RTS West of England

Loud and proud: Gentlemen Jack creators celebrate the drama's success

O’Hooley & Tidow , Anne Choma, Sally Wainwright and Dr Finn Mackay (Credit: Dee Robertson)

Gentleman Jack wowed critics and audiences alike when it aired on BBC One earlier this year. This was a Sunday-night period drama with a difference – based on the diaries of early 19th-century landowner, industrialist and traveller Anne Lister, it revealed a woman determined to explore her lesbian sexuality.

BBC Two controller Patrick Holland shares his vision for the channel

Patrick Holland (Credit: Jon Craig)

“We’ve seen big audience demands for shows on iPlayer after their initial TV release. You can’t judge numbers on the overnights anymore. We don’t aim for a focused demographic. It has to appeal to the whole audience and there needs to be a big sense of purpose that shines through,” added Holland, who was interviewed by RTS West of England Chair Lynn Barlow at the Everyman Cinema in Bristol.

Documentary makers discuss the making of Last Breath with RTS West of England

Sam Rogers, Kate Beetham, Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson (Credit: Jon Craig)

Four years in the making, the film has been described as “Gravity meets Touching the Void – 100 metres underwater” and tells the story of a commercial diver, Chris Lemons, who is stranded on the seabed with five minutes of oxygen left – but no chance of rescue for more than half an hour.

RTS West of England explain the risks of copyright

Abbas Media Law (Credit: Abbas)
In mid-May, around 40 people from the television and film production community joined the leading media lawyer, Nigel Abbas, at The Square in Bristol to learn about the key areas of copyright.
 
During the two-hour session, Abbas covered the main risks associated with copyright and how to avoid them, as well as licensing copyright works. He also tackled defences to copyright infringement, including fair dealing with quotations, reporting current events and incidental inclusion. 
 

The Interrogation of Tony Martin wins big at West of England Awards 2019

RTS Award Winner David Nath (Credit: Jon Craig/@JonCraig_Photos)

David Nath – the co-founder of Story Films – picked up the Director award, while Joe Carey won the Editing prize. Nath’s script for the programme was taken verbatim from the police interview recordings of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who shot a fleeing burglar dead in 1999. The judges described it as a “truly exciting piece of television, so well done technically and very well cast”.

RTS West of England talk documentary filmmaking at Abbas Media Law workshop

The two media lawyers looked at the contractual, legal and regulatory issues that can crop up in access docs – films that that require access to institutions such as hospitals  or communities – including data protection, defamation and advice on drafting access agreements. 

They also tackled other thorny issues such as the police requesting rushes and contributors withdrawing consent.