Sherlock Scoops Three TV Craft BAFTAs

Tuesday, 15 May 2012 - Reported by John Bowman
baftaSteven Moffat has been honoured for his work at this year's BAFTA Television Craft Awards. He said he was "genuinely, utterly thrilled" to be presented with the Writer prize for the Sherlock episode A Scandal In Belgravia.

His wife, Sue Vertue, tweeted: "The Moff wins! Hurrah for my husband @steven_moffat who's just won a #Bafta for #Sherlock. Love him!"

In addition, A Scandal In Belgravia garnered TV Craft BAFTAs for Charlie Phillips for Editing: Fiction, and John Mooney, Jeremy Child, Howard Bargroff, and Doug Sinclair for Sound: Fiction. It is a repeat triumph for Phillips, who won the BAFTA TV Craft Award in the same category last year for the Sherlock Series 1 episode A Study In Pink.

The awards ceremony, held to recognise behind-the-scenes professionals in TV production, took place at The Old Brewery in London, and the other winners were as follows:
  • Costume Design - Charlotte Walter for Birdsong
  • Digital Creativity - Steph Harris, Dan Jones, Sandra Gorel, Adam Gee for Live From The Clinic
  • Director: Factual - David Clews for Educating Essex
  • Director: Fiction - Hugo Blick for The Shadow Line
  • Director: Multi-Camera - Phil Heyes for The X Factor Final
  • Editing: Factual - Editing Team for Frozen Planet (To The Ends Of The Earth)
  • Entertainment Craft Team - Paul Bussey, Nick Collier, Luke Halls, Annabel Raftery for The Cube
  • Make Up & Hair Design - Jacqueline Fowler for The Crimson Petal And The White
  • Original Music - Brian Eno for Top Boy
  • Photography: Factual - Camera Team for Frozen Planet (To The Ends Of The Earth)
  • Photography & Lighting: Fiction - Florian Hoffmeister for Great Expectations
  • Production Design - David Roger for Great Expectations
  • Sound: Factual - Tim Owens, Graham Wild, Kate Hopkins for Frozen Planet (To The Ends Of The Earth)
  • Visual Effects - BlueBolt for Great Expectations
  • Break-through Talent: Kwadjo Dajan (co-producer) for Appropriate Adult
  • Special Award: Colourist Aidan Farrell for outstanding creative contribution to the industry and his extensive work and accomplishments in this field.
(newslink: BBC News)





FILTER: - UK - Sherlock

Iconic Film Costumes To Go On Show

Thursday, 3 May 2012 - Reported by John Bowman
TravisBicklecostumeDorothyGalecostumeIconic film costumes spanning a century in cinema are to go on display in London later this year.

The exhibition Hollywood Costume will feature more than 100 clothes worn by such memorable characters as Dorothy Gale, as played by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, and Travis Bickle, portrayed by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, both pictured right.

Other outfits at the V&A exhibition will include those of Darth Vader and Indiana Jones, as well as Captain Jack Sparrow, Scarlett O’Hara, and Holly Golightly, while the 2002 film version of Spider-Man, whose costumes were designed by James Acheson, will also be featured.

The three-gallery display will be divided into sections (or Acts), namely Deconstruction, Dialogue, and Finale, starting in the Charlie Chaplin era and finishing with the cutting-edge design of today.

Deconstruction "puts us in the shoes of the costume designer and illuminates the process of designing a character from script to screen", while Dialogue "examines the key collaborative role of the costume designer within the creative team", and Finale "celebrates the most beloved characters in the history of Hollywood and the 'silver screen'".

The promotional material adds:

Costume designers are story-tellers, historians, social commentators, and anthropologists. Movies are about people, and costume design plays a pivotal role in bringing these people to life. Hollywood Costume illuminates the costume designer's process in the creation of character from script to screen, including the changing social and technological context in which they have worked over the last century.

Billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see film costumes that have previously never left their private and archival collections in California, the exhibition, which is being curated by Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis (who is married to the film director John Landis), Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, and Keith Lodwick, runs from 20th October 2012 to 27th January 2013.




FILTER: - Exhibitions - UK

Sherlock Is Named Best TV Drama

Tuesday, 1 May 2012 - Reported by John Bowman
Sherlock has added another gong to its collection after being named Best TV Drama at today's South Bank Sky Arts Awards.

The BBC One series was co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and in an interview, which can be seen by clicking on the BBC News link below, Moriarty actor Andrew Scott praises the writing - with a subsequent forthright show of gratitude by Gatiss for his comment! During the interview, Gatiss refers to his and Moffat's "love of Conan Doyle's genius".

The BBC's mockumentary series Twenty Twelve, which had been nominated for Best Comedy, lost out to Channel 4's Fresh Meat at the awards ceremony, which was held at The Dorchester in London.

The first series of Sherlock won last year's BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series, and Martin Freeman, who plays Dr Watson, won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. Series 1 also scooped the Arqiva award for Best Terrestrial Show at last year's Edinburgh International Television Festival, Charlie Phillips won the 2011 BAFTA Television Craft Award for Editing: Fiction, and the show has bagged five BAFTA Cymru honours.
(newslink: BBC News)







FILTER: - BBC - Twenty Twelve - Comedy - UK - Drama - Sherlock

Sherlock And Twenty Twelve In Line For Awards

Monday, 2 April 2012 - Reported by John Bowman
Sherlock is in the running for a gong at this year's South Bank Sky Arts Awards.

The BBC One show, co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, has been shortlisted for Best TV Drama, alongside This Is England '88 and Top Boy, both from Channel 4.

Meanwhile, "mockumentary" series Twenty Twelve, starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes, and Olivia Colman, with a narration by David Tennant, which has just started its second series on BBC Two, has been nominated for Best Comedy. It faces competition in the form of Fresh Meat (Channel 4) and Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC Two).

The awards ceremony will take place at The Dorchester in London on Tuesday 1st May, to be televised on Sky Arts 1 HD at 9pm. Melvyn Bragg - who fronted the 1977 BBC2 documentary Whose Doctor Who - will be the master of ceremonies. He said:
Although this is a celebration of British arts by British artists, we have a world-class list of nominees. The South Bank Sky Arts Awards are the only one of their kind in the world, and we very much look forward to a great day, where we'll recognise and honour the best talent in this country.
The awards take their name from The South Bank Show - an arts magazine series for ITV that Bragg presented and which ran for 32 series between 1978 and 2010. It is being revived by Sky Arts from Sunday 27th May.
(newslink: Sky Arts)




FILTER: - BBC - Twenty Twelve - Comedy - UK - Drama - Sherlock

Yes, Prime Minister To Return To TV After 24 Years

Thursday, 29 March 2012 - Reported by John Bowman
The hit political sitcom Yes, Prime Minister is to be revived for a new series - 24 years after its last TV episode.

The classic comedy channel Gold has commissioned six new episodes from the BBC - the satirical show's original home. It will be written by the TV series' original authors, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, who will be basing it on their theatrical production of two years ago.

Yes, Prime Minister, which ran for 16 episodes over two series between 1986 and 1988, was a sequel to the equally popular Yes, Minister and starred Paul Eddington as PM Jim Hacker, Nigel Hawthorne as his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, and Derek Fowlds - who was formerly married to Adrienne Corri - as his Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley. Both shows' opening title sequences were drawn by the artist Gerald Scarfe, who is married to Jane Asher.

The new episodes will be set in the present day and will see Hacker at the head of a coalition government, facing, says Gold:
the greatest economic crisis in a generation, with European economies going down the toilet, a tempting energy deal from an unusual source, a leadership crisis with his coalition partners, a Scottish independence referendum and the greatest moral dilemma he has ever faced.
Jane Rogerson, of Gold's parent company UKTV, said: "The political landscape in Britain today is the perfect setting for Yes, Prime Minister to return."

Mark Freeland, the head of BBC In-House Comedy, said: "The much-extended tour of Yes, Prime Minister in theatres up and down the country proved that this iconic comedy has lost none of its satirical bite."

Casting is yet to be announced. Eddington died in 1995 and Hawthorne in 2001.

It is Gold's first commission since it was announced last month that it would inject "double-digit millions" into creating original content over the next two years. As part of the overall investment by UKTV, sister channel Dave recently finished recording a new six-episode series of Red Dwarf, to be shown later this year.
(newslink: BBC News)




FILTER: - BBC - Red Dwarf - Comedy - UK - Yes Prime Minister

iPlayer and ITV Player coming to Sky Anytime+

Monday, 30 January 2012 - Reported by Harry Ward
Sky has announced that it is to add BBC iPlayer and ITV Player to its video on demand service Sky Anytime+. The addition will mean the content will be available to 5 million homes at no extra cost by Easter 2012.

Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s Chief Executive, comments:
We want customers to get the best out of their Sky subscription and Anytime+ is a great way to give them more control and choice over how they enjoy TV. We already know how popular Sky+ is and how it puts customers back in charge of their TV viewing. Anytime+ builds on that control and it’s no wonder we’ve seen such strong demand for it.

Sky Anytime+ will go from strength to strength in 2012 and we are delighted that the addition of the BBC iPlayer and ITV Player will allow customers to also enjoy the best of terrestrial TV, whenever they want. We’re also delighted to be able to widen access to the service so that millions more Sky customers can enjoy the added flexibility it offers.

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said:
Having the BBC and Sky work together to further build on the BBC iPlayer success story can only be fantastic news for audiences. Making BBC iPlayer available on all platforms is key to our commitment to universal access and this agreement takes us one step further towards that goal. I’m delighted to take this first step on a story of innovation for both organisations.




FILTER: - BBC - Sky - ITV - UK