We are very happy to be sponsoring The Grierson Awards this year and the shortlist has been announced!
It’s been an incredible year for Factions editors and we are very happy to see so many projects that have been shortlisted that our Editors have worked. It really has been a bumper year- well done to all!
Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World / BBC – Episode 1 and 2- Paul Holland
Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 – You Can’t Stop a Riot in the 90s / Netflix – Chris Duveen. Assistant Editor Bahader Mattu
Catching My Rapist is an intimate and powerful feature documentary edited by Tanya Trochoulias. Viewers are taken on a five-year journey highlighting a woman’s remarkable determination to seek justice against the man who raped her. The film follows ‘Sam’, with complete access to her story from revealing her rape, through 18 months in a safe house and botched police investigations, to her discovery of other victims and crucial evidence.
It exposes the wider impact of the accused individual’s actions, revealing the shocking extent of assaults and rapes committed against vulnerable women who sought employment within his agency. The documentary uncovers the mishandling of police investigations and through heart-wrenching interviews and compelling testimonies, it sheds light on the systemic issues and power dynamics that allowed such abuse to persist.
Tanya who edited this emotional documentary said that “While this is a harrowing subject, it was a privilege to tell Sam’s story. She is a true fighter and an inspiration.”
Catching My Rapist will be broadcast on the 17th July on ITV at 10:45 PM. It will also be available on ITVX
Produced by Passion Pictures for BBC Two and PBS, this current affairs documentary delves into the thick of the recent protests and demonstrations in Iran, following the death of a young Iranian woman whilst in police custody. Using gripping footage shot by the citizens on the front lines of these ongoing protests, the doc gives an unprecedented and shocking insight into the political and social situation in Iran, exposing the current regime’s extreme response to the most serious challenge they have faced since the revolution in 1979 and revealing the brutal cruelty they’re displaying to try and control both their people and any journalists from around the world documenting the protests.
Nick Follows was brought in towards the end of the project to help cut stories alongside the main editor Reva Childs. Nick is an experienced editor used to dealing with disturbing footage, but shared that he found the material very dramatic and distressing however he really enjoyed working with the very talented Reva.
Inside the Iranian Uprising will be streaming on PBS and airing on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.
This year marked 30 years of the Sheffield Documentary Festival and wow it was a great one! It was lovely to be back in the wonderful city of Sheffield and the event proved to be an unforgettable experience as always, offering a blend of thought-provoking documentaries and insightful panel discussions.
Katie enjoyed the talk by David Harewood, a renowned actor and documentary filmmaker known for his captivating storytelling. He talked about his career and openly talked about his experience making ‘Psychosis and Me’ which was edited by Charlie Hawryliw. He discussed the role of documentaries in engaging audiences and driving social change.
In between sampling the different Sheffield cafes, Sophie attended ‘Meet the Commissioners: Broadcasters’ session. They talked about the current climate in the industry. Sophie happily reported back that they explained that 2024/2025 are busy as usual with lots of new commissions (phew)! We also learned that audience’s are still loving True Crime documentaries so that’s still a favourite genre with commissioners.
One of our top pics was Raw’s ‘The Deepest Breath’ directed by Laura McGann. The heart of the documentary centres around freediving, a practice that involves diving to great depths on a single breath. While it showcases the remarkable achievements of free divers, it also delves into their personal motivations, fears, and the emotional journey they undergo in pursuit of their passion. It’s visually stunning and emotionally gripping, anticipation builds and it has a real lasting impact. We have been talking about it ever since! It will be coming to Netflix soon.
Another favourite was The Gullspång Miracle directed by Maria Fredriksson. A divine premonition leads two sisters to buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång. To their surprise, the seller looks identical to their older sister who died by suicide 30 years earlier. There is some comically awkward situations as the director uncovers a bizarre family story.
We also bumped into Ella Newton who always enjoys coming to Sheffield and recommended two of the films that she watched, Otto Baxter: Not a F*cking Horror Story and White Nanny, Black Child.
Attending the Sheffield Documentary Festival is always informative and useful and of course a lot of fun! We’re already looking forward to next year ☺
Exec Producers: Paul Martin and James Gay-Rees Box to Box for Netflix
Tour De France Unchained is a brand new high-adrenaline and highly-anticipated series, produced by Box to Box Films, the makers of F1: Drive to Survive. It follows eight teams at the 2022 Tour de France, with exclusive behind-the-scenes access. We will discover how the Tour de France represents the ultimate challenge for competing cyclists; with the athletes pushing themselves to their limits.
Charlie Webb who edited one episode of this new series said “ The show is a great insight into the world of professional cycling and the tour itself. One of the things the series does well is to show what the event means to France. The biggest challenge I faced was cutting different languages . Our episode was probably about 85% French so we had to use translators for a lot of it to help edit the interviews and scenes”.
Abraham Teweldebrhan who edited episode three also said a big challenge was the language barrier. The rushes hadn’t been translated so it was a case of working with a translator within the edit. He expressed that “It was interesting to edit with the French language as it flows differently to the English language so I was learning how to work with it”. He also said “ It was fun to edit the drama and create the story, the team were happy with what was made”.
Jayesh said it was ‘A fantastic emotional rollercoaster series to work on! It was particularly interesting to refine the rivalry between teammates Mathieu Van Der Poel and Jasper Philipsen against the backdrop of another challenging stage of the tour.’
It looks like the series is going to be full of drama! Be prepared for crashes, sprints, tears and team cars in the way of the race! Tour De France Unchained will be streaming from 8th June 2023
The Broadcast Digital Awards celebrates the most creative and innovative digital content from across the UK. The Shortlist has just been announced.
Congratulations to all the nominees. It’s fantastic to see lots of projects that our wonderful clients have made and our talented editors have worked on have been nominated.
Huggy and Rich Lester worked on The Royal Mob for Nutopia which has been nominated in the ‘Gamechanger Programme of the Year’ category.
Franco Bogino spent 6 months edited Scouting for Girls: Fashion’s Darkest Secret for Wonderhood Studios which has been nominated in the ‘Best Documentary Programme’ category.
Entertainment guru, Tim Fielding, worked on The Masked Singer which has been nominated in the ‘Best Digital Support for a Programme’ category.
Worlds Most Dangerous Road for Renegade Pictures has been nominated in the ‘ Best Popular Factual Programme’ category and had editors Andreas Torner and Dan Wilkes working on it.
Ian Smith and Mike Kerr worked on Married at First Sight for CPL productions which has been nominated in the ‘Best Popular Factual Programme’ category.
The Evolution of Black British Music is up for yet another award, produced by Fan Studios and has been nominated for ‘Best Specialist Factual Programme’, edited by Sam Thompsett, who is still basking from the glory of the RTS Awards!
Paul Holland edited Mother Teresa: For the Love of God for Minnow Films which has been nominated in the ‘Best Documentary’ Category.
Tom Savage worked on Glow Up: Britain’s Next Make-Up Star which has been nominated in the ‘Best Content Partnership’ category.
Congratulations to our editors and clients for their well deserved recognition! The winners will be revealed at our live awards ceremony on 5th July.
James May is back with series two of his culinary series James May Oh Cook!
Series 2 sees motoring enthusiast, world traveller, and novice home cook James May continue on his journey from “kitchen klutz to capable cook”. Known for his witty humour and distinctive style, May aims to teach viewers how to make the world’s most mouth-watering dishes, using ingredients you can buy from your local shop.
Roy Williams has worked on many James series and edited the first series of Oh Cook back in 2020 during the dreaded pandemic. Roy has some interesting insights into the edit “With the first series being edited right at the start of lockdown, it enabled us to develop workflows that then worked well across the 2nd series which made remote working easier altogether”.
Simon Mackenzie edited the Vegan episode which was full of drama. Simon told us that thanks to the multicamera fixed rig set up and the amazing team at Plum grouping the shots, the edit was straightforward from a technical point of view. The main challenge on this episode was to pick out the best story bits as there were so many! Simon divulged: ‘My episode was full of fun moments in which the audience gets to peek behind the scenes as, quite accidentally, James smoked out the whole place which precipitated a series of events from the fire alarm being set off to the Executive from Amazon nearly choking on the smoke from the chillies and having to leave the set.’ Who knew Vegan cuisine could be so adventurous…
Get your aprons at the ready! The second season of Oh Cook! will premiere on May 24th May on Amazon Prime.
Produced by Raw, this original true-crime anthology series tells the shocking, real stories of the consequences that come with great wealth in the sports world. Catch the trailer HERE.
Rich and Shameless returns for a second season, using a combination of powerful interviews and unique archive, to go behind the public façade and reveal the dangers of great prosperity. Subjects include Dennis Rodman’s stolen millions, Hulk Hogan’s leaked sex tape, a Patriots line-backer caught in a deadly love triangle and the murder of NBA star Lorenzen Wright.
Three of the faction’s editors were working on this series, Rob Trela cut episode 4 – A Deadly Football Hit recounting the gripping true story of Eric Naposli, the former NFL line-backer for the Patriots, who got caught up in a bizarre love triangle and is now serving life in prison for murder.
Charlie Webb worked on Episode 7, Murder, Fight-Fixing and the White Don King. Charlie loved the team he was working with on this series and was excited to get started as the stories were strong, each with their own voice and unique style. When we spoke to Charlie he enthused; ‘it was one of the greatest stories I’ve ever worked on! It was straight out of a Hollywood movie, with many twists and turns, keeping the audience on the edge of their seat throughout. Fascinating!’
Phil Bowman was director and editor of the ‘Dirty Moneyball’ episode and dug into the project to find a creative way to fill the gaps between archive and interviews to engage the audience in the story. Phil said; ‘the biggest challenge in pre-production was figuring out how to visualise a story that takes place on quite a large scale, with multiple characters and locations. A drama recon shoot was out of the question. So I reached out to award-winning miniatures artist Clemens Wirth over in Austria, and enrolled him to help bring the epic story to life, using 2cm tall plastic figures and some cardboard 😉 Clemens is a true artist, and he did an amazing job. Due to the scale we were working at we were able to put anything on screen from crane shots over baseball stadiums and police shootouts at an airport. The miniatures work took 3 months from start to finish. 1 month of prep and 2 months of shooting which took place alongside the documentary shoot in Miami and the edit back in London.’
The next Ep, Ep2 “Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker” Premieres Wednesday 17th May on TNT.
Kevin McCloud is back for Series 3 of Grand Designs: The Streets. He follows more innovative community projects across the UK and revisits the self-builds in Graven Hill and Glasgow with co-presenter Natasha Huq.
In this series, two families from Yorkshire attempt to build a new street. Nicola is designing and project-managing a traditional redbrick family home with a modern twist, unfortunately her triangular window, the centrepiece of her vision, does not fit upon arrival! Down the street Matt and Maryellen are building a Brazilian-inspired home. Steelworker Matt is keen to showcase his work but Maryellen fears it will make the building feel industrial.
Steve Flattloved working on the show with Series Producer Ned Williams. It was a challenge cutting it in regards to the huge amount of footage they had to go through and jumping between various episodes whilst waiting for rushes. Steve cut episodes 1 to 4.
Grand Designs: The Streets Series 3 starts Tuesday 16th May 9pm on Channel 4
Get your fancy dress ready, yes it’s here, watched by over 160 million across the globe- it’s the Eurovision!
Digital postcards have been designed to introduce the audience to each participating act during the semi-finale and finale of the contest, the famous Eurovision Postcards will this year use pioneering drone technology and 360-degree cameras to take viewers seamlessly between locations across Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and each participating country.
Dom Lester has been working tirelessly with Windfall since February to edit these iconic postcards and has thoroughly enjoyed himself! He comments: Windfall did an amazing job on a hotly anticipated event with a huge amount of expectation. It was so busy that at times it felt like I was working in a news room – hearing the crews coming and going, discussing the different locations and challenges they each would bring.
This project was given the green light in December 2022 and had to be delivered by March 2023. The concept required filming in 111 locations, from Iceland to Australia, and of course filming in a war zone in Ukraine, and all requiring specialist crews.
Each postcard had 4 external 360 footage graphic elements plus text elements generated in unison with other partners involved in creating the show. It was amazing to be apart of such a great team on such an amazing project.
Obviously Satu was very worried about which editor was in charge of Finland, but it was in the safe hands of Rich Lester. He reports: It was great to discover and work with so many beautiful locations, artists and themes, with a wonderful team. I feel the tiny worlds and flip transitions add a unique dimension to the postcards and help unite the Ukraine, UK and host countries together in an interesting way. The talent were all taking part in different activities, which was also fun to craft into short stories.
The Semi-Finals have been on all week and the final is on this Saturday, Satu will be wearing her traditional Finnish costume for the big event – The Finns have not disappointed with their entry for this year…
Congratulations to the 2024 Shortlist! We are proud to see lots of familiar names and projects in the shortlist. Congratulations to the 2024 Shortlist! We are proud to see lots of familiar names and projects in the shortlist. – Lockerbie: Mindhouse Productions for Sky Documentaries & NOW… Read More
Director: Sam Collins Exec Producers: David Gardner, Kerstin Emhoff, Nicola Howson & Scott Melvin Ventureland, Studio 99 and Buzz16 for Amazon Prime Lead Editor: Graham Taylor This compelling documentary tells the remarkable story of Manchester United’s unprecedented triumph in 1999, when the team made football history by clinching the… Read More
Editor: Charlie Hawryliw Exec Producer: Colin Barr. Expectation for Channel 4 Monday 29th April on Channel 4 Miriam: Death of a Reality Star is a hard-hitting documentary about Miriam Rivera, recognised as the world’s first transgender reality TV star. The documentary series chronicles the Mexican model’s groundbreaking… Read More
Photo: BAFTA. We’re bursting with excitement and pride here at Satusfaction as some familiar faces have worked their magic on shows that are making waves in the 2024 BAFTA Craft nominations! Let’s dive right into the lineup: Celebrity Race Across the World ( Studio Lambert / BBC One) has… Read More
Exciting news! The 2024 Grierson Awards are now open for entries and hold onto your popcorn, Satusfaction, are absolutely thrilled to announce that we’re teaming up with the legendary 2024 Grierson Awards as a proud sponsor! For all you documentary buffs out there, you know the Grierson Awards… Read More
