LONDON -- U.K. movie production banner Slate Films, founded by Andrea Calderwood and Vicki Patterson in 2000, is ramping up its small-screen activities in a bid to diversify after more than six years as a player in the film arena.
The duo are busying themselves with the new-look strategy, which includes a television production arm, Slate Television, and a Glasgow-based sister company with established producer Ros Borland, named Slate North.
Slate -- whose recent big-screen credits include the multiple award-winning "The Last King of Scotland" -- also is bedding down a relationship with Scottish animation company Ko Lik Film to develop kids' toon pilots for 4- to 7-year-olds.
Calderwood, a former BBC Scotland films and drama executive, knows just how important "the wee screen" can be.
She says the appeal of working in television is that there are many more opportunities to work with broad drama compared to film.
"It's a much better business. And British television producers get to keep their rights internationally more regularly," Calderwood says.
Calderwood, who also is vice chair of the feature film committee at trade body PACT, says that film remains a cottage industry in the U.K., with only a handful of producers able to survive as full-time movie producers.
Patterson, whose resume includes a spell at Good Machine in New York, thinks television allows producers to offer writers the opportunity to get their words on-screen more speedily.
"The division between film and television is much bigger in the U.S. than it is here," she says. "But here, working in television is a good opportunity to work with great writers and actually get their projects made."
The pair thinks that television helps focus producers' minds because going to commissioning editors with pitches means concentrating on material that everyone believes there is an audience for.
The duo are busying themselves with the new-look strategy, which includes a television production arm, Slate Television, and a Glasgow-based sister company with established producer Ros Borland, named Slate North.
Slate -- whose recent big-screen credits include the multiple award-winning "The Last King of Scotland" -- also is bedding down a relationship with Scottish animation company Ko Lik Film to develop kids' toon pilots for 4- to 7-year-olds.
Calderwood, a former BBC Scotland films and drama executive, knows just how important "the wee screen" can be.
She says the appeal of working in television is that there are many more opportunities to work with broad drama compared to film.
"It's a much better business. And British television producers get to keep their rights internationally more regularly," Calderwood says.
Calderwood, who also is vice chair of the feature film committee at trade body PACT, says that film remains a cottage industry in the U.K., with only a handful of producers able to survive as full-time movie producers.
Patterson, whose resume includes a spell at Good Machine in New York, thinks television allows producers to offer writers the opportunity to get their words on-screen more speedily.
"The division between film and television is much bigger in the U.S. than it is here," she says. "But here, working in television is a good opportunity to work with great writers and actually get their projects made."
The pair thinks that television helps focus producers' minds because going to commissioning editors with pitches means concentrating on material that everyone believes there is an audience for.
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