News Buried Secrets of The Bible with Albert Lin shortlisted for Broadcast Tech AwardJuly 18, 2019NewsWe’re very excited to announce that Buried Secrets of the Bible, Episode 1: Parting the Red Sea, is shortlisted in this year’s Creative Excellence section for Best Audio Post Production (Non-Scripted). A huge congratulations to Nick Handley and all the team at Silverglade who worked so hard on this stunning episode. Good luck! http://broadcasttechawards.co.uk/shortlist-2019/... Netflix catches Caravan, Quicksilver’s KillerMay 7, 2019NewsGlobal streaming giant Netflix has commissioned a true crime series from UK factual indies Caravan and Quicksilver. Killer Ratings is a seven-part show about Brazilian TV host Wallace Souza, who fronted true crime show Canal Livre, set in the Amazonian city of Manaus. Canal Livre was a big success in Brazil, largely due to the ability of its reporters to arrive first at murder scenes – but it was later claimed Souza, who died in 2010, ordered murders himself in a bid to increase ratings. Killer Ratings will include exclusive interviews with people working on Canal Livre, close relatives and friends of Souza, and those who investigated him, as well as previously unseen footage of Souza filmed in the middle of the scandal. Series director Daniel Bogado (The Hunt for Boko Haram) said: “What I thought I knew about Wallace Souza when I set out turned out only to be the starting point of this extraordinary story. When I looked deeper, I saw the events that followed were full of the most jaw-dropping turns, twists and shocks that would be deemed too outlandish in a Hollywood script.” Killer Ratings is executive produced by Eamonn Matthews for Quicksilver (Iraq Uncovered, The Truth About Ebola, Syria: Across the Lines), Dinah Lord for Caravan (Holocaust: The Revenge Plot, Avalanche, National Geographic’s Buried Secrets of the Bible) and Alex Marengo (Captive, The Bible). Suemay Oram is senior producer.... Netflix taps UK indies for Brazilian TV true-crime docMay 7, 2019NewsCaravan and Quicksilver explore eye-opening tale of Wallace Souza over seven episodes Netflix has commissioned a true-crime series from UK indies Caravan and Quicksilver Media exploring the Brazilian TV host who allegedly ordered killings to boost audience figures. The SVoD giant has ordered seven-part Killer Ratings, which focuses on the twists and questions surrounding the story of Wallace Souza, the charismatic presenter of Canal Livre. Broadcast in Manaus, a remote city in the heart of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, the show was a hit, based largely on the ability of its reporters to arrive first at the scene of a murder. Souza’s stock rose as a result and he became a respected state representative and celebrity. However, his status bombed after a former bodyguard to made the incredible claim that Canal Livre reporters were only able to arrive first at the scene of murders because Souza had sanctioned the murders himself to increase ratings and that rather than a crime-fighter, he was the head of a criminal organisation. The Killer Ratings indies have assembled a wealth of information on the case to produce a comprehensive account of the scandal, feature exclusive interviews with people inside Canal Livre, close relatives, friends, police and members of the authorities. It will also feature previously unaired footage of Souza, filmed in the middle of the scandal. Daniel Bogado (The Hunt For Boko Haram) directs the series, with Suemay Oram serving as senior producer. Eamonn Matthews exec-produces for Unreported World indie Quicksilver (Iraq Uncovered, The Truth About Ebola) alongside Dinah Lord for James Bulger: The New Revelations producer Caravan and Alex Marengo. Ben Cotner and Kate Townsend commissioned the show for Netflix. “What I thought I knew about Wallace Souza when I set out, turned out only to be the starting point of this extraordinary story,” Bogado said. “When I looked deeper, I saw the events that followed were full of the most jaw-dropping turns, twists and shocks, which would be deemed too outlandish in a Hollywood script.”... Netflix orders seven-part true crime original ‘Killer Ratings’May 7, 2019NewsNetflix has commissioned Caravan Productions and Quicksilver Media for a seven-part series on a Brazilian TV host and politician accused of orchestrating grisly murders to drive ratings for his crime show. The UK prodcos are to co-produce the series on Wallace Souza (pictured), who rose to fame as the charismatic and outspoken host of Canal Livre, a TV show broadcast in Brazilian capital Manaus and a hit with audiences due to the ability of its reporters to arrive first at the scene of a murder. Souza went on to be elected as State Representative and had a high-profile political career until a former bodyguard claimed he was involved in a number of murders in a bid to grow Canal Livreratings. The docuseries — which will be billed as a Netflix Original — is based upon a trove of information on the case, including exclusive interviews with people inside Canal Livre, as well as close relatives, friends, police and Task Force members, as well as previously unseen footage of Souza that was filmed mid-scandal. The series was ordered by LA-based exec Ben Cotner —who left Netflix in February to join A24 — and UK commissioner Kate Townsend. It is one of the first major factual originals out of the UK in recent months, and comes as Netflix grows its unscripted footprint out of the UK, where Townsend is based alongside Diego Bunuel and Jonathan Taylor. Killer Ratings series director Daniel Bogado said: “What I thought I knew about Wallace Souza when I set out turned out only to be the starting point of this extraordinary story. When I looked deeper, I saw the events that followed were full of the most jaw-dropping turns, twists and shocks which would be deemed too outlandish in a Hollywood script.” Executive producers on the show include Dinah Lord for Caravan (Holocaust: The Revenge Plot; Avalanche; National Geographic’s Buried Secrets of the Bible), Eamonn Matthews for Quicksilver (Iraq Uncovered, The Truth About Ebola, Syria: Across The Lines) and Alex Marengo (Captive, The Bible). Senior producer is Suemay Oram.... Netflix Explores ‘Killer Ratings’; Doc Series To Explore Strange Case Of Brazilian TV Host Who Tried To Boost Ratings By Allegedly Ordering MurdersMay 7, 2019NewsEXCLUSIVE: The story of Brazilian TV host turned politician Wallace Souza, who was accused of ordering murders in order to bolster ratings of his crime series, is to be made into a seven-part documentary series for Netflix. The SVOD service has ordered Killer Ratings from British factual producers Caravanand Quicksilver. Caravan is the All3Media-backed firm responsible for Nat Geo’s Buried Secrets of the Bible and is run by Dinah Lord, who has won BAFTAs including in 2015 for Grayson Perry: Who Are You?, while Quicksilver is run by Eamonn Matthews, who has won Emmys for series including PBS and BBC’s Outbreak: The Truth About Ebola and PBS and Channel 4’s Undercover Syria. Souza rose to fame as the host of Canal Livre, a TV show broadcast in Manaus, the remote and lawless city surrounded by jungle in the heart of Brazil’s Amazon. The show was a hit but its reputation was tarnished when it was claimed that Souza was only able to make it first to certain crime scenes because he had ordered the murders himself. His former bodyguard accused him of being the head of a criminal organization. In October 2009, he was charged with murder, drug-trafficking, intimidation of witnesses, illegal carrying of arms and the formation of a criminal and was expelled from the state assembly. After the arrest warrant was issued, he disappeared but subsequently gave himself up before dying of a heart attack the following year. The team behind Killer Ratings has assembled a huge trove of information on the case, including exclusive interviews with people inside Canal Livre, close relatives, friends, police and members of the police task force, as well as previously unseen footage of Souza filmed in the middle of the scandal. It is series directed by Daniel Bogado (The Hunt for Boko Haram) and series produced by Suemay Oram (Drugs Map of Britain). It is exec produced by Matthews, Lord and Alex Marengo (Captive). It was commissioned by Ben Cotner, the Wild Wild Country and Ugly Delicious commissioner who recently left Netflix to head up A24 and IAC Films’ non-fiction joint venture, and London-based Kate Townsend. Bogado said, “What I thought I knew about Wallace Souza when I set out, turned out only to be the starting point of this extraordinary story. When I looked deeper, I saw the events that followed were full of the most jaw-dropping turns, twists and shocks which would be deemed too outlandish in a Hollywood script.”... Nat Geo Explores ‘The Bible From Space’; All3Media’s Caravan To Produce Albert Lin-Fronted Documentary Two-ParterNovember 29, 2018NewsNat Geo is heading into space to find new stories about the bible in a big-budget documentary fronted by Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake Kings host Albert Lin. The factual giant has ordered two-part series The Bible From Space (w/t) from All3Media-backed Caravan. The documentary will reveal the truth behind the biggest stories from the Old Testament with Lin taking a journey through the Holy Lands and looking at the historical events that might lie behind biblical stories such as the Exodus and the parting of the Red Seas as well as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lin, who also previously hosted China’s Megatomb Revealed, will travel with a mobile laboratory through the deserts of the Middle East and work with top archaeologists to carry out scientific research, using satellite imagery, multi-spectral analysis, magnetometry, aerial photogrammetry and old-fashioned detective work to find hidden answers. The Bible From Space will launch on Nat Geo in the U.S. and across over 170 countries in 2019. It will be exec produced by Caravan’s Dinah Lord and Matthew Barrett, series produced by Matthew Thompson and directed by Nigel Walk. For National Geographic, Simon Raikes is Executive Producer, Jules Oldroyd is SVP, International Programming and Geoff Daniels is EVP, Global Unscripted Entertainment Oldroyd said, “Having had great success in uncovering ancient ruins around the world over the last couple of years, National Geographic is excited to be partnering with Caravan on this series and to have Albert Lin on board a project that will move digital archaeology forward by attempting to reveal the truth of these ancient narratives handed down over countless generations.” Lord, who founded the indie with Juliet Singer in 2015, added, “Caravan is thrilled to be working with National Geographic to provide its global audience with answers to some of the greatest mysteries of the Bible. Using revolutionary scientific technology alongside expert archaeology, the findings may change our understanding of Biblical stories forever.” Additionally, the pay-TV broadcaster has taken the global rights, outside of the UK and Ireland, to Caravan-produced feature doc Avenging Evil. The film, which was produced in association with Global Road Entertainment, tells the extraordinary story of a secret organization of Holocaust survivors who were known as the Avengers. The doc was originally produced for Channel 4 in the UK and exec produced by Lord and Barrett and Global Road’s Phil Gurin and Tim Bock. Eli Shibley, Global Road Entertainment’s President of International Distribution and Co-Productions oversaw the worldwide distribution deal with National Geographic. Source: https://deadline.com/2018/11/nat-geo-the-bible-from-space-1202510885/ ... The Times: TV Review – James Bulger: The New RevelationsNovember 20, 2018NewsJames Bulger: The New Revelations sounded as if it might promise more than it delivered. Many programmes about this 1993 murder merely rehash details of unutterable horror. This didn’t. It offered fresh insights and details, chiefly from previously unseen documents. The judge had allowed Robert Thompson and Jon Venables’s anonymity to be lifted partly to enable debate on why — what had happened in two ten-year-olds’ lives that would make them so violent? But, said the programme, this never happened. Discussion was silenced amid a narrative that the boys were simply “evil”. Parole papers from court and their rehabilitation units described the abusive, neglectful home from which Thompson had come. He spent all day on the streets, bunking off school and climbing the drainpipe after dark. At home he had once been stripped naked and told his penis would be cut off with scissors. He witnessed beatings and his father enjoyed not allowing him to comfort his mother. Venables had siblings with special needs and was jealous of the attention they got, sometimes cutting himself. Nothing excuses their savagery, and other children suffer without murdering toddlers, but, as one expert said, it showed that unparented children can become dangerous. The most salient observation was possibly Thompson’s. Successfully rehabilitated at 18, he acknowledged this irony: “I’m a better person and have had a better life and a better education than if I had not committed the murder.” Therein lies a whole new debate.... Bulger film is C5’s second biggest doc of 2018November 20, 2018NewsCaravan’s one-off investigation into the child murder that shocked the nation 25 years ago was the second best-performing new doc on the channel this year. Michael Palin in Korea remains the one to beat, with an overnight audience of 2.5m (14.9%) in September. The Bulger doc was also only marginally behind the top-rated episode of returner The Yorkshire Vet (1.8m / 9.5% in April). The film drew almost double C5’s 950,000 (4.9%) slot average and more than twice the audience of the previous week’s 90-minute doc Secret Life Of The Airport (800,000 / 4.4%). It was the third major doc on the case to air this year, following a pair of singles that aired in February to mark the anniversary of Bulger’s death. In a Monday 9pm slot, Channel 4’s The Bulger Killers: Was Justice Done? drew an overnight of 2.2m (10.4%), while ITV’s Trevor McDonald-fronted doc James Bulger: A Mother’s Story attracted 3.8m (18.8%) in a Thursday 9pm slot. C5’s audience for the doc was weighted towards the north west, the region that includes the Merseyside scene of Bulger’s abduction and murder. Some 19% of viewers came from the area, with London accounting for 16% of viewers. The channel secured a 6.2% share of AB viewers over the hour against a 3.8% slot average, and an 8.2% share of C1s, up from 4.8%, according to Barb data from overnights.tv Source: https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/ratings/bulger-film-is-c5s-second-biggest-doc-of-2018/5134559.article ... New Order: Decades, Sky Arts — gloriously upliftingSeptember 24, 2018NewsA concert film capturing the band’s music in all its melancholic grandeur Last year as part of the Manchester International Festival, local band New Order were commissioned to present a concert with a difference, collaborating with the artist Liam Gillick and students from the Royal Northern College of Music. The show, which travelled to Turin and Vienna, is preserved in the compelling documentary, New Order: Decades. “It’s not a greatest hits show,” insists curator and writer Jon Savage, rather a reimagining of their music in all its melancholic grandeur. Taking their blend of haunted rock and rigorous electronica as a cue, Gillick envisaged a background grid to match their soundscapes. Twelve stacked boxes behind the band each contained a music student playing a different part of the lushly rewritten score. Inspired by Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel La Jalousie, Gillick also had slats fitted to the front of each box, revealing and concealing the players at intervals during the concert. (Jalousie translates both as “Jealousy”, which could easily be a New Order song title, and Venetian blind.) “It’s a hell of a lot of cables,” grins conductor Joe Duddell. Each student needs their own screen to see him, a headset to communicate, a separate score and keyboard. The band are awed that these young virtuosi can play complex musical phrases that were created by computer, with keyboard player Gillian Gilbert especially happy to concede tricky parts of the score. Drummer Stephen Morris meanwhile revels in the new resources, having always been the techie. Frontman Bernard Sumner stresses the band’s forward-looking ethos, but for them there’s no escaping the heavy hand of the past. New Order’s previous incarnation as Joy Division is lightly touched on here, having been exhaustively covered before, but Ian Curtis, the singer who died aged 23 in 1980, is still a palpable presence. “He’s forever young,” says Sumner, adding that “he was such a determined, explosive character” that his suicide was impossible to prevent. But for the young performers, all that is ancient history. At one point in the concert, the young players’ enthusiastic indie dancing, each in their separate box, was trending more on Twitter than the band itself. At the finale of the concert, the ensemble plays “Decades” in a shimmering new version — and it’s gloriously uplifting. ★★★★★... Caravan to make feature length doc on New Order for Sky ArtsAugust 17, 2018NewsFactual indie Caravan has won a commission from Sky Arts to produce a feature-length documentary film on New Order. New Order: Decades (1×120’) is produced and directed by Mike Christie (Hansa Studios: By The Wall 1976-90, Sky Arts), marking 40 years since the band’s first TV appearance. Part concert and part documentary, it follows the band’s preparations as they re-stage their collaboration So It Goes with the artist Liam Gillick and the 12-piece synthesiser orchestra that took place during Manchester International Festival 2017. Mike Christie said: “New Order: Decades really is a unique opportunity to get to the heart of a truly iconic and brilliant band. New Order rarely look backwards, yet for this project they had to reflect on – and de-construct – their history. The insights feel fresh but also intimate, funny and revealing of a band who have often seemed mysterious and perhaps sometimes a little misunderstood over the last 40 years.” Bill Hobbins, Commissioning Editor, Non-Scripted, for Sky added: “The full-length New Order and Joy Division song performances featured in the film look and sound simply incredible. They also serve as a perfect cross section of the musical journey the band have undertaken in their career over the last four decades, and the perfect soundtrack to this very special film.” Dinah Lord, Executive Producer and MD of Caravan commented: “New Order: Decades offers a rare chance to enter the band’s private world, understand the visual philosophy of their aesthetic and design, and witness their collaborative, creative processes first hand.” New Order: Decades is produced and directed by Mike Christie, the executive producer is Dinah Lord and it was commissioned by Bill Hobbins. It is a Caravan production for Sky Arts and will air on 22 September. Source: http://www.televisual.com/news-detail/Caravan-to-make-feature-length-doc-on-New-Order-for-Sky-Arts_nid-7358.html...
