Simon Vaughan and Helen Jackson exit A Thousand Blows indie as Damian Keogh joins US giant to co-lead international scripted unit

Fifth Season has taken full ownership of A Thousand Blows indie The Story Collective (TSC), resulting in a restructuring of its senior leadership.

The US producer-distributor took a minority stake in the indie when it launched in 2021 and has now wholly acquired it as part of its international expansion strategy.

TSC chief executive Damian Keogh will join Fifth Season as senior vice-president, managing director, international scripted, working in a strategic capacity across a range of international projects from Fifth Season’s TV studio and distribution divisions.

Simon Vaughan, Damian Keogh and Helen Jackson

Simon Vaughan, Damian Keogh and Helen Jackson set up The Story Collective in 2021 wtih backing from Fifth Season (fka Endeavor Content)

As part of the sale, TSC’s co-founders Simon Vaughan and Helen Jackson will step down. TSC will continue to operate as a standalone label under Fifth Season, retaining its existing staff and development slate.

Co-chair Vaughan is exiting to set up scripted outfit Storyworks, which will produce high-profile projects from London and LA. Storyworks will have a first-look deal with Fifth Season and work alongside The Story Collective on certain pre-existing projects.

Following the acquisition, UK creative director Ben Irving will remain the lead on Fifth Season’s development and production slate, now as senior vice-president, creative director, international scripted, working closely with Keogh on building TSC’s UK and global production activities. The pair will report to Fifth Season chief exec Graham Taylor.

Keogh said the move was a “natural next step” for TSC.

Ben Irving Headshot 2022

Ben Irving

“We set the company up to partner with great creative talent and producers wholeheartedly and with a patient, nurturing, and supportive ethos. We really believe in the team sport of it all and are proud of the roster of people and projects we have assembled in our Collective,” he added.

He and Irving will work with a consolidated senior leadership team, which includes TSC’s managing director Elouise West, chief financial officer Natasha Neill and Fifth Season’s senior vice-president of physical production Charlotte Bloxham. This team will work across both slates, leading on business affairs, finance and production, respectively, from Fifth Season’s London office.

Keogh, Vaughan and Jackson set up TSC alongside non-executive director and Houlihan Lokey Jonathan Norman and has invested in various labels in its five years of operation, which include Tom Davis’s and James de Frond’s Mighty Pebble Productions and Ben Donald’s Cosmopolitan Pictures.

TSC’s forthcoming projects, spanning Apple TV, BBC, Sky, Netflix and Channel 4, will now sit under Fifth Season’s UK studio arm.

Vaughan said: “It is exciting to see The Story Collective being consolidated within Fifth Season to help deliver the scaled enterprise we all set out to build together when we formed the company four years ago.

“And also exciting for my new venture to be partnering with Fifth Season from the off – the projects on our combined slates going forward are truly extraordinary and I sense that the best is yet to come.”

Taylor said, “The Story Collective was built by Damian, Simon and Helen on an ethos of creative collaboration, which we backed and have admired from its inception – and it feels like a natural evolution to be consolidating in this way four years later, as we double down on our ambitions as a UK studio.

“Fifth Season’s offering now has even greater firepower, and an undeniable nexus of talent connections and projects to put our weight behind.”

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