{"id":20475,"date":"2023-11-29T08:50:01","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T13:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T09:38:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T14:38:36","slug":"lion-tvs-richard-bradley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/lion-tvs-richard-bradley\/","title":{"rendered":"Lion TV\u2019s Richard Bradley"},"content":{"rendered":"

An All3Media company, Lion TV has established a global reputation for creating innovative, entertaining and thought-provoking television in partnerships with broadcasters and streamers such as Netflix, National Geographic, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV, Sky, ARTE, ZDF, Discovery and more. Richard Bradley, Lion\u2019s co-founder and chief creative officer, tells\u00a0TV Real\u00a0<\/em>about new premium factual projects.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0What type of projects does Lion TV want to offer in the premium factual space?
\nBRADLEY:<\/strong>\u00a0One of the things that we are enjoying is how to take what in the past was called specialist factual and reinvent the storytelling in that world, so it doesn\u2019t feel so top-down. We\u2019ve always been interested in the grammar of how you tell these stories. We\u2019ve had some success. We did a big Netflix project,\u00a0Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb<\/em>. That was an archaeology project, but we wanted it to feel like a cinematic experience, to give the audience the sense that they were at a ringside seat as something was being discovered, and in that case, 2,500 years coming out of the ground. We also felt it was fresh because that was a team of entirely Egyptian archaeologists telling their story without a host or presenter. They were taking ownership of their story. And that, we felt, gave it a real authenticity. But we also felt that it changed the way we can tell those sorts of stories.<\/p>\n

Following that, we\u2019ve been doing a number of archaeology and history projects in the same way, and we think it\u2019s an exciting way to do it. You\u2019re telling these stories as unfolding narratives. You are taking the audience with you, and it feels much more immersive and exciting. People used to think those stories could be dry and dusty. So bringing that drama back to those sorts of stories is something we\u2019re really excited about.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0Are you using the same approach for your program about Pompeii?
\nBRADLEY:\u00a0<\/strong>[Yes], we\u2019ve worked in Pompeii over many years and learned that they were doing the biggest dig in a generation. They\u2019re doing it because parts of the streets were crumbling and needed restoring. They\u2019re trying to tidy up a part, so they are excavating an entire block of Pompeii. Pompeii\u2019s got a grid structure, a bit like New York. They call it insula, which is an island, and they\u2019re excavating an insula. So when we heard this was happening, we thought, how exciting! Through our team, we managed to get access to the wonderful Elena Mortelliti and Marco Gangarossa. They are a terrific team. They worked with us on a project called\u00a0Saving Venice<\/em>, which won an award in the States. They secured the access. We\u2019ve been in Pompeii for the last nine months and will be there for a few more months. It\u2019s really exciting, and the heart of it is the Italian archaeologists. Again, you wouldn\u2019t think this, but it\u2019s very rare for them in international television to be at the heart of their own story. The archaeologists live locally\u2014one in Naples and one nearby. It\u2019s always been their dream to dig in Pompeii. They\u2019re amazing characters, and the show is for the BBC and ARTE, and All3Media International is currently talking to potential American partners. It\u2019s over three hours, and it\u2019s an amazing unfolding story.<\/p>\n

We had no idea what we were going to find. Within about two weeks, we had uncovered three skeletons, which they initially thought were a man, a woman and a little child. Now, they think it\u2019s two women and a child who took refuge early on during the eruption and were probably crushed to death in a bakery. They found this amazing bakery, which is next door to a laundry. So you get a sense of daily life. What\u2019s really interesting are the piles and piles of tiles. They are roof tiles. Workmen were reroofing this place, and suddenly, the eruption happened, and they all scattered. They found their tools; they were interrupted mid-job. Then, of course, they also discovered the fresco of a pizza.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0The pizza fresco, yes!
\nBRADLEY:<\/strong>\u00a0Whether it is a pizza or not, it looks like it\u2019s a thin focaccia bread with lots of fruit on it. But that\u2019s the very exciting thing about digging and excavating somewhere like Pompeii. You\u2019ve got the background human tragedy of what happened, but you\u2019ve also got an amazing window into how they lived; everything from a burnt bed\u2014they think somebody probably knocked over a lamp in the hurry and the bed burned\u2014to frescoes, to the plumbing and their water pipes that look like something you buy at your local hardware store.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0What other projects are you working on?
\nBRADLEY:\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019re doing a project in Mosul, Iraq. Archaeologists are putting back together some of the pieces that were destroyed by ISIS. But in the process, they\u2019ve discovered a network of tunnels underneath [used] to smuggle out treasures. In the process, they uncovered the foundations of an incredible palace. That\u2019s another really exciting project. We\u2019re working on other projects with Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ in the archaeology space.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s an appetite by the global audience for some of these stories, but told in a way that feels fresh and different.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also doing a project [exploring the] Caribbean with Liz Bonnin. It\u2019s not blue-chip natural history, but it\u2019s about putting people and natural history together and thinking about how we interact with our environments and precious ecosystems. There is amazing stuff happening in blue-chip, high-end natural history where you just see the animal behavior. But it struck us that, actually, that\u2019s not the way a lot of us encounter [nature]. There\u2019s a whole world where people are working to either conserve or engage with their environment. It\u2019s a four-part series for BBC Two. Liz has Trinidadian heritage, and she meets some of the local heroes, the islanders who are engaged with preserving some white-fronted capuchin monkeys or with a group of islanders who are farming reef coral. I didn\u2019t even know this was possible, but they\u2019re breaking off pieces of coral and reseeding the coral beds that have been damaged to generate new coral reefs. It\u2019s an inspiring series about what you can do. The Caribbean is a really important ecosystem but actually one that\u2019s very fragile. There\u2019s so much pressure on it from tourism. But this is a wonderful, inspiring series about how people are doing what they can to preserve and support their environments. And again, we\u2019re thinking about not doing the standard specialist factual but with different storytelling.<\/p>\n

We are continuing to do projects like\u00a0Inside the Tower of London<\/em>, taking a historical institution but looking at it as a living institution. We\u2019re doing another series of that for Channel 5.<\/p>\n

And then we\u2019re returning to the fray with Mary Beard. I can\u2019t tell you that much, but I can tell you we are working with her again on a big Roman project. We\u2019re taking her back to Italy. She\u2019s just published a new book on the emperors, and we\u2019re taking some of the content from that, and it\u2019s really exciting.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0What is it like working with Mary? On-screen, she is the essence of enthusiasm and knowledge, but she doesn\u2019t talk down to viewers; she connects with us.
\nBRADLEY:\u00a0<\/strong>I can say Mary is one of the greatest people to work with that one can imagine. She will always know more than you do. So she will always be the fount of knowledge. But she wants to communicate her knowledge to a broad audience in a way that doesn\u2019t patronize or dumb down. She finds smart ways to convey her knowledge and passion for the ancient world and what it can tell us about ourselves. And she does it unlike anybody else. She\u2019s got an ability to be conversational and talk about complex stuff in a language that you understand.<\/p>\n

She makes you feel smarter. She is also really good at tapping into the inner historian in you. She asks, How do we know that? Why might they have done that? What might it have been like to have come face to face with an emperor? She\u2019s very good at asking the questions you might ask and getting you to think broadly about the past. What I really admire now, seeing her in action as a lecturer as well, is that she\u2019s got an amazing ability to communicate with young people and people of all ages, actually.<\/p>\n

Going around Italy with her is a bit like going around with a rock star! She\u2019s a warm person. It\u2019s her life\u2019s work. She\u2019s the most complete feminist I\u2019ve ever met. She\u2019s spent a lifetime working in very male-dominated environments, so she\u2019s also always asking, What would it be like to be a woman here? I remember when we were in a tenement in Rome, and I was imagining what it must have been like to be a worker from the docks because this is where a lot of them lived. And she said, Yeah, that must be bad. But imagine what it must have been like for a woman. Imagine what it might be like to be pregnant and expecting a baby here. She\u2019s always getting you to think about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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