Stacey Dooley: Stalkers

Type: Factual
Length: 2 x 47 minutes
Producer: ScreenDog Productions
Broadcaster: BBC3 (UK)

Orange Smarty’s relationship with Stacey Dooley spans more than 10 titles, but it had to move fast to secure the journalist and presenter’s latest investigative series for the BBC. Stalkers, produced by south coast indie ScreenDog Productions, was already a “hot property” before Orange Smarty boarded the series, according to founder and chief exec Karen Young.

In the two-parter, Dooley embeds herself with professionals – a Cheshire police unit specialising in stalking and a victim support organisation – to understand the criminal activity. She also spends time with the victims and perpetrators to uncover raw and stark details from those whose lives are consumed by stalking.

Episode one focuses on stalking by ex-partners, the most common type, with Dooley following stories involving victims and perpetrators. In episode two, Dooley covers stranger stalking, looking at how to stop stalking long term and exploring whether prison or therapy is the best method to prevent the crime.

Young says the doc goes beyond common perceptions of stalking, such as its association with celebrity. In talking to victims and culprits, the series informs viewers about the nuances of the crime, in particular the “type of people who become stalkers, and what led them to it”.

“With all Stacey’s programmes, she presents a balanced view without making any statements at the end of it, leaving the viewer to go away and mull it over,” Young says.

She adds that the doc’s balanced viewpoints are driven by the access ScreenDog secured with both the police and victim support units, and Dooley’s talent in executing engaging and informative investigative docs.

Stalkers, which was watched by 1.4 million when it aired on BBC1 in January, has already pre-sold to SBS in Australia and public broadcasters in the Nordics and Belgium, with Young citing Smarty’s prior work with Dooley as reasons for its solid start on the international market.

“We have a good knowledge of how Stacey’s programming sells, where it sells, and the value to broadcasters,” she says. “We’re bringing programming to market that fits broadcaster needs.”

Dooley’s presence is a selling point for “certain territories where her reputation is very strong”, such as Australia and the Nordics, but it is the universality of the subject matter that makes Stalkers something “most people can relate to in some way”, says Young. “There’s an intrigue. It resonates.”

Young believes the doc could sell as a standalone two-parter or form part of a “curated collection”.

“We’d pitch it as a collective to buyers, promoting the idea of a whole Stacey season, with our previous titles,” she says. “Talent is a key driver at the moment and taking talent and pushing them into another vehicle, such as Stacey has done with Glow Up and Sleeps Over, is something we’re going to see more and more.

“Online platforms are driven by talent, because it brings audience. The more you can utilise talent in different directions, the more opportunities you will create.”

Wonders Of The Celtic Deep

Type: Factual
Length: 4 x 60 minutes
Producer: One Tribe TV
Broadcaster: BBC1 Wales (UK)

‘It’s early stages, but we have a strategy in place: we’ll handle the SVoD, AVoD and Fast channels within that, but Mipcom is its moment to shine’

Factual specialist Orange Smarty has long been associated with thought-provoking social-impact docs including Bring Back The Bush: Where Did Our Pubic Hair Go?, true-crime series such as The Moment Of Proof and fact-ent returners like A Place In The Sun, but it also has a healthy collection of natural history series.

In Wonders Of The Celtic Deep, the distributor has picked up a landmark doc for both itself and commissioner BBC Cymru Wales. Described as the broadcaster’s “most ambitious natural history series to date”, the programme is the first in Wales to be shot in 4K.

The series dives into the natural wonders of the Welsh seas, exploring birds that can ‘fly’ underwater and some of the largest and smallest creatures of the ocean. As it unfolds, audiences will embark on an exciting journey of discovery from the shores and estuaries of Wales, into the bays and shallow waters of the wildlife ‘golden zone’ and finally into the marine superhighway of the sea.

One Tribe executive producer Dale Templar was part of the team behind the BBC’s Bafta- and Emmy-winning natural history series Human Planet.

Orange Smarty founder and chief executive Karen Young says the series resonated so much with her that the distributor fully deficit-financed the series. She says that the presence of

One Tribe, which has an existing relationship with the distributor, was also pivotal because natural history generally, and underwater natural history in particular, can be risky.

Young says there is a “market demand” for natural history, both for linear and VoD. SVoD and AVoD services are of specific interest because they are “not prescriptive in terms of genre” and want an “eclectic mix of content”.

“What’s also interesting about this project is that it’s a four-parter,” she adds. “The first three episodes explore the coastline and the sea, and the fourth is about sustainability.”

Orange Smarty has already fielded calls from buyers and Young expects broadcasters from France, Germany and the US to be interested. She adds that there is a bolt-on package for online platforms, which talks about the making of the film.

“It’s early stages, but we have a strategy in place: we’ll handle the SVoD, AVoD and Fast channels within that, but Mipcom is its moment to shine,” she concludes.

25 Siblings and Me

Type: Factual
Length: 1 x 60-minutes/1 x 90-minutes
Producer: Expectation Entertainment
Broadcaster: BBC3/BBC2 (UK)

Expectation’s one-off doc “felt right” for distributor Orange Smarty because it covered many different aspects of buyers’ current needs, but also “resonated” with the sales house, according to chief executive Karen Young.

The film, which aired at the back end of 2020 on BBC3 in the UK, tells the story of Oli, a 21-year-old man with Asperger’s, who was born to two mums and lives in London. Overnight, he discovers he has 25 siblings from the same American sperm donor dad. Desperate to be part of this new family, Oli travels to the USA, meeting his donor and joining a mass sibling reunion. 25 Siblings follows Oli as he struggles to navigate the fragile dynamics in this new type of family formation.

Although ostensibly a youth-skewing show, Young says the film is tailor-made for “co-viewing”.

“This fits into the category of a cross-generational piece of content,” she says. “People will view it in different ways It’s about ethics, disability, family, self-discovery. It’s about the ethics of sperm donation, but Oli also has Asperger’s, so it’s about unravelling his story. With Asperger’s relationships can be really tricky and now he has to navigate these various different relationships, as he goes on his journey to meet all his siblings.”

25 Siblings has already sold to Denmark, Australia and Belgium, but a US buyer is likely given the setting for Oli’s journey. Young acknowledges that English-speaking territories and those where there is more awareness and understanding of Asperger’s will be more interested in the film.

However, a key advantage for the doc is that “it doesn’t date”, which makes it a handy title for broadcasters still battling production uncertainties during the ongoing pandemic.

“It’s something you can still repeat and that’s really important for channels,” Young adds. “As we see in our home territories, channels need to repeat product because they may not have the investment for new content or, when productions stop, they need product they can put out there. It’s important that content is repeatable and has a shelf-life.”

This is Our Family

Type: Factual
Length: 4 x 60-minutes
Producer: Little Gem Media
Broadcaster: Sky Atlantic (UK)

When Sky Vision was subsumed into NBC Universal Global Distribution last year, it was expected some producers would look to reclaim their content or risk it being lost in the US studio’s giant catalogue.

Little Gem took this approach with This is Our Family, a documentary series uniquely shot over a three-year period. NBCU decided to let the series go, allowing Orange Smarty to jump in and acquire international sales rights.

Orange Smarty is now keenly pitching the title to broadcasters and channel groups with human interest and socially themed slots in their schedules.

Central to the sell is the drawn-out shoot of each of the intimate, hour-long films, resulting in ‘Boyhood meets Modern Family’-style stories of British families.

These include the Borgs, who prepare for a wedding while dealing with issues of bereavement and blended family dynamics; the Hoyles, whose daughter has a complex form of epilepsy; the Miles, whose extravert matriarch grandmother is living with dementia; and the Nailors, whose story involves the father, who has spent many years in jail for various crimes, attempting to help his son have an easier transition into manhood than his own.

“Interestingly, this doesn’t have to sell as a series,” says Young. “Each story is an individual story so can sell film by film.”

This opens different episodes up to different channels – science-themed networks might consider the episodes with medical issues at their cores, for example.

“This is a simple concept with sensitive execution and engaging characters,” Young adds. “It’s not sensationalist, but real television. Family is very interesting for a lot of people right now and the fact it was shot over three years is very unusual in this climate.”

As an English-language show, Karen Young expects it to “naturally skew” to territories such as the US, Australasia, Benelux, and Scandinavia and the wider Nordics.