Login to hear from award-winning filmmaker Sophie Robinson and Series Producer Seb Illis in conversation with Peter Leonard, NFTS Head of Directing and Producing Science and Natural History and former BBC Series Producer and Head of Development for BBC Science.
Sophie Robinson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her film Living Donor was part of the Netflix four-part series Surgeon’s Cut, awarded an Emmy, a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award. Her feature documentary, My Beautiful Broken Brain, was executive produced by David Lynch and nominated for an Emmy, as well as winning other documentary awards. She is also behind award-winning films such as BBC2’s Me, My Mouth and I, and the highly acclaimed Nicola Roberts and The Truth about Tanning, Your Life In Their Hands, Edge of Life, What's Killing Our Bees? and Do You See What I See? as well as a variety of programmes for the BBC’s flagship science strand, Horizon.
Seb Illis is Series Producer at production company Plimsoll. Prior to joining Plimsoll, Seb spent 18 years at the BBC as a highly successful Series Producer working both in production and commissioning. He’s worked on some of the BBC’s most popular shows including Louis Theroux and The RHS Chelsea Flower Show. His move to wildlife filmmaking came via a lengthy stint commissioning Natural History for The One Show. Seb was Series Producer on Plimsoll’s landmark, A Year on Planet Earth, ITV’s first blue-chip natural history commission for more than 20 years. Seb is also Executive Producer on another ITV series, John Bishop’s Great Whale Rescue. A keen writer and astro-photographer, Seb has contributed to several publications including BBC Wildlife Magazine and The Independent newspaper.
Peter Leonard is the NFTS Head of Directing and Producing Science and Natural History. Prior to the NFTS he worked as an editor, director, producer and series producer, working on a huge range of the BBC’s best-known programmes. For the BBC’s Horizon, he made films covering all manner of science from mental health to cosmology and what makes us laugh. Away from Horizon, he has made programmes about dinosaurs, engineering (with Jeremy Clarkson), astronomy (The Sky at Night) and the history of science (with Prof. Brian Cox). He was also Head of Development for BBC Science.
Login to hear Sophie, Seb and Peter in discussion about Science and Natural History filmmaking, the type of skills necessary to forge a successful career, and how the Directing and Producing Science and Natural History MA can help develop the skills needed to flourish in this area.
Questions or access requirements? Please email openday@nfts.co.uk
