Colin Savage worked for the BBC for 15 years as an award-winning journalist in factual programmes. As Development Executive and Executive Producer for BBC Current Affairs he supervised the creation of strands and programmes across BBC ONE, TWO, THREE and FOUR including Real Story; 4X4; Crime Squad; Hard Cash; Panorama specials: Midwives Undercover;Jill Dando’s Murder; Dog House; Britain’s Streets of Debt/Hate; Shopping the Supermarkets;Power to the People, The Conspiracy Files, Facing the Truth and Who killed Kelso Cochrane?.
Under Creative Director Alan Yentob, Colin acted as a BBC “creative black-belt” leading the BBC through Making it Happen and Creative Futures, and helping strands and series solve problems and innovate. He trained in valuation creation with the Stanford Research Institute International and has attended the Creative Problem Solving Institute. In 2007, he set up his own company making film and television and consulting with companies who want to release their creativity and leverage their assets. He has run successful training for, among others, Channel 4’s Diversity Training Programme, BBC News and BBC Childrens, ITV Factual, The Wellcome Trust, GSK, Estee Lauder, Christie's and the BBC’s Crosswise Multiplatform Project aimed at Assistant Producers across BBC Vision.
ED BLUM
Ed Blum is both a BAFTA nominated drama director and a critically-acclaimed documentary director / producer.
The first short comedy film he directed, The Last Post, was nominated for a BAFTA in 1996, Edward has since directed on the award-winning ITV drama series The Bill and has produced and directed numerous documentaries and drama documentaries including the BBC’s award series ‘Disaster’. Other credits for the BBC include Crimewatch, Watchdog and ‘SAS- Are You Tough Enough’. He produced and directed the first series of the ITV stand-up comedy show, ‘Take the Mike’ which helped launched the careers of several now famous comedians. He was series producer of Modern Obsessions, a series of documentaries commissioned to help launch E4. Subsequently he was invited back by the BBC for a short period as Deputy Editor of BBC News and Current Affairs Development.
Whilst learning his trade in television, Edward has successfully developed a number of screenplays. His first feature film, Scenes of a Sexual Nature, which he produced and directed, starred amongst others Ewan McGregor, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong. The film was nominated for a British Independent Film Award and has now been sold to twenty-three countries He is set to shoot his next feature The Laughter Clinic in New York later this year.
STEPHEN BARRETT
Stephen Barrett is a highly experienced journalist who spent over 8 years in the BBC’s News and Current Affairs department working his way up to Producer/Director. Having cut his teeth on the BBC’s highly influential Today Programme, his career as a journalist, writer and film maker has seen him work at the cutting edge of journalism, working on blue chip shows like Panorama and Dispatches, as well as the Guardian.
His credits include the BAFTA award winning BBC 1 drama Dirty War, the multi award winning foreign affairs strand Unreported World and more recently Dispatches, Gypsy Eviction, which received some of the highest ratings that the strand has ever received. Amongst his other credits are Conservation’s Dirty Secrets, Africa - Who is to Blame? 7/7 The Day the Bombs Came, Beyond The Colour Line.
Over the course of his career he has consistently written up original ideas for films and series that have been commissioned across a range of genres. An expert on a wide range of subjects, he has produced critically acclaimed films for some of the industry’s leading broadcasters; including the BBC, Channel 4, HBO, PBS and CBC.
IAN STONE
Ian Stone is ranked amongst the top 10 comedians in the UK by the Independent. He has performed six one-man shows in Edinburgh and headlined comedy festivals around the world. He’s a familiar voice on Fighting Talk on BBC Radio 5 Live for whom he also presented Christmas Up The Front, a show about performing for the troops in Afghanistan. He wrote and presented a ten-part series on BBC Radio 7 about his trip to perform stand up comedy in Moscow. He recently presented a number of episodes of The Comedy Club on BBC Radio 4 Extra. In April this year, he is to write and present a Radio 4 documentary about kid’s football. He was a commissioned writer on the Omid Djalili show on BBC1. On BBC Radio 2, he co-wrote and performed in “The Sharp End” a radio sitcom pilot with Alistair McGowan and Michelle Gomez.