Televisual articles from May 2006

Televisual archives from May 2006

IWC Media and Twofour share top spot in new regional TV survey.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Glasgow-based IWC Media and Plymouth-based Twofour take joint first place in Televisual's Regional Production 30, a new survey that ranks the leading independent TV production companies outside the M25. Twofour is the largest regional...

As Barcud Derwen tops Regional Post survey.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Cardiff-based post-production house Barcud Derwen has emerged as the top ranking facility in Televisual's annual Regional Post 30 survey. It is the fifth time in the past six years that the Welsh facility has topped the survey, which...

IN BRIEF: Hirings.(Wall to Wall Television Ltd. hires Tom Sherry )(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Wall to Wall has hired Tom Sherry as head of drama to drive the indie's efforts in the genre. The ex-Red Productions and Tiger Aspect producer already runs the indie's BBC drama New Tricks. Twofour has hired former RDF LA president Joe...

IN BRIEF: UK vod rights.(Channel 4)(Buena Vista International)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Channel 4 has picked up the UK vod rights for series one and two of both Lost and Desperate Housewives from Buena Vista International. Individual shows will cost 99p for a 24-hour viewing window. Mobile Interactive Group has signed a new deal...

IN BRIEF: New Studio Head.(Bridget Boseley appointed as Head for BBC Factual and Features)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Ex-ITV factual controller Bridget Boseley has been hired as the new Studio Head for BBC Factual and Features where she will oversee shows like Top Gear, Holiday and Watchdog. ITV's ex entertainment boss Claudia Rosencrantz has now joined Living...

Intelligent Television set to roll.
May 15, 2006... More than 60 speakers are lined for The Intelligent Television Festival, a new Televisual event for everyone in factual TV. Sessions featuring documentary, history, arts, religion, current affairs, science and natural history commissioners...

Keating outlines BBC2 plans.(British Broadcasting Corp.Roly Keating)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... BBC2 controller Roly Keating has outlined the shows he's looking for to rejuvenate his channel in a Televisual interview. They include "bold contemporary features ideas in whatever shape, not just the classic 8.30 half hours but ideas that...

IN BRIEF: Local documentary and factual TV making.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Media agency Cornwall Film has launched a new scheme that aims to kick- start local documentary and factual TV making in the region. The "Pilots" scheme will be hosted by Jeremy Gibson's new indie Seven Stones Media. At least six projects will...

New model show Captain Mack blasts off for CiTV.(Kickback Media)(Cuppa Coffee Studios )(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Kickback Media is to produce a new model animation show with Toronto- based Cuppa Coffee Studios (Celebrity Death Match). Estelle Hughes has ordered a 52x10-minute run, which will be on CiTV from autumn 2007. Entitled Captain Mack, the...

K-9 bounds into cg for new Jetix spin-off show.(Park Entertainment Ltd. and K-9 Films produce Doctor Who)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Jetix Europe is to give Doctor Who's robot dog a comedy-fantasy show of his own, entitled K-9 Adventures. The 26x30-minute series will be produced by Park Entertainment and K-9 Films, which was formed by writer Bob Baker and designer Paul...

IN BRIEF: Commercials animation.(Petplan TV commercials animated by 422 South)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... The new Petplan TV commercials were animated by 422 South, who used a mix of proprietary software and Maya for the spots. Head of animation Grant Hewlett led the project, which depicts two new characters, Pat and Pickles. Dan Lane was the...

IN BRIEF: Titles for ITV.(Input Media)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Input Media has created the titles for ITV's British Touring Car Championship, which will be on screen every Sunday until October. The sequence was designed by Laura Pinon Santiago to give the impression of high speed. Wireframes were...

IN BRIEF: Promo.
May 15, 2006... The latest single from Keane - entitled Is It Any Wonder? - required Artem to design, engineer and build an entire miniature rollercoaster. The idea was dreamed up by the promo's director, Kevin Godley, who had worked with Artem before, on...

Gervais schedules more meetings.(Channel 4 has commissioned Objective Productions)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Channel 4 has commissioned Objective Productions to make a new four- part series of Ricky Gervais Meets... The series follows on from the January one-off where the star of The Office and Extras interviewed his comedy idol, Curb Your...

IN BRIEF: Latest PlayStation console.(The 3D Daxtar character developed.)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... PSP Daxter rides roughshod over a gardener's attempts to banish slugs in the latest PlayStation ad. Absolute's Phil Oldham spent two weeks in Flame compositing the 3D Daxtar character, while Nathan Lane used a Combustion particle-emitter to...

Ex-doctor turns perfect parent.(ITV PLC's Christopher Eccleston signs for Perfect Parents)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... In his first TV role since Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston has signed up for a one-off drama called Perfect Parents. For ITV1, the drama is about a couple (Eccleston and Susannah Harker) who pretend they are Catholic in order to get...

ITV's Jackson signs Jones and Tate for new shows.(Paul Jackson and Peter Jones)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... ITV's new director of comedy and entertainment Paul Jackson has signed a deal with Dragon's Den star Peter Jones to make two new shows and has commissioned a comedy drama with Catherine Tate in the lead role. The first of Jones' shows...

IN BRIEF: Post for Nostrodamus.(Discovery Communications Inc. Discovery Channel)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... The post for Mentorn's new drama Nostrodamus for the Discovery Channel was all done by the Farm Group. Senior colourist Aidan Farrell created a stylised, high-contrast look and Barney Jordan completed the special effects on a DS Nitris. The...

IN BRIEF: Idents for Wowow.(Framestore Design)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Framestore Design has completed a second complete year's worth of idents for Wowow, Japan's largest satellite channel. Designer Adam Perry and producer Simon Whalley created eight genre idents for eight different seasons, making the project a...

Digest Silver River commission.(Daisy Goodwin's contracts with Pulling, a Bridget Jones-style comedy for BBC3)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Daisy Goodwin's Silver River has won its second commission with Pulling, a Bridget Jones-style comedy for BBC3. Created by the late Harry Thompson, playwright Dennis Kelly and Sharon Horgan, the 6x30min series will centre around Louise...

Tigress Productions commissioned by Animal Planet US.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Tigress Productions has been commissioned by Animal Planet US to produce Corwin's Quest: Realm of the Yeti. The programme will be a two- hour special that is filmed in HD, and it will track renowned wildlife expert Jeff Corwin as he joins an...

IWC Media to make mountain series.(British Broadcasting Corp.)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... BBC1 has commissioned IWC Media to make 5x60 series Mountains, in which Griff Rhys Jones will travel the length of the UK by visiting the country's highest mountain peaks. Filmed in HD, the series will be accompanied by a DVD and a book...

Reef Television commission.(British Broadcasting Corp.)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Reef Television has won a commission from BBC2 Daytime to produce The People's Museum, a 20x60min show asking viewers to vote for their favourite items of national significance. Fronted by Paul Martin (Flog It), it will uncover little known...

New six-parter.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Dirty War writers Lizzie Mickery and Dan Percival's latest is State Within, a new six-parter set in the diplomatic worlds of Britain and the U.S. The BBC1/BBC America co-pro starts filming in July in Canada for a TX later this year. It stars...

New idents.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Film1 and Sport1 are the latest channels to get the Bruce Dunlop & Associates branding treatment. The two chellomedia channels are both pay-TV, and launched earlier this year in the Netherlands. The new idents convey the notion of must-watch...

The documentary explosion.
May 15, 2006... Ahead of the launch of The Intelligent Television Festival this month, David Wood talks to leading factual commissioners and producers to assess the state of documentary making in the UK "When documentary-makers complain to me that there...

How to survive the Cannes market.
May 15, 2006... High Point's Carey Fitzgerald reveals how a Cannes veteran tackles the film festival Where MipTV and Mipcom are highly structured, professional events confined to The Bunker, the Cannes market is an entirely different beast, with streams...

On the hunt at the LA Screenings.
May 15, 2006... Acquisition execs head to the LA Screenings this month in a bid to snap up the next big hit to emerge from the US. Poz Hulls talks to key UK buyers to find out what they hope to spend their money onThe 2006 LA Screenings kick off on May 18,...

How much are those rights worth?
May 15, 2006... John Morris, head of sales and acquisitions at TWI, weighs the value of your programme rights What are programme rights worth these days? A lot, if you look at the 2005 DCMS Export Figures released recently, or if you consider producer-...

PROFILE - EILEEN DISS: A design for life.
May 15, 2006... Production designer Eileen Diss was born in 1931 and began her TV career working with Muffin the Mule. This month, she's to receive the Bafta Craft Awards Special Award. Jon Creamer meets her Production designer Eileen Diss is certainly no...

LETTER: A future for shock docs?(Letter to the editor)
May 15, 2006... I'm glad Televisual flagged up the rise of the shock doc in last month's issue. But I couldn't help thinking that the article was very sympathetic to the point of view of commissioners and programme makers, who argued that the shows...

LETTER: The true cost of running.(Letter to the editor)
May 15, 2006... Sorry to be the harbinger of gloom and doom, but if your salary survey is on the button, the efforts of last year's TV Wrap campaign and the column inches devoted to it in the press have so far been in vain. If #7k is still the average...

LETTER: Formats fail factual shows.(Letter to the editor)
May 15, 2006... It's all very well for Kevin Lygo in last month's Televisual interview to stick up for his 'format' docs - Wife Swap and the like. But doesn't he think that those sort of shows are strangling the unique and alternative docs that could get...

Spreading production around the UK.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... One of the cornerstones of Televisual's editorial offering is its authoritative industry surveys, which each year analyse information from production companies and post houses to produce the Production 100, the Facilities 50, the Commercials 30...

INTERVIEW - ROLY KEATING: Making two the one.(Interview)
May 15, 2006... Not only is Roly Keating charged with lighting the BBC's path towards a bright new digital future, he's also trying to reinvigorate BBC2's output for a new generation. He tells Jon Creamer about his plans He's two years into the job, but...

DRAMA DOCUMENTARY - IN PRODUCTION: Dramatising the documentary.
May 15, 2006... The drama documentary has finally come of age, and as Poz Hulls finds out, producers dressed up in historical costumes, cobbled together pieces of dialogue and brief dream-like sequences are all out, while proper actors, proper writers and...

TOP 30 - REGIONAL PRODUCTION: The best of the west, east, north.
May 15, 2006... Some of the UK's best indie TV producers are based outside the M25. A new Televisual survey ranks them and looks to the future of regional production Televisual's annual ranking of the top 100 independent production companies in the...

TOP 30 - REGIONAL POST: Cutting it outside the m25.
May 15, 2006... Despite major challenges, it's been a year of modest growth for facilities beyond London, according to our Regional Post 30 survey Post-production is alive and well outside London, and despite a succession of potential stumbling blocks...

Can TV indies do film?
May 15, 2006... Everybody knows that film finance producers now getting involved? It's May. The sun is shining and film stars are being paraded, prodded and probed in Cannes. For producers though, it can be a rather less glamourous affair a tense time...

Five floors of Apple dry hire.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... A new facility that is decked out almost entirely in Apple equipment has opened up in Carlisle Street. The dry hire service, which is called Unit, is hoping to attract producers wanting to do online and grading in an attractive environment...

New vfx team for LipSync.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... LipSync now has a new visual effects and graphics team, following the ongoing recruitment of a string of specialist vfx staff, as well as the installation of five new Shake workstations. To accommodate the extra staff and kit, LipSync has...

IN BRIEF: Heart-stopping ad.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... The Hive has posted a heart-stopping ad for one of the scariest theme park rides in the UK. Called Stealth, it can be found at Thorpe Park and is now Europe's fastest and highest roller coaster. Shortly after the advert first aired, Thorpe...

The complete A to A story of NAB.(Software industry activities at National Association of Broadcasters)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... There was no escaping the dreaded word "workflow" at NAB 2006. Marketing types seemed to be competing with each other to sneak it into every sentence, and if they could get in "infrastructure" too they were surely due a bonus point or two....

Hardware highlights from across the pond at NAB.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... There were cameras aplenty at NAB 2006, with models to suit every budget and potential usage. Sony, Panasonic and Canon all covered vast floor space showing off their competing tapeless solutions, which use different types of media for storage...

IN BRIEF: Short film awards.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... The five winners of a new short film awards will have their films taken through the DI process and transferred onto 35mm film at London facility Capital FX as their prize. Judges of the CFX Film Awards include Harry Potter-producer David...

IN BRIEF: Post moves.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... The Mill has recruited The Da Vinci Code and NewCaptain Scarlet series vfx co-ordinator Marie Jones, who joins as producer. The post house also takes on production co-ordinator Natalie Stopford, who previously worked on the movie The World's...

Red Bee's new box of tricks.(Red Bee Media)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... Red Bee Media has joined up with Microsoft and HD-device maker Netgem to develop an HD set-top box that provides access to Freeview channels in HD, video-on-demand services, PVR features and an interactive programme guide. The content...

Posting The Message cheaply.(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... BBC3's new comedy sketch show The Message had its post done in-house using only four Apple Mac G5s. The writer of the series, Johnny Daukes, who was previously an editor, was adamant he could save money by doing the entire series, and...

IN BRIEF: Music videos encoded.
May 15, 2006... More than 10,000 music videos from the Universal Music Group International back catalogue are being encoded for different platforms by Ascent Media Services. The promos will be available from iTunes and Yahoo! Ascent is using its Atlas Media...

IN POST - THE WORKS: Doctor at The Mill.(Doctor Who is back for a second series)
May 15, 2006... Russell T Davies' Doctor Who is back for a second series with the visual effects team at The Mill once again tasked with the challenge of making it look as good as a movie on a TV budget Following a long hiatus from our screens, the good...

IN MY VIEW: Trouble on TV.(Interview)
May 15, 2006... Celia Taylor, deputy head of the Trouble and Challenge channels, adores Stars in their Eyes and has a desire to see skinny celebs fattening themselves up on screen. Fingers crossed. How much TV do you watch a week? Lots but often...

ITV's old hand defeated by BBC's New Tricks.(British Broadcasting Corp.)(Brief article)
May 15, 2006... While colonialism may be old hat, Celtic Films and Picture Palace Films'Sharpe's Challenge proved that swashbuckling, colonial era drama isn't. It led the charge for ITV on Sunday 23 April, beating all in its path with 7.1m and a 31% share at...