Poppy Dixon is Director of Documentaries and Factual Commissioning and Hayley Reynolds is a Commissioning Editor, both responsible for original documentaries and factual programmes across Sky’s portfolio of services. This Q&A with Poppy and Hayley will be chaired by Wendy Darke, CEO and Founder, True to Nature.

Sky is doubling investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios and Poppy and Hayley will outline the challenges of developing and delivering strong, distinctive, original ideas, from feature length documentaries to series. They will also talk through how they work with indies and what they are looking to commission across Sky Documentaries, Sky Nature and Sky Crime.

Followed by networking drinks in the Watershed bar until 9pm.

Tickets are £10 for Non RTS Members (including a drink afterwards)

£6.50 for Students (including a drink afterwards)

Free for RTS Members (please input your membership number to book your complimentary ticket)

About the Speakers

 Poppy Dixon

Poppy Dixon joined Sky in May 2020. Prior to that, she worked in TV and film for over 15 years starting out in factual entertainment before moving into documentaries in 2008, working both across development and production. She spent more than seven years at Raw, where her accolades include Bart Layton’s BAFTA-winning feature, The Imposter and acclaimed hybrid movie American Animals, as well as BAFTA-nominated Three Identical Strangers. During her time at Lightbox, Dixon produced Ursula Macfarlane’s Harvey Weinstein documentary Untouchable, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Her most recent film as a producer is Sam Hobkinson’s Misha and the Wolves, which launched at Sundance 2021.

 Hayley Reynolds

Hayley Reynolds joined Sky in February 2021.  Reynolds’ film and TV career spans over 13 years, starting in production before moving into commissioning. As a producer she worked on critically acclaimed and award-winning documentaries such as BBC Three’s double BAFTA winning Our War. She spent five years at Minnow Films where she produced across their development and production portfolio. This included feature documentary Williams for BBC Films and Netflix, which was nominated for Best Documentary and Best Editing at the 2017 British Independent Film Awards. For the last three years before joining Sky, Reynolds was at the BBC’s flagship feature documentary strand, Storyville, where her recent executive producer credits include The Mole: Infiltrating North Korea, The Mystery of DB Cooper and Misha and the Wolves.