Category Archives: Television

DNA CYMRU series gets underway

Blog, Producer, Television

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8pm St David’s Day our new series on the history of Wales begins with an introductory programme. The series examines the potential of ancestral DNA to contribute towards the understanding of the past.

I have been very struck, while working on it, by a dual theme that emerges: Continuity  and Change. Humanity values both of these. Continuity promotes stability, the mastering of skills, the memorialising of the past so that it can feed the future. Change calls out new skills to integrate with established ones and it means encountering people and attitudes that challenge conclusions drawn from hard-won experience.

The material in the series has made me consider the relationship between the body and what we use the body to do; between ‘the givens’ of our lives – our physical inheritance – and the choices we make about our lives – our culture and our approach to life. Continue reading DNA CYMRU series gets underway →

Academics and TV Documentary-making

Teacher, Teaching, Television

Cardiff University Graduate College:

Workshop Design and Delivery: Academics and TV Documentary-making  11th February 2015
 Feedback: from last year’s workshop:

  • Ø  Useful for anyone investing in the media side of research, also interesting just to see how research can be translated into TV
  • Ø  A really valuable workshop if you like to be engaged with media
  • Ø  A great opportunity to understand how academics can engage with TV documentary production
  • Ø  It teaches/introduces the basics of academic – TV partnership
  • Ø  Worth doing if you are interested in how your research can be used in TV
  • Ø  An excellent way to prepare yourself for making a documentary incorporating academic knowledge/sources

Expertise Exchange

Industry, PortfolioTelevision, Television

Initiator and Organiser:   24th October 2013

                                                                 a joint RTS / Cardiff University School of Journalism (JOMEC) event 
                                                                                                                                                                                   
Contributors:
  • Professor Justin Lewis and Llion Iwan, Content Commissioner, Factual and Sport, S4C
    Consumerism, the hidden driver behind all TV production?
  • Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Ashok Ahir, of Communications Agency, mela; former Head of Politics, BBC Cymru Wales
    Impartiality and representation of opinion on TV news
  • Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes, Broadcast Journalist, Ffeil & Newyddion 9, BBC Cymru
    What TV news provision does the younger teen audience want?
  • Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot, Series Editor, Wales This Week, ITV Wales
    Producing the ‘Mainstream’ in Wales
  • Professor Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington, Series Producer, Casualty, BBC Cymru Wales
    How can TV drama represent family experiences of long term ‘coma’?

 

Dr Cindy Carter, Llion Iwan, Dr Ross Garner, Erika Hossington, Prof Jenny Kitzinger,
Ashok Ahir
Prof Justin Lewis, Mike Talbot, Angela Graham, Huw Foulkes
An enjoyable and thought-provoking event resulting in 3 on-going partnerships:
Prof Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington: a potential new storyline involving coma next year for ‘Casualty’.
Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot: collaboration on producing tv in Wales for the mainstream.
Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes: collaboration on News for young teenagers.

“There are now plans to reflect adverts off the moon,” said Professor Justin Lewis as he argued that all television is ultimately driven by a  hidden consumerism. That was just one of the many insights gained as the Wales Centre paired academics with television professionals for one-to-one dialogue and debate at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen reported that the BBC is still trapped in a two major party world when it comes to political reporting, while Jenny Kitzinger told us that the portrayal of people in a coma in hospital drama is not only wrong but actually misleads the public. Other subjects discussed included news provision for the younger teen audience and an attempt to define what the ‘mainstream’ means within commercial British television.

Mike Talbot from ITV Wales said that cage fighting and cuts to council services were both current and mainstream, but that only one was really popular with audiences. So which programme offered true public service broadcasting? As the academics would say – discuss!   Tim Hartley

  Ashok Ahir during the discussion

The Story of Wales on iTunes U

Media, Online, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Producer, Television, Works

Producer, Specialist Content

44 mini-documentaries, Welsh and English –  Welsh history for schools 7 – 16 years; presenter, Huw Edwards.  A Green Bay Media Production for Welsh Government
View More from this Provider.  Interactive Timeline of Welsh History.

Available on iTunes in English and Welsh.

Slavery and Wales
Makhosi Rambakupetwa as Nathaniel Wells of Piercefield, Chepstow
Devolution in Wales
Huw Edwards and Crew, No. 10 Downing Street
Huw Edwards and Crew, No. 10 Downing Street

Expertise Exchange: Uniting Research and Practice for TV in Wales and beyond

Industry, Media, Organiser, Television, Works

Expertise Exchange: Uniting Research and Practice for TV in Wales and beyond is a joint RTS / Cardiff University School of Journalism (JOMEC) event.  See my blog post on the JOMEC website.

Contributors:

  • Professor Justin Lewis and Llion Iwan, Content Commissioner, Factual and Sport, S4C
    Consumerism, the hidden driver behind all TV production?
  • Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Ashok Ahir, of Communications Agency, mela; former Head of Politics, BBC Cymru Wales.  Impartiality and representation of opinion on TV news
  • Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes, Broadcast Journalist, Ffeil & Newyddion 9, BBC CymruWhat TV news provision does the younger teen audience want?
  • Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot, Series Editor, Wales This Week, ITV Wales
    Producing the ‘Mainstream’ in Wales
  • Professor Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington, Series Producer, Casualty, BBC Cymru Wales
    How can TV drama represent family experiences of long term ‘coma’?

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An enjoyable and thought-provoking event resulting in 3 on-going partnerships:

  • Prof Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington: a potential new storyline involving coma next year for ‘Casualty’.
  • Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot: collaboration on producing tv in Wales for the mainstream.
  • Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes: collaboration on News for young teenagers.

Continue reading Expertise Exchange: Uniting Research and Practice for TV in Wales and beyond →

The Story of Wales

Awards, Development Producer, Media, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Television, Works

Development Producer

The Story of Wales    BBC / The Open University
6 x 60-minute documentaries on the history of Wales, presented by Huw Edwards.
BBC 1 Wales  BBC 2 Network  2012 / 2013

Audience Appreciation Rating of 92: highest for any BBC programme on any BBC channel Jan ’11 to date, apart from Frozen Planet.
28% audience share

BAFTA Cymru Wales 2013

4 Nominations: Best Factual Series, Editing, Presenter, Original Music

new-maks-float-3872Best Presenter: Huw Edwards

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Huw Edwards, accepting the award for Best Presenter, said, “Opportunities to present a series like this come round for a presenter once in a lifetime. I was incredibly fortunate to be asked to do it. The biggest thanks of all is to Green Bay, a company with which I’ve worked for over ten years now, always setting  – under Phil George and John Geraint – the highest possible standards. Diolch arbennig iawn i gwmni Green Bay am eu gwaith trwyadl o’r safon uchaf posib.”

new-maks-float-3872Gwyn Alf Williams Award

“remarkable programmes”

Phil George and John Roberts receiving the award from Carwyn Jones (Photo: BAFTA Cymru / Huw John)
Phil George and John Roberts receiving the award from Carwyn Jones (Photo: BAFTA Cymru / Huw John)

First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, presenting the award, said the series was “an outstanding achievement, delivering Welsh history to a wide audience in an attractive, entertaining and accessible way.”  He quoted the specialist BAFTA jury as affirming that, “this series will, in its own right, become a lasting work of reference for future historians.”

Royal Television Society Programme Awards Nomination 2013

Celtic Media Festival Awards Nomination 2013

Huw Edwards
Huw Edwards