Roger Graef
Writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and criminologist.
Roger Graef OBE is CEO of Films of Record, a high end documentary company he founded in 1979.
He is an award winning filmmaker, criminologist, and writer. He is best known for his unstaged observational films in normally closed places like board rooms, ministries, prisons, probation, family therapy, special schools, and social work. His films have influenced policing and criminal justice policy.
He has been a mentor at six Crossover workshops on how to use new media, and was Exec of web lives, the first online doc series for itv.com.
As a director, his many films include Police 2001, The Space Between Words series, Turning the Screws, the Bafta winning Police series, The Secret Policeman's Ball and several other Amnesty comedies.
He is Executive Producer of many films, including Kim Longinotto’s Hold Me Tight Let Me Go, The Truth About Crime and Brian Hill’s Bafta winning Feltham Sings, most recently the Grierson award winning Requiem for Detroit? Directed by Julien Temple, the Great Ormond Street series, Panorama Special: Kids In Care, which won an RTS Award, and Storyville: The Trouble with Pirates and Amnesty! When They Are All Free.
As a writer, he contributes to many newspapers and is the author of TALKING BLUES, Police in their Own Words, LIVING DANGEROUSLY: young offenders in their own words, and WHY RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?
In 2004 he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement. In 2006 he was given an OBE. He was a founding board member of Channel Four, a board member of the BFI, London Transport, and the ICA. He was Visiting Professor of Media and Communications at Oxford University, and is now Visiting Professor at the LSE and Bournemouth University. Since 1999 he has been an Independent Advisor to the Met Police on race, a subject about which he has made many films. He has been Chair of the theatre company Complicite for twenty years, and advisor to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation on social justice matters for more than a decade.
Simon Gilchrist
Series Producer/Director
Simon Gilchrist is a British documentary producer. Specilising in observational filmmaking he has made films for the BBC, C4, C5, National Geographic and Discovery Channels.
Starting at the BBC he went freelance in 2003 and worked at IWC media in devlopment and produced 12 first time directors for C4. He developed a reputation for difficult access documentaries and filming in sensitive situations. He has produced crews in hostile environments in Iraq, Palestine and South America. He has produced across a diverse range of subjects from Islamic fundamentalists to lighter projects such as Discovery Channels ‘Are Vampires real?’
In 2007 he returned to directing, filming in Zimbabwe for C4 and making National Geographic’s ratings smash ‘The Worlds Toughest Prisons’. In the last two years he was the development producer and director for the critically acclaimed BBC 2 series “Great Ormond Street” which looked at ethics and decision-making. Most recently he directed a Panorama Special ‘ Kids in Care’ for BBC 1, which followed the lives of children in the British care system over 6 months. The film won the 2011 Royal Television Society ward for best current affairs programmed and recieved a BAFTA nomination.
He is currently Series Producer for a follow up to Great Ormond Street for BBC 2
James Rogan
Producer/Director
James Rogan is an award-winning filmmaker who works in documentary, fiction and commercials.
His latest feature documentary Amnesty! When They Are All Free is his third for BBC Storyville. Previous pieces for BBC Storyville are The Trouble with Pirates – investigating the rise of Somali piracy and Blog Wars – revealing the influence of bloggers on American politics. His other work ranges from The Madman and the Cathedral for Britdoc/Channel 4, following a former monk who has spent the last fifty years single-handedly building a cathedral to Warship, a six-part documentary series charting the three month deployment of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious to the Middle East.
His fiction work includes the acclaimed short film The Open Doors starring Michael Sheen and his debut feature Dead Bolt Dead. Distributed by Metrodome in the UK, and described by The Times as a "small gem”, it led to James being selected as a “Great British Hope”.
In commercials, he has directed for brands including HSBC, the Greater London Authority and Honda. He directed the Cowshed cinema spot “Daytrip” for which he won Best New Director at the Midsummer Commercials Awards. The short documentary “Making Noise” he directed for Honda went on to make history as the longest commercial ever released in British cinemas.
Angie Mason
Producer/Director
Angie Mason, worked for over 20 years at the BBC in Education, then World Service and finally Specialist Factual.
Meeting Roger Graef in 2005 just after she had left the BBC was a game changer. She moved from making educational and arts documentaries into the world of current affairs and investigations. With Roger she's covered education, medical stories, the pharmaceutical industry, care homes, elderly care.
Her programmes have been broadcast on all the major UK networks from BBC's Panorama to Dispatches on Channel 4 and ITV.
She's always interested in hearing about other areas which Films of Record could look into.
Clare Lucas
Production Manager
After university, Clare began her career in television at the BBC, starting out in Entertainment on ‘Top of The Pops’, and from there moved around the BBC working on a variety of productions including business programmes such as ‘Trouble at The Top’, period drama for BBC4, fast turnaround current affairs such as ‘Watchdog’ and ‘Rogue Traders’, live events such as ‘Net Aid’ and ‘Children in Need’ and international co-productions and drama/documentary in the History Department with ‘Wild West’, ‘D-Day to Berlin’ and the ‘Timewatch’ series.
Before joining Films of Record in 2009 she worked on the series ‘Generals at War’ for Windfall Films. She is passionate about being involved in the making of important and quality films, and the sensitive observational documentaries in which Films of Record specialise.
Tom Cross
Production Coordinator
Tom Cross left Westminster University Film School in 2010 where his graduation short, 'The Miserables', won a Royal Television Society award for Best Short Fiction and was shortlisted for Best Foreign Film at the 2011 Student Oscars. He joined Films of Record a few months after graduating but in the past has worked on a variety of primetime TV programmes including 'X Factor', 'Test the Nation' and 'An Audience Without Jeremy Beadle'. He also worked as an intern on the animated feature film 'Igor' for Exodus Films/MGM.
Selina Mehta
Head of Development of Ten Alps TV and Radio.
Selina joined Blakeway in 2008 to become their Head of Development and prior to that, was Head of Development for Documentaries and Specialist Factual at the BBC. She has held several senior development positions and been responsible for a wide range of commissions, across history, current affairs, arts and documentaries - including Mitchell and Kenyon (BBC2), The Secret Life of the Motorway (BBC4), Future of Food (BBC2), Mental (BBC4), MacMillan Nurses (Sky Real Lives) and Renaissance Remastered (BBC2) to name a few. During her time as Blakeway, she has been responsible for development strategy for Blakeway and is looking forward to her new challenge overseeing all TV and Radio development for the Ten Alps group.