TRUE VALUES IN MEDIA ORGANISATIONS

Andy Mundy-Castle’s BAFTA acceptance speech 12/05/24

On Sunday evening my colleague at Doc Hearts, its founder Andy Mundy-Castle, picked up the TV BAFTA for best Specialist Factual programme on behalf of the team on ‘White Nanny, Black Child‘. This landmark for the company came in the wake of the film winning the History category recently at the RTS Awards. It was an untold British story Andy had picked up on over five years ago and was single-minded (as ever) in bringing it to the screen.

His emotional acceptance speech was received rapturously by the many peers in the audience: “I come from a council estate in Brixton and this place has been a tough, tough challenge for me to consistently prevail in. This means a lot. I watched these shows as a teenager and I dreamt for many years about being on this stage. I’d just like to say to everyone watching at home who may come from the same background as me: Keep on dreaming, keep on working, get into good trouble.”

I first worked with Andy when I was at Channel 4 and I commissioned the first project of his own devising to be realised. It coincided with the culmination of a consultation prompted by then CEO Mark Thompson reappraising Channel 4’s values. The middle of three published values was “Make Trouble”. (One reason why the Channel should be backing Andy and his Doc Hearts more substantially, the values are perfectly aligned.)

I am as sceptical as anyone about the publishing of corporate values but that particular stab at it at C4 was exemplary and I used the 3 values every day as a Commissioning Editor: Do it first. Make trouble. Inspire change. It captured the Channel’s remit perfectly and added some spice with that middle one.

Doc Hearts similarly has powerful and laudable core values, all derived from its founder’s mission and outlook, which were beautifully captured in his BAFTA speech. You can feel them when you walk into the office in Chelsea – committed people on a focused mission to tell untold stories from unheard voices.

It is very important to be clear about the values of your indie or organisation; to express them well, capturing the underlying spirit; and to use them as a touchstone every day.

 

Andy’s BAFTA acceptance speech and the room’s reaction

Freely, Madly, Deeply: British Broadcasters Collaborating (at long last)

It’s interesting and resonant to see the launch of Freely today (30/4/24), the new streaming service from Everyone TV backed by BBC, ITV, Channel 4 & Channel 5. It involves various of my former C4 colleagues including CEO Jonathan Thompson, Sarah Milton and James Tatam.

For the first time viewers can switch between live and on-demand TV from all the main UK broadcasters simply and gratis. It offers features like pause and restart, and gives access to additional episodes for free (the clue’s in the name). All that’s required is a WiFi connection, no dish or aerial. The idea is to offer “a single, unified platform” centred on British TV.

It has been billed as “the first time all four of Britain’s public service broadcasters have come together to launch a streaming proposition” – but that’s not strictly true. 16 years ago ‘Project Kangaroo’ bounced onto the scene. It was the secret working title for a VOD platform combining content from BBC Worldwide, ITV and C4. However Kangaroo fell at the fence of the UK Competition Commission (now Competition & Markets Authority) in 2009. That was arguably the nail in the coffin of UK TV.

It was the moment we could have competed against Netflix (just a year old at the time) and the emerging international streamers. It was perhaps the one time we coulda been contenders.

“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender, I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”

(Elia Kazan’s classic ‘On the Waterfront’ has just been re-released in UK cinemas to mark its 70th anniversary.)

The Competition Competition looked at the parochial UK situation instead of the Big Picture and in their folly probably killed (certainly severely wounded) the Little Screen in this country. It’s still playing out now all these years later.

BritBox was a pretty lame attempt to fill the Kangaroo void. ITV and BBC Studios founded would-be global streaming service BritBox in 2017 as a joint venture to showcase British entertainment (original scripted and factual shows, co-pros, etc.) to international audiences. Last month we heard that ITV has sold its 50% stake in BritBox International to partner BBC Studios for £255M, probably a sign that the partners’ imperatives had evolved in somewhat different directions.

So it’s arguable that Freely is 16 years too late. But I hope otherwise and wish them the best of British…

AI and Factual Television 3: Innovation & Creativity

Drones in Forbidden Zones (Channel 4)

When drone technology emerged I commissioned a series for Channel 4 from the nascent Little Dot Studios eventually titled ‘Drones in Forbidden Zones‘. I had noticed that films of pure spectacle did well on YouTube, such as a camera simply attached to the front car of a new rollercoaster ride. So the brief was simple: POV spectacle films shot using drones – anything that could be shot from a helicopter or a Steadicam was not to be included. The flight itself should be a visceral delight in itself. The films were largely shot flying through narrow spaces in difficult to access places and higher than human height.

In other words, they used the new technology in ways that emphasised what could be done now that couldn’t be done before.

In 2009 I commissioned the multiplatform half of a Channel 4 series called ‘The Operation: Surgery Live‘ (Windfall Films: my co-commissioner (TV) was David Glover) – it was one of the first TV shows ever (possibly the first) to use Twitter as an integral part of the editorial. Budding surgeons have always learned by watching experienced doctors at work – that’s why it’s called an operating ‘theatre’. In these programmes the viewers were given the opportunity to learn by asking experienced surgeons about what they were doing live via Twitter. In the UK, Live TV is anything up to 15 minutes behind reality due to the demands of television regulation. For this series the delay was reduced to a minimal 8 seconds to enable viewers’ questions to be put to the surgeons – who were doing all sorts, from open-heart surgery to awake brain surgery – after a minimal delay. The show had to explain what a ‘hashtag’ was as Twiiter was so unmainstream then. Tweeters in the USA were asking what the heck this #SLive thing was.

In other words, it used the new technology in ways that emphasised what could be done now that couldn’t be done before.

That is where we need to be for AI. There is a lot of fear, anxiety, bullshit, hyperbole, depression, catastrophising and band-wagon-jumping going on right now around TV and AI. Making things cheaper and faster and with less people is of little interest to true filmmakers and creatives.

This is the time to ask what the new technology enables us to do in film, television, content, digital interactivity and media now that couldn’t be done before.

The Operation: Surgery Live (Channel 4)

AI and Factual Television 2: Truth & Trust

As the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944 and fought their way eastwards, their progress was filmed by British and American cameramen under the direction of Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada TV) from back in London at the Ministry of Information. When the concentration camps were liberated at Majdanek, Poland (the first major one, in July 1944), Auschwitz (January 1945) and Bergen-Belsen (April 1945) the unknown horrors revealed to these cameramen were sent back in rushes (dailies) to Bernstein. As soon as he saw them he realised that the way these inconceivable scenes should be filmed was important and he issued precise instructions to his teams. The filming was to be as incontrovertible testimony, using slow pans/camera movements and with a view to minimal editing, so that no one could accuse the footage of fakery.

Cut to 80 years later and the age of fake news and deep fakery. What role can footage created through generative AI play in factual filmmaking and documentary? The same issues surface – trust, authenticity and truth. AI-generated footage by definition contains no genuine truth, despite being the product of various source truths. Since documentary is fundamentally about documenting reality AI footage can by definition have no major role to play in it.

Where AI can contribute to documentary is in anything from the pre-film-camera age. For example, a thoroughly researched, historically accurate shot of the Roman forum in the reign of Nero.

It is also useful for resurrecting dead people. In the 2022 feature doc ‘Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted‘ director Benjamin Field deployed AI-generated images of the Thunderbirds creator’s talking head synced to archive audio recordings of the great man.

What about B-roll and GVs? Sunset over the jungles of Vietnam? Waves lapping the beaches of Normandy? This must be the wrong side of The Line because they document nothing. They are ultimately fantasy. Fine for scripted. No place in documentary.

When Stephen Lambert went down in 2007 for faking the Queen’s behaviour at a photo session, ‘Crowngate‘ proved an accidental act of public service by putting ‘Viewer Trust’ firmly on the TV agenda where it remains to this day. The issue has spread to other media, most recently in the doctored photo controversy. People want to be clear about what they are actually looking at.   

How can documentarians indicate material in their films that were created by generative AI? Benjamin Field did this by putting the Gerry Anderson talking heads into vintage TV sets to differentiate them from the regular factual footage. One way to do this as a standardised practice would be to create an AI ‘watermark’ to make clear what is not actual documentary.

Another way would be to establish a certificate that indicated ‘nothing in this film was made by AI’. At the moment a scheme of this sort is being discussed by PACT, Equity and BAFTA.

The 1 Habit of Highly Effective Factual Filmmakers is: “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” (Stephen Covey)

Sidney Bernstein, 1st Baron Bernstein of Leigh by Howard Coster (courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London)

AI & Factual Television

“The future of Television” created by Microsoft Designer’s AI image generator

Just back from CPH:DOX documentary festival in Copenhagen where, apart from running a workshop on stress-testing nascent documentary ideas, I have been exploring the interface between factual filmmaking and Artificial Intelligence.

I had an interesting conversation with multiplatform specialist Simon Staffans about the current crisis in Television in the UK, Europe and beyond. His observation is that, although there is tons of money knocking about in the world in the wake of the pandemic, quantitive easing, etc., the vast bulk of that is being invested in applications of AI in all aspects of life, and not the very 20th century technology that is TV.

What I am seeing at the interface of TV and AI is a strong focus on what AI can or soon will be able to do to speed up, improve or enhance the processes of video content making – from idea generation to pitching to editing to creating voiceover to cleaning up picture/audio to optimising distribution to upping discoverability.

Most training/CPD and briefing sessions at present seem to be largely catalogues of the latest software presented in broad categories representing production stages – that is, the What and a bit of the How. But the frame of the Why is for the most part absent.

AI can help speed up processes and reduce the human resources required – so quicker and cheaper to produce.

It can help fix dodgy pictures and degraded audio – so higher technical quality.

As the arms race for TV sizzle reels continues apace, it can generate impressive visuals, moving and still, to help get you in a room with a money-person. You can add a cloned celebrity voice-over and some in-the-style-of music for a very polished pitch.

But who are you pitching to? If the business models of TV collapse further, where will the funding come from to enable production companies to make good use of these amazing tools?

To what extent will AI give rise to new low-cost forms of content? For example, where text-to-video apps do away with the main costs of production. What’s the relationship between puppies playing in the snow and 20 Days in Mariupol?

Meanwhile today the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) went into legal battle with London-based AI start-up Jammable (formerly Voicify AI), which creates voice clones from BPI-represented and other music artists. The knotty legal/rights and ethical questions AI is throwing up are fascinating and watching them play out over the next couple of years will be as interesting and meaningful as all these other questions about what this major ground-breaking, era-defining, future-shaping technology signifies for our industry.

Breathtaking

Tonight [9pm ITV1] sees the broadcast of the first episode of ‘Breathtaking‘ on ITV. In some ways it will be perceived as a ‘follow-up’ to ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’, being a primetime ITV drama addressing a real-life home-grown social crisis. Whether it will have anything like the same impact remains to be seen – like the Post Office scandal, it does connect to an issue and process playing out right now (in the form of the on-going COVID-19 independent public inquiry), on the other hand lightening rarely strikes twice in the same place.

‘Breathtaking’ is set in the run-up to the first wave of Covid-19 in the UK and centres on an acute medicine consultant, Dr Abbey Henderson (played by Joanne Froggatt), and the NHS staff around her as they struggle to cope with fast-rising numbers of Covid patients. The series is based on the insider memoir of palliative care doctor and author Rachel Clarke, specifically her third book ‘Breathtaking’ (2021). Interestingly, Clarke was a broadcast journalist before she studied medicine, producing/directing current affairs programmes for the BBC and Channel 4.

A common question which came up in watercooler and pub moments in the wake of ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’, and which I broached in my previous post ‘Important Television‘, is why did a mainstream, traditional TV drama ignite public interest and move matters on where solid, persistent journalism and political activism failed? The answer I would contend lies in what television’s main strengths are. TV is not great at explaining things – it takes the medium a relatively long time to get across facts and information. What it is brilliant at is prompting emotion.

You can judge most programming, and indeed most performance and art, on whether it creates a strong emotional response in you. The films and plays and gigs and pictures which most evidently fail are the ones that leave you feeling little or nothing. All great (and even good) art is some form of emotional experience and sentimental journey (in the sense of relating to sentiment and feelings).

The other main reason for this drama’s stand-out success is story and narrative drive. By presenting the well-aired facts behind the sub-postmasters’ tragedy in story form with all the powerful dynamics of well-structured narrative they were elevated from the predominantly rational to a fully rounded expression with emotional depth and relatable feelings.

I designed and delivered a module on Storytelling for an MDes course (an MBA for designers and creatives) at Ravensbourne university/film school on the Greenwich Peninsula a few years ago. I used it to draw attention to the way the Left often relies on cogent statistics and well marshalled information to make their argument, where the Right simply deploys better stories and trumps them regardless. In this year of elections it is worth keeping in mind that politically it is a mistake to undervalue story and overrely on rationality, facts and figures.

It will be interesting to see whether ‘Breathtaking’ boosts the public’s anger at what was done in its name by Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and co. and if so, whether that anger can be channelled productively to improve our society and make any future response far better and more just.

Matt Hancock

‘Boris Johnson Steps up Plans to Tackle Coronavirus as Criticism Mounts‘

Tales of an Industry Stalwart

Article on Broadcast

Important Television

Mr Bates & Mr Jones (Alan Bates & Toby Jones) – ‘Mr Bates & The Post Office‘

The UK media have been full these last couple of weeks with stuff about ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ and it has been uplifting to see such an outstanding example of ‘important television’. Where a few dogged, committed journalists kept the embers smouldering – notably at Private Eye and Computer Weekly and, of course, Nick Wallis on his website through crowdfunding and on ‘Panorama’/BBC – the flame finally burst into public consciousness due to the ITV drama series, due to good old-fashioned TV.

Ray Brooks & Carol White – ‘Cathy Come Home’

It’s the latest – and perhaps greatest – in a tradition of Important Television drama in Britain. The poster boy is ‘Cathy Come Home’, the 1966 BBC drama about homelessness and descent into poverty, written by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. Loach shot the television play on 16mm film on location rather than in the studio making it look more like a current affairs programme than drama. His direction has actors Carol White and Ray Brooks come across very much as real people in real situations.

The impact of the programme was unprecedented. It boosted the launch of the homelessness charity Shelter that same year (1966) through its 12 million viewers on BBC1 (25% of the population). Another homelessness charity Crisis launched shortly after (1967) and then the housing/youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. In addition, it influenced government policy in the 1967 Housing Subsidies Act and then the 1969 Housing Act. As incorporated in the plot, the policy of splitting families – wives from husbands, parents from children – when people became homeless was ended.

Channel 4’s ‘Queer as Folk‘

At the other UK Public Service Broadcaster, my alma mater Channel 4, the programmes most in this heritage include Russell T. Davies’ ‘Queer as Folk’ (1999), set around Canal Street in Manchester, which significantly changed people’s attitudes in the UK to the gay community, and Peter Kosminsky’s ‘The Government Inspector’ (2005) which had a profound impact on how the Hutton Inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 and the death of weapons inspector David Kelly played out. Kosminsky (with whom I was on the BAFTA TV Committee, where his rigorous attention to detail was very evident) employed drama-documentary techniques to clarify complex matters for the public.   

Also the early years of ‘Brookside’, the soap set in Liverpool which started the day Channel 4 launched on 2^nd November 1982, had real impact on the national conversation, not least in the lesbian kiss between Anna Friel (Beth Jordache) and Nicola Stephenson (Margaret Clemence) in 1994. That iconic kiss was included in Danny Boyle’s brilliant 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, streamed live to 61 countries (including places where homosexuality is illegal), making it the first lesbian kiss many people around the world had ever seen on TV (or at all).

ITV, although established in 1955 to provide a commercial balance to the public service broadcasting of the BBC, still has PSB obligations which it delivers through a variety of genres including news, drama and sport, forming a vital part of the unique British PSB system. Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of ITV from 2016 to 2022, argued that the defining cultural purpose of PSB is original content “made by us, for us and about us” (“us” being the UK – UK talent and industry, UK audiences, and UK citizens). ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ is their greatest ever triumph in this realm, proving how drama and fiction can make the hugest possible impact on reality and fact, succeeding where other media and institutions fall short.

It is a very timely reminder – with the BBC under pressure and on the back foot regarding the licence fee (which could end as soon as 2027); with Channel 4 largely suspending commissioning; with Channel 5 equally under the cosh due to the TV advertising slump – that we really need to value and look after our broadcasters. By the time UK viewers realise what they’ve lost, it will be too late. TV still matters, is essential to our democracy and at its best is truly important.

Change, Chaos & Opportunity

“Probably the only thing one can really learn, the only technique to learn, is the capacity to be able to change.”

Philip Guston (1913-80)

These are the words of painter Philip Guston who operated mainly in L.A. and New York – he began his career as a figurative painter, very influenced by Picasso and the Surrealists; went on to embrace Abstract Expressionism in the 50s and 60s; then returned to figurative imagery but in a very different style (see below) for the remainder of his life. The themes that cut across these phases remained consistent: brutality, war and violence, sin and injustice, evil  and upheaval.

‘The Studio’ (1969) by Philip Guston :: Philip Guston photographed by Genevieve Hanson

If you live in or near London or can travel to Tate Modern, you can get to see a large solo show of his work until 25^th February – and it’s well worth the trip.

Picking up on the previous post about having the courage to try new things, the first work day of the year for many is a good moment to acknowledge the importance of innovation and change for growth, both personal and societal. On the day Channel 4 announced massive job cuts, after a year of commissioning very little, the disruption to the television industry since 2020 in particular, but with its roots still further back, bring to mind the words of that poster boy of the pithy quote, George Bernard Shaw:

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

I remember being in a meeting with the Chief Creative Officer of Channel 4 the best part of a decade ago and saying to her that the dog of television and the tail of digital would flip over sooner than she thought and quicker than she thought. In changing the Channel 4 app from being called All4 to Channel 4 last year the channel finally acknowledged the observation – the tail had become the dog. (But it might have been too late.)

Change, even in the form of destruction and disorder, is essential to development and growth. When edifices crumble, the gaps between the ruins offer spaces to be filled again. Whether anyone actually reads cover to cover The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a moot point, but ol’ Sun can give GBS a good run for his money on the quotations front:

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

2024 opens with chaos aplenty, so by extension opportunity aplenty…

 ‘Painting’ by Philip Guston (1956, Museum of Modern Art)

Formats Unpacked: Long Lost Family

A classic TV format analysed by Adam Gee for Formats Unpacked – the published article is here

What is it?

Long Lost Family (TV series) 

What’s the format?

A factual TV series, eleven seasons in, broadcast on ITV. It helps people find members of their family lost through adoption. I pick it for two reasons: every time I watch it dust gets in my eyes (ok then, yes, those are tears emerging from under my glasses) and every episode is basically the exact same story, just with a different skin.

Each episode interweaves two different tales of hunting down missing mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, siblings. Both story strands culminate in a long-anticipated reunion. Television shows and films should always be an emotional experience and this format never disappoints.

What’s the magic that makes it special?

Although the contributors and locations vary between episodes, the basic story is fundamentally identical every time – and it doesn’t matter at all. That’s because it’s the most basic story in humanity, often revolving around the most basic question: “Did my mother/father love me?” Week after week we see people whose whole life has been overshadowed by this question. Finding out the answer is all they need to obtain a peace that has eluded them their whole life. 

The most frequently occurring scenarios include teenage mums pressured to give up their babies, siblings separated in infancy, dads who took off.

The emotional wheels of the programme are oiled by Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, both consummate pro presenters and very sympathetic.

The programme follows the best practice procedures of social workers in terms of how they bring people back together once a connection has been uncovered. Initially, letters and photographs are exchanged. The presenters always escort the contributors just to the threshold of the IRL reunion, as if preserving the agency and privacy of those involved. Of course, it’s a piece of theatre, making the privileged insight afforded by the TV cameras at the moment of reuniting even more piquant. Often the Long Lost Family team discovers missing people after all conventional methods have failed, sometimes after a lifetime of searching, so the pay-off for the participants is worth a bit of voyeuristic intrusion. 

After some 150 tales of separation, why does the gift keep giving? It is as relatable a format as you could conceive – pretty much every one of us has a mother and father, present or absent. It follows a most fundamental human narrative, the quest story – set in motion when child and parent are separated, it reaches resolution when they are brought back together, the most emotionally satisfying of culminations. Of course the team never fail to find the missing family member and the found family member never says “Fuck off, I’m not interested.” So research and casting ensure the power of the story is optimised. 

There are occasional variations such as “Sorry, turns out your mum died five years ago” but they are always offset by some element of reuniting like “…but the good news is you have a whole new family of siblings”. These add spice but the format would work perfectly well without them.

The format is based on a Dutch one from 1990 – Spoorloss. The success of the British iteration has given rise to a US version on TLC, one of a handful of international versions. 

A reviewer of the original series in a UK broadsheet had this sharp insight: “I can’t imagine this continuing for more than a couple of series – it’s all a little one-trick: once you’ve got the hang of the tracking-down-strangers part, there’s only so much to be astonished about”. Eleven series in it is clear she missed the point – people don’t get bored of separation and belonging, love and loss, longing and forgiveness, guilt and secrets, searching and connecting. We all feel it.

Favourite Episode

I can’t pick out a favourite episode as they are all pretty much the same. And all equally moving. 

I do however have a fond Long Lost Family memory from June 2015 when I was attending Sheffield Documentary Festival. There was a lively session featuring McCall & Campbell and two elderly lady contributors. It turned out that the two old women were siblings separated in infancy who had spent their whole lives, unbeknownst to one another, just 16 miles apart in Yorkshire but had only been reunited in their seventies thanks to this brilliantly human format. 

Similar Formats

DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley on BBC2 is a chip off the old block but with more technical biological context.

Adam is a Commissioning Editor and Executive Producer at CAA. He was a long-time Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 and the first Com Ed of Originals at Little Dot Studios. Recently he has been working at Red Bull Media House and Ridley Scott Creative Group.

Nicky & Davina