Wildlife TV specialists, Maramedia (Born to Be Wild, Hebrides–Islands on the Edge, Highlands-Scotland's Wild Heart) have received £118,500 to produce Stormborn (working title), a new three-part series exploring wildlife in the North Atlantic, to be broadcast on BBC Scotland. Stormborn will also be broadcast and distributed by Canadian-based Blue Ant Media. This award will enable Maramedia to continue their work to establish Scotland as a hub for natural history TV production and develop internationally renowned natural history talent.
Nigel Pope, Creative Director at Maramedia said,
“Stormborn brings together Blue Ant Media (a major player in the SVOD world through its Love Nature platforms) with BBC Scotland, Screen Scotland and Arte France in a really unique way. Its creative both in an editorial sense and as a new sort of financing model. The Broadcast Content Fund closed the final gap in the finance plan, so it was really important to us and I’m sure we’ll be working with the Screen Scotland team a lot in the future.”
Six independent Scottish production companies have received a total of £900,500 to create new TV content.
Happy Tramp North, Maramedia, Matchlight, Once Were Farmers, Pirate Productions and Very Nice are the first recipients of Screen Scotland’s £3million Broadcast Content Fund. The awards represent a range of new projects, enabling companies to elevate their creative and commercial ambition, through support of single project and slate development and production.
Isabel Davis, Executive Director at Screen Scotland said,
“Creating the right conditions for Scotland’s independent film and television producers and companies to grow is essential, if we are to help them achieve the recognition they deserve and drive their economic and creative success.
“We’ve been inspired by the quality and range of work coming to us for support, and encouraged that the fund is making a real difference: be it creating the opportunity for producers to acquire exciting intellectual property, increase the resources to develop content, or enable important Scottish stories of scale to get into production.”