Live blog: Running On Empty
BBC Studios
Werner Herzog: TV sentimentality is rampant, I can't stand it
For a straight-talking man, it’s hard to define Werner Herzog. “Legend” is perhaps the easiest way to describe the 76-year-old, at least based on the reverential whispers that run around Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre ahead of his appearance at the city’s annual DocFest. Best known as the writer, director and producer of more than 60 films, Bavarian-born Herzog is also an author, actor and opera director.
BBC Studios launches Writers' Academy
Led by former BBC and Channel 4 Head of Drama John Yorke, the Writers’ Academy will offer writers in the early stage of their careers the chance to develop their skills on some of the BBC’s long-running drama series.
The paid scheme will see successful applicants complete an intensive 13-week classroom period, followed by three months scripting episodes of Casualty, Holby City and EastEnders.
Participants will graduate with up to four scripts to their name, and will have their services optioned by BBC Studios for the next two years.
RTS London: Google for media
Jon Brennan, Google’s regional manager for broadcast, entertainment and media partnerships, said that television “is still central” to people’s lives. He claimed that although TV consumption had declined by 3% over the past six years, if online viewing was included, consumption of video has, in fact, risen by 25%.
The One Show
The One Show is opening its doors to RTS Futures, where you are invited to watch a live episode at BBC Studios, with Martine McCutcheon on the couch and musical guest Paloma Faith set to perform!
Before the show, RTS Futures attendees will be invited to an exclusive Q&A with Emmey Little, who knows everything there is to know about The One Show, having worked her way up the team from assistant to the executive producer to Audience Researcher.
Cherry Healey talks Sex, Knives and Liposuction
Her new series Sex, Knives and Liposuction deals with a subject close to Healey’s heart: body image, and more specifically, the increasing pressures put upon women to look and act a certain way. In the series Healey follows a group of women as they embark on a quest to gain the “perfect body” through a series of surgical procedures, including everything from breast reduction to bum lifts. All the while she examines her issues with her own body and decides whether to go under the knife herself.
RTS Masterclass: How to create a hit TV drama
How do you go about creating a new TV drama for a worldwide audience? “It has to have something recognisable globally; it has to show good old England – you need to harness a global brand,” reckoned Jude Tindall.
The writer and producer Ella Kelly were sharing their secrets with students at an RTS Midlands masterclass at the University of Wolverhampton in mid-February.
BBC Studios' bid for scale
It is one year on from one of the biggest and most controversial shake-ups in BBC history – the £400m formation of BBC Studios. Now, the BBC is ruffling feathers again as it merges this recently created commercial production division with BBC Worldwide to create a single company with revenues of £1.4bn.
Ready to launch: Mark Linsey on the future of BBC Studios
If Mark Linsey is intimidated by the thought of launching one of the most far-reaching and challenging reforms in the BBC’s 90-year history he is not letting on.
He must be used to dealing with fragile egos and temperamental types from the showbiz end of TV – for seven years, he ran BBC Entertainment. But, compared with getting BBC Studios up and running as a successful commercial entity, keeping high-profile, high-earning stars happy must be a breeze.
BBC Studios partners with Amazon for comedy series Good Omens
On the eve of the Apocalypse, the Antichrist goes missing.
Good Omens is a humorous depiction of the Apocalypse and a modern day world where everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon - both of whom have lived among Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle - are not actually looking forward to the coming war.