16 June 2008 Independent Production Company Of The Year award We are thrilled to report that Screenhouse has just won this award at the Royal Television Society awards held in Leeds. Bob Bradley also won the award for best music for his work on our 'Cosmos' series, and we were shortlisted along with three very strong films from other companies in the 'Best Network Programme' category. 6 February 2008 New Researcher Course launched Screenhouse Training has launched a new course, Factual TV Research, run by award-winning Susan Walls. The first one was very successful and a complete sell-out, and resulted in great comments from those who attended. We now have new dates for this course - details in our training pages. 6 December 2007 Hidden Children wins Cine Golden Eagle Our film Timewatch: Hidden Children has won a Cine Golden Eagle award in Washington DC. The award, in the history section, was the only one to a company outside North America. Well done to the production team. 6 September 2007 Hidden Children shortlisted for top prize Our film Timewatch: Hidden Children has been shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Europa. The awards take place in Berlin in October. Congratulations to Jon Hacker and the production team. 7 August 2007 The Cosmos: A Beginner's Guide Our series tackling some of the big questions about the universe starts its run on BBC2 at 7.30 tonight. Hosted by Adam Hart-Davis, with Dr Maggie Aderin and Dr Janet Sumner, the six programmes come from some of the world's greatest science locations, including the world's biggest telescope high in Chile's Atacama desert. The six programmes are about life in the universe, how the universe was built, what's the furthest we can see, where we should explore, the violent universe, and whether there could be another 'earth' around a distant star. This is a commission for the Open University. There is a BBC Book, written by Adam Hart-Davis and executive producer Paul Bader. For more details on this exciting series, including photos, see our page about The Cosmos: A Beginner's Guide or look at the press release (above). For links to all our productions go to the television page 13 July 2007 Britain's Tallest Teens Shown on ITV1 at 9pm last night, Britain's Tallest Teens was about the highs and lows in the lives of three incredibly tall youngsters. The film went down very well, being the most watched programme at 9pm, pulling in an average of 3.8 million viewers (18%), peaking at 4.2 million. Those who saw it thought the film was both moving and entertaining. Congratulations to Jayne Brierley and the production team. Britain's Tallest Teens is distributed by ID. For more details on this great film see our page about Britain's Tallest Teens or look at the press release (above). For links to all our productions go to the television page 18 April 2007 Production update This is a very busy time for Screenhouse, with three major productions under way. First to hit the screens will be Timewatch: The Hidden Children - see below. Then in June there will be a high profile documentary for ITV1 currently in production, but we can't release details yet. In July (tbc) you get to see our major six part series The Cosmos: A Beginner's Guide for BBC2, which has taken our crews around the world. More on this soon. 18 April 2007 Timewatch: The Hidden Children Benno, Rachel, Peter and Suzanne are alive today because they were hidden from the Nazis. Now from all over the world they return to their secret hiding places to tell heart-breaking, hair-raising stories of survival. Told in their own words, these are the hair-raising stories of young children who were taken in by individuals and organisations determined that even as all their parents were killed, they should live. The risks were very great - for the children and for those who helped them, some of whom were tortured or killed. As these survivors return to the places in the French countryside where they were hidden 60 years ago, powerful emotions are released. The events they recall are things few adults have faced - yet these were children between six and fifteen years old. What happened cost them their childhoods, and shaped the rest of their lives. Transmission: 9pm BBC2 Friday 27th April 2007. Produced and Directed by Jon Hacker, Executive Producers at Screenhouse are Barbara Govan and Paul Bader. For more details on this pretigious documentary, including photos, see our page about The Hidden Children or look at the press release (above). For links to all our productions go to the television page. 11 July 2006 The Next Wave Some of the best surfing waves in the world are to be found off the North East coast of England, and we've been following the special breed of surfers who have made them their own. Finding the great waves isn't as easy as in some places where there is decent surf every day, and when they've found a wave, these surfers don't tell: the best places are known as 'secret spots'. The reason for the cloak-and-dagger approach is concern about overcrowding. They love the isolation and the chance to be the only surfer riding a wave. But their privileged access may not last all that long. Surfing is getting much more popular, and the big surf companies are keen to get more people interested in the North East. And it seems to be working - last year's Tynemouth British Nationals was the best-attended UK surf event ever. We've got some spectacular footage of these amazing surfers, including the Davies brothers. Gabe is a pro surfer, Jesse teaches surfing, and Owain fits it in around his studies. You can follow their fortunes, and discover why you need a torch to surf some spots, in The Next Wave. The Next Wave is part of the BBC Working the Sea series, and is commissioned by Jacqui Hodgson for BBC North East. Provisional transmission is BBC1, Friday 4th August 2006. More details of our programmes on our television page. 12 April 2006 Stardate: Mysteries of Venus Venus, our sister planet once regarded as a paradise but now revealed as more like an evil twin, is the venue for our latest Stardate. Adam Hart-Davis reports from mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, as the Venus Express spacecraft reaches orbit on 11th April. The team returns to the UK to rapidly edit two shows - the first for BBC2 the following day, Wednesday 12th April at 7pm and 11.50pm. Then they make a 1 hour version for Discovery Science Channel in the US, for transmission at 9pm on Friday 14th April. Both films contain a ground-breaking virtual 'holiday' on Venus for Adam Hart-Davis, using NASA data to create the conditions on the surface. Meanwhile back on earth, Open University scientist Janet Sumner attempts to reproduce those conditions for real in the laboratory - including temperatures high enough to melt Zinc, and atmospheric pressure 90 times that of earth. The question Venus Express will try to answer is: why did Venus go so wrong? It is the same size as Earth, was formed at the same time from the same materials. Stardate is commissioned by the Open University and BBC2. More details on our television page. 04 July 2005 Deep Impact is a big hit Stardate, presented this time by Dr Brian Cox and Dr Lucie Green, was in California to witness NASA's amazing Deep Impact mission, where a spacecraft was rammed into comet Tempel 1, making a huge crater. We put out two programmes in extra-fast time - the first at 1145 on BBC1, just four hours after the event. Our evening programme at 2000 attracted 2.1 million viewers, and told the story of the 20 minutes to impact in real time. The Screenhouse team edited through the night at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, struggling against many obstacles including mountain lions, reported to be loose in the compound! Stardate is commissioned by the Open University and BBC2. More details on our television page. 13 June 2005 Screenhouse wins RTS award for space show Screenhouse has beaten off stiff competition to win a Royal Television Society award for 'Transit of Venus', the huge astronomy event we staged in June 2004. In a ceremony at the Savoy Hotel in London today, Executive Producer Paul Bader and Director Patrick Titley collected the award from Sir Bob Phillis, President of the RTS. We won the Lifelong Learning & Multi-Media Award, given to programmes in the main TV schedule. The judges said this was “ A difficult subject, well covered with opportunities for real experimentation”. The Transit of Venus broadcast was based in Greenwich, Egypt and Lancashire, and consisted of four live transmissions into BBC1 Breakfast and Daytime, plus a 1-hour BBC2 show late that night, and a half hour programme to set the whole thing up. More details including pictures in the press release. 14 January 2005 Stardate: Live events from Germany Astronomy series Stardate is live from Germany for a series of space events, including a 1-hour live programme, over 14th and 15th January. We start with BBC Breakfast News on BBC1 with two live pieces, followed by a live report into Newsnight on BBC2 in the evening. Then we follow with a 1-hour live special at 23:30 from Mission Control - the European Space Operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, where we follow progress of the amazing Huygens probe which lands on Titan (a moon of Saturn) today. It will be the most distant touchdown ever attempted, and Stardate will bring you the science teams nervously waiting to see if the mission is a success. We will also bring you the first pictures, and even sounds, from Titan. On Saturday 15th we have a half-hour update on BBC2 at 14:20. Stardate is presented by Adam Hart-Davis and Dr Lucie Green, and commissioned by the Open University and BBC2. More details on our television page. 16 November 2004 Zapped: location filming begins This ambitious stunt science show explores the dangerous world of humans and electricity. It features a series of experiments and demonstrations devised and constructed in the Screenhouse workshops, including our attempt at the world record electrification, where we pass an electric current through over 500 people. The show is co-produced with YAP Films, based in Toronto and in Leeds, who have extensive experience in the North American market. Zapped is commissioned by Discovery Channel USA, Discovery Canada, with support from Screen Yorkshire and Channel 4 International. More details on our television page. 29 September 2004 Stardate: Close Encounters Transmitted on the day near-earth asteroid Toutatis made its closest ever pass to our planet, this edition is about rocks from space big and small. Adam Hart-Davis is based at the Natural History Museum, home to the best meteorite collection in the world. Astronomer Dr Lucie Green reports from Arizona and California on the amazing radar mapping of Toutatis, how meteorite hunting is becoming a lucrative commercial enterprise, and a future in which humans survive by mining asteroids, a scheme pioneered by the people who built SpaceShipOne. The programme includes the launch of the Great British Meteorite Hunt. Only 20 have ever been found in this country, so Adam and Lucie explain how to look for more. Three early candidates come to the museum, but will they turn out to have meteorites, or meteor-wrongs? Stardate is produced for the BBC and the Open University. More details including OU web links on our television page. 08 June 2004 Stardate: Transit of Venus - 4x LIVE BBC1, 1 hour BBC2 Screenhouse's most ambitious production ever was the launch of our Stardate series on the day Venus passed in front of the sun. We were live at the Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich and in Egypt, and in Much Hoole in Lancashire, to bring this once-in-a-lifetime event to BBC television. We were live twice during BBC1 breakfast news, and then had two freestanding live programmes during the transit at 0950 and 1200. The 1200 show included an attempt to get web and TV viewers to measure the distace to the sun, a great collaboration with our colleagues at open2.net. Amazingly, 1.2 million were watching this live science event. We then frantically edited together the story of the day for a 1 hour show that night. Presenters were Adam Hart-Davis and Dr Lucie Green in London, Astronomer Paul Roche in Egypt, and Vanessa Collingridge in Much Hoole - where the first ever transit was seen. Stardate is produced for the BBC and the Open University. More details including OU web links on our television page. 10 December 2003 The Man Who Invented the Aeroplane - Network Premiere The story of Scarborough boatbuilder Colin Wigglesworth and his obsessive attempt to build and fly an aeroplane he claims first took off in 1808. It was designed by his hero Sir George Cayley, who lived just a few miles from Colin's house. Follow the downs and ups of the project and admire the bravery of local pilot Martin Lucas. If it flies, they will have re-written aviation history. But will Martin survive to tell the tale? On UK History channel, Monday 15th December at 10am, 4pm, and 10pm, repeated at the same times on Boxing Day 26th December. More information can be found on our television page. 20 August 2003 Praise for Science Shack - Reviews Evening Standard: "Good TV! It's a Miracle" Guardian: "Some people suffer for their art, this lot suffer for science." Daily Mail: "...imagination and ingenuity." Times: "...scientific theory is discretely slipped into fun-and-games" Evening Standard: "...consistently compelling programme." 7 August 2003 Science Shack series 2 begins on BBC2 Science Shack series 2 begins on Thursday nights at 7.30pm on BBC2. Building on the success of the first series, Adam Hart-Davis and the Science Shack team of scientists and engineers attempt six challenges. Thought walking on water, flying like a bird and making yourself invisible were impossible tasks? Adam and the team prove otherwise. More information can be found on our television page, our web page and also take a look at the press release. 1 August 2003 Science Shack series 2 - TX schedule Programmes will be aired on Thursdays, 7.30 on BBC2. 7 August: Can you walk on water? 14 August: Could you make yourself invisible? 21 August: How tall couold you build a building? 28 August: NO SCIENCE SHACK 4 September: How high can you jump? 11 September: Could you fly like a bird? 18 September: Can you live underwater? 14 July 2003 The Man Who Invented the Aeroplane Transmitted at 7.30 on BBC1 regional. The programme sees Colin Wigglesworth, a retired Yorkshire boat builder, attempt to recreate Sir George Cayley's glider. In the 30 minute programme Colin engages some professional aeronautical help to ensure the dimensions were correct after all he has to follow is a very basic plan from some of Cayley's old books. A longer version of the programme is also being made for UK History (TX in December). 14 April 2003 Science Shack wins Walking on Water prize At the Walking on Water Championships at the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Science Shack entry 'The Mighty Fin' won the £1000 technical excellence prize. For more information, see our press release or visit the television page. 15 October 2002 Programmes in production for C4 and YTV The team at Screenhouse is just gearing up to start production on Walking the Line, a new series for YTV. The series is being Produced / Directed by Emma Frank and will feature three presenters: Ian Clayton, Prof. Lynne Frostick and Dr. Marty Jopson. Also in production is a pilot for an exciting new science series for C4, watch this space for more information. September 2002 Science Shack wins the 2002 Vega Main Prize Science Shack episode, "Why did the Millennium Bridge wobble" has been awarded the Main Prize by the Vega Science Trust for excellence in scientific broadcasting. For more information see our press release or visit the Awards page of the Vega Science Trust. For see older items, visit the News Archive