Silverback Films

Today (7 Jun) Silverback has donated a professional drone kit to the Film School at boomsatsuma to help media and film students develop their aerial photography skills. Bristol Film School, at boomsatsuma, offers dynamic and exciting degrees co-created with Bristol’s globally renowned film and TV production companies. We hope this will help those on their degree programme get a head start in the creative industry.

We’re proud to be able to support emerging talent and we work with boomsatsuma to share entry-level opportunities within Silverback – helping young people start their careers in film & TV production (two of our team having come straight from finishing their course to start their career with us as runners!). 

Darren, our Silverback Tech / Drone Manager, handed over a DJI Inspire 2 pro drone with X7 camera with a case to Executive Dean Dr Susan McMillan and David Neal Head of Production. It was a fantastic day, building on our long-standing relationship, with Darren excited to return to give a talk to the students in the future.

Executive Dean for the Bristol Film School, Dr Susan McMillan, is delighted: “We are so pleased and want to thank Darren – and everyone at Silverback Films – for this generous gift. Silverback Films are an award-winning Bristol production company with a global reputation, it is a real accolade to have their support.”

Nirmala Valinciute, the Technical Lead at Bristol Film School, is excited about training up on the kit: “The drone will be a vital training tool for our filmmaking degree students. Most education institutions stay away from drones, due to the training required, but we realise that flying drones is a crucial craft skill and we are committed to training our students in this exciting area.”

Read more about boomsatsuma here: https://www.boomsatsuma.com/  

Repurposing kit for good causes  

Our team also repurposed a Phantom 4 pro drone with one of our production teams giving this to the Inuit community while on-location for a shoot.  

We’ve also helped junior members of our team to get flying, with an internal drone sale for staff. Silverback donated the £1500 from the sales to 3 wildlife charities, giving £500 each to the Dian Fossey Gorilla fund, Mark Furnell Avon tree-planting in chew valley and the Blue Marine Foundation. 

Silverback Films has joined more than 70 Bristol businesses – including Triodos Bank, Boston Tea Party, Arup, Sawday’s and Finisterre – to issue a joint letter to the parliamentary candidates for all five of the city’s constituencies, asking them to back the Climate and Nature Bill ahead of the General Election on 4 July. 

The Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill is new framework legislation which aims to tackle climate change and environmental destruction. It was first introduced in Parliament in September 2020 and has two main goals: to reduce UK emissions in line with the UK’s share of the remaining global carbon budget for 1.5°C of global warming; and to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.

The Bill offers multiple benefits to businesses including a regulatory framework to support the transition to net zero with the least emissions possible, the creation of new jobs in green industries, a potential reduction in energy costs as renewable sources continue to expand and, ultimately, a more sustainable local economy.

Bevis Watts, CEO of Triodos Bank UK, which coordinated the letter, said: “The business community in Bristol has joined forces today, on World Environment Day, to advocate for people and nature. We all stand to benefit from the transition to a low carbon, nature positive future, and we are calling on our local candidates to represent our combined voices in Parliament. By backing the Climate and Nature Bill they will be playing a vital part in ensuring a bright future for the businesses of Bristol and a happy, healthy and prosperous future for its people. And that’s something we would all vote for.”

James Sutton, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Zero Hour, the campaign group behind the Bill, added: “It’s very telling that this many businesses in Bristol have made such a direct call to the prospective parliamentary candidates and incumbent MPs in the Bristol constituencies for them to publicly declare their backing for the Climate and Nature Bill. Business clearly understands that the CAN Bill represents opportunity for their companies, as well as an instrument to manage governance risk posed by the climate and nature crises. The economy and businesses are always central to the plans of government, so we stand with the businesses of Bristol and hope that their voice is heard and that the PPCs make the sensible, obvious choice and commit to the CAN Bill.” 

The Bill is supported by 180 MPs and Peers from all main parties in the UK Parliament. It also has the backing of 851 prospective parliamentary candidates who will be running for election in July.

The joint letter, issued to the parliamentary candidates for Bristol Central, Bristol East, Bristol North East, Bristol North West and Bristol South on the eve of World Environment Day, states: “As local businesses, we are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate-related extreme weather events, as their frequency continues to rise throughout the UK. We want this to stop.  

“Climate and ecological breakdown is a governance risk to businesses everywhere. Our supply chains will be even more disrupted by unpredictable and chaotic climate, and the costs to our businesses have the potential to skyrocket due to climate-related weather events or disasters. The CAN Bill can help mitigate this risk to our businesses. 

“As we so often hear, there is no business on a dead planet. Our companies and their products and services rely on stable value chains many of which depend on nature inputs. The CAN Bill will help reverse the destruction of nature here in the UK, as well as address the damage that the UK causes to nature globally through our ecological footprint overseas.” 

Like all cities, Bristol is increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events, as their frequency continues to rise here in the UK and further afield. Immediate risks include high temperatures and flooding, which destroyed several shops in Avonmeads Retail Park and Cabot Circus last year. And this is expected to increase, with the City Council estimating that tidal flooding will pose a risk to some 4,500 existing properties by 2125. Furthermore, according to the Met Office, the maximum summer temperature in Bristol is projected to be over 9°C hotter in 2080 compared to a 1981-2000 baseline.

Download the full letter here.

For more information about Zero Hour’s campaign for the Climate and Nature Bill, visit zerohour.uk

Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is capturing audience hearts winning awards at film festivals around the world, winning:

• The Audience Award for Best International Feature at NorthwestFest International Documentary Festival, Canada’s longest running non-fiction film festival.
• The inaugural Best of Festival award at ECOador International Environmental Film Festival.
• The Audience Choice Award at Mendocino Film Festival.

Our heart-warming story of friendship between an otter and a man set in the remote Scottish islands of Shetland, shows how love can reawaken us to the beauty of nature.

Produced by Silverback Films, and from Director Charlie Hamilton James and Producer Jeff Wilson, our Nat Geo documentary follows Billy, a salt-of-the-earth philosopher and Molly, a half-drowned, starving young female otter that Billy stumbles on one rainy evening in the Scottish subarctic. From there, an unlikely relationship begins that eventually saves them both.

Streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu in the US (UK release date to be confirmed).

We’re excited to announce our brand new series for Netflix (as yet untitled) which will “tell the story of the rise and fall of the dinosaurs – where they came from, why they mattered, how they evolved and how they met their ultimate fate.”

Created by Silverback Films, part of All3 Media Group, and in association with Amblin Documentaries, the 4-part documentary will be the next iteration” of Life on Our Planet.

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) will return to craft the visual effects and animation, and Steven Spielberg will once again join Keith Scholey, Darryl Frank, and Justin Falvey as an Executive Producer. Morgan Freeman is set to narrate and Grammy Award-winner Lorne Balfe is back as composer. Nick Shoolingin-Jordan is directing the new series.

Our ground-breaking 8-part Emmy-contending series Life on Our Planet, which premiered last October (2023), revealed the story of life on planet Earth. It followed not only the dinosaurs, but the rise of invertebrates, mammals, plants, and other life forms across billions of years of evolution up until the present.

“It is an extraordinary privilege to bring the most iconic creatures in Earth’s history to the screen,” Dan Tapster, showrunner at Silverback Films. Speaking of the new iteration of the show, he said, “This series, covering 170 million years, will immerse viewers in the awe-inspiring world of dinosaurs, capturing the majesty and drama of their lives in unprecedented detail.”

Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, executive producers and presidents of Amblin Television & Documentaries, added, “We couldn’t be more excited to partner again with our good friends at Silverback, Netflix and ILM as we transport audiences back in time to the age of the dinosaurs and bring these wonderful extinct creatures back to life in all their beautiful glory.

Life on Our Planet has been nominated in the 2024 Critics Choice Real TV Awards for Best Animal / Nature Show.

Our 8-part series, narrated by Academy Award®-winner Morgan Freeman, tells the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth. Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time – 99% of earth’s inhabitants are lost to our deep past.

Organised around the five mass extinction events that have forever shaped the planet, plus the sixth we’re facing today, our series brings creatures known only from fossils to life. These stunning scenes combined with cutting-edge natural history filmmaking, showcase the unique evolutionary advantages that animals today have inherited from their ancestors in ways that have never been seen before.

Life on Our Planet is available to watch now on Netflix.

The sixth annual Critics Choice Real TV Awards celebrates the best in nonfiction, unscripted, and reality programming across broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. The awards will be presented on June 15 in Los Angeles. 

About the Critics Choice Association (CCA) 
The Critics Choice Association is the largest critics organization in the United States and Canada, representing more than 600 media critics and entertainment journalists. It was established in 2019 with the formal merger of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, recognizing the intersection between film, television, and streaming content.

For more information, visit: www.CriticsChoice.com.

Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story premiered on National Geographic last night (6 May) and is now available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu in the US. We’ll be sharing UK release dates soon.

Discover more about our critically-acclaimed documentary below…

From Silverback Films, directed by distinguished photographer and filmmaker Charlie Hamilton James, our film follows heartfelt journey of Billy and a wild otter, Molly, as they navigate a world of love, laughter, and unexpected companionship.

Shot in 4K, the film captures the wild nature of the British Isles with its orcas, dolphin pods and migratory birds that come to feed on its ragged shorelines. Billy and Molly get to know each other amidst this backdrop they call home. Molly likes salmon, yellow buckets and playing in lobster pots. Billy likes shucking scallops, the feel of lichen on dry stone walls, and drinking tea. With Molly as his guide, Billy gains a heightened level of intimacy with the natural world in a way he didn’t know was possible. The film is an emotional journey, capturing the joy that accompanies a blossoming friendship and the heartbreak that comes when it’s time to part way.

Watch the newly released clip set in the dramatic landscape of Scotland’s Shetland Islands

 

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FROM THE DIRECTOR

Charlie says “Billy & Molly” was the ultimate passion project for me. It was about an otter, and it was in Shetland. I have spent my life obsessed with otters and, in fact, moved to Shetland in 1993 when I was 19, visiting to film and photograph otters since I was 16. Shetland is Britain’s most northern outpost, a barren archipelago in the North Atlantic. I lived in a remote cottage on a barren hillside. Weirdly, my nearest neighbors were Billy’s parents, who lived in the house he’d grown up in. However, I didn’t meet Billy until 2021, when I heard from a friend about a man who had an otter that was visiting his house daily. I decided to make the trip north from my home in Bristol, to meet him and the otter named Molly. After meeting Molly, I had a chat with Keith Scholey from Silverback Films, and we decided to try to make a documentary about the unusual pair. Keith brought Jeff Wilson in, and Jeff and I planned and styled a film; it was a charming and often funny relationship, and we wanted that to shine through.   

I have to say, I have never worked on a project that was so much fun.  Billy, his wife Susan and second camera Johnny Rolt have become family as we all lived together for months on location, and a cross word never came between us. In fact, that fun and warmth seeped through the whole of the production process. 

I think for myself, Jeff and Sam Rogers, the editor, having the time and freedom to really be creative, to try things, take risks and make mistakes, along with Billy’s natural and warm eccentricity, is what eventually combined to give the film its quirky aesthetic and narrative.

My biggest takeaway from the experience was the time I got to spend with Molly, walking along the beautiful Shetland coastline with a wild otter at my feet or swimming through spooky kelp beds while filming her as she fished was a lifetime of dreams come true. To be able to do that with wonderful people made it even more special.“

ABOUT

The film has been produced by Emmy® and BAFTA Award-winner Jeff Wilson, Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey serve as executive producers, along with National Geographic’s Tom McDonald and Janet Vissering. The film is edited by Sam Rogers, with cinematography by Charlie Hamilton James, Johnny Rolt and Bertie Gregory, and music composed by Erland Cooper.

We’re thrilled to announce our brand-new series for BBC One and iPlayer: Hamza’s Hidden Wild Isles which follows wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin as he reveals hidden wildlife gems from across the four countries of the UK. With Hamza’s trademark knowledge, warmth and enthusiasm, he’ll share tips and advice, encouraging viewers to connect with nature, wherever they are.

Each of the four episodes will follow a seasonal narrative as nature’s calendar unfolds across the year with Hamza filming incredible species and spectacles hidden amongst both our urban and wilder landscapes. Stunning aerial photography provides a special sense of time and place combined with blue-chip cinematography and footage from wildlife camera crews filmed on their local patch. 

The series is produced by Silverback Films, following our stand-out success of Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey. It is co-produced by the National Trust and the Open University. 

Hamza’s Hidden Wild Isles (4×60) for BBC One and iPlayer was commissioned by Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual and it is being produced by multiple BAFTA and Emmy Award winning Silverback Films, part of the All3 Media Group. The Series Producer and Director is Laura Howard, the Executive Producer is Alastair Fothergill and the Line Producer is Siobhan Brook. The BBC Commissioning Editor is Sreya Biswas, Head of Natural History.

We’re delighted to announce Silverback Films is once again part of this year’s Festival of Nature – the UK’s largest celebration of the natural world.

Join Life on Our Planet producers Sophie Lanfear and Barny Revill for a special behind-the-scenes talk on how our ground-breaking 8-part Netflix series was made.

Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time. From recreating Earth’s greatest extinction events, to bringing back pre-historic creatures like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, our producers will reveal how they approached telling the story of life on our planet as never before – combining expertise in natural history storytelling and world-class cinematography with the latest VFX.

We’ll be at the Bristol Aquarium on Sunday 2nd May from 3pm – 3.45pm

BOOK TICKETS HERE (free with optional donation)

All ages welcome, family-friendly

About Festival of Nature

Festival of Nature, the UK’s largest celebration of the natural world, returns to Bristol and Bath this summer from Saturday 1st – Sunday 9th June.

Celebrate local nature at the 70 events taking place across the week, including vibrant city-centre takeovers, wildlife workshops, walks and talks, film screenings, special guest appearances, music and performances, online events, community action days and more.

Local to Bristol? Head down to Festival of Nature’s Wild Weekend at Millennium Square on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd June. Alongside activities out on the square, check out the talks and screenings programme inside the former IMAX Theatre at Bristol Aquarium.

Head to festivalofnature.org.uk to find out more about the festival #FestOfNature