FACTUAL TV
DOCS WITH GLOBAL APPEAL
content, the general entertainment streamers are also seeing the value and the longevity that the genre can bring. Plus there’s dedicated service Sky Nature launched in May 2020, with around 50 to 80 hours of original programming supplied through Blue Ant Media and its Love Nature brand. Shows such as Icon Films Malawi Wildlife Rescue, True to Nature’s Gangs of Lemur Island and Blakeway Productions’ Wild Tales from the Farm. With budgets ranging from £162K per hour to £800k. While Fothergill can see room for even more
demand, he also sees potential cracks appearing. “I think it’s a bubble that’s in danger of bursting,” says Fothergill, pointing to the limited supply of talented wildlife film-makers, many of whom are based in the UK’s West country. And there’s no guarantee of top performing shows, even when you spend the money it takes to make natural history at scale. “I do think one of the great challenges is to recognise the ideas that will go global and stand out from the crowd.” The demand for high production values is
another pressure. “Top end blue chip natural history does not come cheap and it’s getting more expensive as the quality that’s expected constantly increases,” says Fothergill.
DOING THE CRIME The steep slopes of production values and stand-out ideas is true across genres. “The bar is high” says Knickerbockerglory’s Stadlen. The indie’s American Murder: The Family Next Door was one of those ideas that ticked those boxes. Viewed in more than 50 million households in the four weeks following its launch in September last year, the Jennie Popplewell- directed single was a Netflix hit. Stadlen describes how it hit the bar: “it was an internationally known
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televisual.com Spring 2021
and read-about story, there was what seemed a per- fect marriage and a front door that everyone could identify with and a ‘thank God it’s not me’ story. “ The budget allowed for another layer of scaling-
up. Director James Marsh was brought on board and composer Nainita Desai wrote the score. “It was literally like having a magic wand,” says Stadlen. While recognising the downward pressure on
CHEAP, AND IT’S GETTING MORE EXPENSIVE”
HISTORY DOES NOT COME
BLUE-CHIP NATURAL
“TOP-END
factual budgets in the UK, Stadlen is one of those that believes that it’s a golden age for documentary film makers. “I think these things are cyclical. There was a while a few years ago when there was this whole trend for produced and more formatted factual and I think the broadcasters have since been veering to wanting truth or to reflect real life or reflect questions in a more meaningful way….. So it’s no surprise that some of the most successful shows tell the story in a most honest way.” American Murder, using entirely archive footage, social media and police or neighbourhood camera recordings, is the epitome of direct story-telling. True crime is another genre that has proved time
and again that it can deliver the global documentary scale required by the streamers. One of the most successful production companies in the genre has to be the UK’s Raw TV. The indie’s head of UK factual Liesel Evans points to Netflix series The Ripper which had a successful launch on Netflix at the end of 2020. “For the global market, we had to tell the story so that those who are familiar with the story would want to watch, as well as those that haven’t heard of it. It was challenging, but you have to think in a different way.” Raw is working with CNN and Campfire on new
Ursula Macfarlane feature documentary The Lost Sons; Evans is executive producer. “It has universal
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