Book your place now for this unmissable RTS session focusing on developing and making documentaries and the planning, passion and persistence required to make your film happen. 

An experienced panel of award winning documentary makers will delve into storytelling, access, finding contributors and new techniques, looking at the broad spectrum of docs from one-offs to returnable formats.

Join Head of Documentaries at the BBC Aysha Rafaele (Our War, Louis Theroux), Producer and Director George Pagliero (War Horse: The True Story, Edward V111: The Lion King), Series Producer Sacha Mirzoeff (Shooting Under Fire, Protecting our Children) and Tigress MD Dick Colthurst (Hippo: Nature’s Wild Feast, Alone in the Wild) as they share their stories, opinions and experiences with Lynn Barlow.

Discussing work as diverse as BBC3’s The Call Centre to historical docs to technically ambitious natural history programmes and the multi award-winning Protecting our Children, this session will be a fascinating insight into this ever shifting genre.

Thinking about making your first film? Wondering how to step up to direct? Want to find out more about docs at the BBC or how to sell your show to the international market?

Whatever level you’re working at, if you’re interested in documentaries and storytelling, this masterclass will give you the inside track on the opportunities and challenges.... 

 

Wednesday 25th September, doors 7pm, session 7.30pm, followed by drinks and networking in the BBC bar

Venue: BBC Bristol, Whiteladies Road, Bristol BS8 2LR

£5 payable on the door and this includes a complimentary drink in the BBC bar

Full RTS members free and complimentary drink included - please bring along RTS membership card.

 

Chair: Lynn Barlow, Director of Creative Media, UWE and Exec Producer

Panellists: Aysha Rafaele, Head of Documentaries, BBC, George Pagliero, Producer/Director, Sacha Mirzoeff, Series Producer and Dick Colthurst, Managing Director, Tigress Productions

To book tickets, go to https://rtsbristoldocmasterclass.eventbrite.co.uk

 

About Lynn Barlow, Director of Creative Media, UWE and Exec Producer

Journalist and Producer Lynn’s career spans newspapers, radio and television. At the BBC she was a bi-media health correspondent and editor newsgathering before producing documentaries and features for BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3 including Grierson and RTS best documentary series ‘Anatomy of a Crime’ and ground-breaking observational documentaries including; ‘Barristers,’ ‘Silverville,’ ‘When Romeo met Juliet’ and ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’ She now divides her time as Director of Creative Media for the University of the West of England and as a freelance producer. She’s currently involved in the development of interactive documentary.

About Dick Colthurst, Managing Director, Tigress Productions

Dick Colthurst joined Tigress in 2005 from the BBC where he was an Executive Producer responsible for programmes including 999, Ray Mears’ Bushcraft and innovative projects like The Trench. At the time, Tigress was best known as a wildlife company and Dick’s brief was to develop an adventure slate which started with three series of Everest: Beyond the Limit for Discovery following ordinary people to the summit including, in the process, seven Tigress employees.

More series shot in remote parts of the world followed – Edge of Existence and Return of the Tribe for Five, Around the World in 80 Trades and Alone in the Wild for Channel 4 plus in 2011, a celebrity version of Alone in the World for Discovery featuring Freddie Flintoff, Jason Gardiner and Joe Pasquale among others. He has a particular enthusiasm for innovative and technically ambitious programmes like The Elephant: Life After Death and Hippo: Nature’s Wild Feast which helped reinvent natural history for Channel 4.

About Sacha Mirzoeff, Series Producer

Sacha was the Series Producer on the multi-award winning Protecting our Children, the story of child protection social workers at Bristol County Council which took years to negotiate access and gather material. The series won two RTS West of England Awards earlier in the year, for Best Documentary and for Sacha, Best Director as well as an RTS Programme Award for Documentary Series and a Grierson award. Sacha’s body of work also includes Nature, Elsa’s Legacy: The Born Free Story and acclaimed doc Shooting Under Fire about the dangerous lives of the photographers who patrol the frontlines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

About George Pagliero, Producer and Director

George is currently at Icon Films where he’s the Series Director on 'Tribal Survival', a format that has just been commissioned off the back of a pilot he shot in Ecuador this summer. George has been in factual TV since 1998 when he began work experience on Lonely Planet, then worked up through the ranks as researcher, assistant producer to producer / director in specialist factual TV. He’s worked mainly in history, archaeology and engineering, making shows like Time Team, Scrapheap Challenge, Supersizers Eat... and Evacuation. In that time he spent a couple of years on and off in development at Lion TV where successes included 'Horrible Histories' and 'Days That Shook The World'. He’s had to adapt over the past 15 years with the industry, so like many of his generation, he’s developed camera and editing skills, filming for Newsnight, Turn Back Time: The High Street and Gold Rush. George thankfully enjoys travelling - documentary work has taken him out on location in North and South America, Antarctica, Africa and the Middle East. He currently lives in Bristol with partner, Rosie, a novelist, and is learning to play the banjo.

About Aysha Rafaele, Head of Documentaries, Production, BBC

Aysha Rafaele started her career in television as a trainee at the BBC and went on to become a BAFTA nominated and RTS award winning documentary and drama director.  For four years she was a Documentaries Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 where she commissioned singles and series – including Coppers, The Hospital, Secret Millionaire, Confessions of a Nurse and The Family.  She was also editor of the critically acclaimed new directors strand First Cut. In the summer of 2012 she was appointed Head of Documentaries, Production at the BBC. In-house documentaries output includes award winning series such as Protecting Our Children, Our War and Louis Theroux.