several series to come yet for Gentleman Jack.

Manchester based Red Productions also showcased their new series Trace, adapted from a non-fiction book about forensic science and with material from a Val McDermid novel, the series was written by actor turned TV writer Amelia Bullmore. Amelia acted in Red Productions series Scott and Bailey where she became interested and knowledgeable about both police procedure – and how to craft police procedural tv series.

 

To Conclude…

The Drama Summit is a really excellent event and it is exciting to be part of a UK drama production sector that is thriving and taking advantage of the US and International funding to continue growing rapidly.

We at REALTIME are excited to be growing alongside the UK drama sector and are currently working on shows for BBC America, Sky and HBO.