PEOPLE
Matchlight's Creative Director, Ross Wilson, is an exceptionally experienced, multiple award-winning documentary film maker. His CV includes production credits as Executive Producer and Producer/ Director for every major British documentary strand including BBC's One Life, ITVís Network First and Real Lives and Channel 4's Cutting Edge, Dispatches, Equinox and Secret History series.
Known for presenter-led pieces, access-based observational documentaries and investigate journalism, his films are always intelligent, thought-provoking and often explore challenging worlds and subject matters.
Ross has won a raft of awards. His 2006 series Stephen Fry: Secret Life of the Manic Depressive was nominated for both BAFTA and RTS documentary awards and won an International Emmy for Best Documentary and a Broadcast Award and Broadcast Press Guild award in the same category.
His 2007 follow-up BBC series Stephen Fry: HIV & Me was similarly well-received by critics and the audience alike picking up nominations from both the RTS and BAFTA for Best Documentary.
In 1999 Ross received British Television's most prestigious award - the UK BAFTA for Best Documentary - for his film for ITV, After Lockerbie. The year before, he had been nominated for a UK BAFTA, this time for a series of two documentaries that saw him film exclusively behind the scenes with Gordon Brown in the lead-up to the 1997 election and through his first six months in the Treasury.
In 2000 Ross won the Royal Television Society award for Best Documentary for his film on the Scottish Parliamentary elections and in May 2001 won the Royal Television Society's Best Sports Documentary for an observational film on David Elleray, a leading Premiership Football referee.
In 2003 his film Cuba: The Other Side of Armageddon for BBC4 was nominated for the Grierson award for best historical documentary.
Other prizes have included a Gold Award in the San Francisco International Film Festival, Silver and Bronze medals at the New York Television Film Festival and the documentary prize at the Celtic Film Festival. The achievement however for which Ross is most proud came after the showing of one of his films on Channel 4 - the documentary Crimes of War, an investigation into war criminals living in Britain - that led to intense political debate and ultimately a change in British law.
Ross is currently Exec. Producing a number of our productions and making See You in Court.
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Matchlight's Managing Director, David Smith was formerly Head of Legal & Business Affairs for IWC Media. As Head of Business Affairs for Wark Clements & Company he helped steer that company's merger with Ideal World to form IWC Media, Scotland's largest and most successful independent television production company. David then advised the IWC board during that company's acquisition by RDF Media plc and remained with IWC as part of the indie's managing executive where he was responsible for all of IWC's commercial affairs.
David helped IWC strike a range of deals with on screen talent as diverse as Stephen Fry, Robson Green, Richard Dawkins, Griff Rhys Jones, Stephen Hawking, Robbie Coltrane, Sir David Attenborough and J.K. Rowling.
David is a qualified solicitor. He trained with highly respected Edinburgh law firm Tods Murray where he specialized in media law. In 2009 he became a member of the Working Group set up by the Scottish Government to advise Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Screen on how best to engage with the television broadcast and production sectors in Scotland.
With production credits covering everything from shiny-floor entertainment to current affairs, taking in religion, quiz shows, drama and documentaries along the way, it was probably inevitable that Jacqui would finally find her niche in the ever-changing world of development.
Before becoming one of the founding directors of Matchlight, Jacqui was Head of Development for IWC Media in Glasgow where she developed an incredibly diverse range of series including Mountain, Lost Kingdoms of Africa, Britain's Last Wilderness and Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive for the BBC and Robbie Coltrane's B-Road Britain for ITV.
Series achievements for Channel 4 include Richard Dawkins: The Genius of Darwin, Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe. For Five Jacqui developed Extreme Fishing with Robson Green and Paddy & Rory's Great British Adventure. And for Discovery US, a 13-part series called Detonators.
Key single films included Ten Days that Shaped the Queen, Beauty Queens and Bloodshed, Mississippi Burning, The Queen Mother in Love, Key Witness: Joanne Lees and A Mother's Journey.
Jacqui has been based in Scotland since 1998 and lives in Glasgow with her husband Ron.
Iain Scollay is an experienced award-winning film-maker with over fifteen years of production credits in the broadcast industry. He has made films for high-profile strands and series like One Life, Cutting Edge, Equinox, Bodyshock and Faking It for which he won a BAFTA for Best Features Programme.
He has worked with a range of British and American broadcasters - the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Five, Discovery USA, Discovery Health, TLC and Sky; with a number of independent production companies in both London and Glasgow (including Endemol, RDF, Mentorn, Granada and IWC Media); and a number of high-profile presenters and journalists (including John Humphrys, Rory Stewart, Griff Rhys Jones, Russell Brand, Jon Snow and Jonathan Dimbleby).
Iain won a Scottish BAFTA award for Best Documentary for his film Black Watch: A Soldier's Story and he was one of four producers on the BBC One series Mountain with Griff Rhys Jones which won a Scottish BAFTA as Best Factual Entertainment programme.
In 2009 Iain produced and directed a two-part documentary series for BBC TWO which followed Harvard Professor and former British diplomat Rory Stewart as he retraced T.E Lawrence's journey through Arabia. These films received significant critical acclaim - "Utterly unmissable" (The Guardian); "Fascinating" (The Times) "Extremely intelligent and useful" (Evening Standard); "Intelligent and thoughtful" (Financial Times).
His most recent film was Unequal Opportunities with John Humphrys, The Guardian: "This is a thorough look at how poor children in the UK are 25 times less likely to make it to a top university than their private school counterparts. Presented, pleasingly,by Humph, who doesn't pull his punches even when speaking to eager young graduate teachers, where other interviewers might be happy to nod enthusiastically."
Iain is currently exec producing So You Think You Can't Drive and producing/directing a new series for BBC Two, details of which will be announced shortly.
Andrew Abbott is a documentary producer/director with a wide-ranging track record including arts, observational, factual entertainment and history programmes. In 1999 he co-founded the Edinburgh-based indie Nobles Gate, which over the next decade became one of the most distinctive and respected network suppliers outside London.
During his time with Nobles Gate, Andrew developed and directed a huge variety of programmes, he worked with the biggest names in Hollywood on Channel 4 film documentaries such as On the Edge of Blade Runner and Shawshank, The Redeeming Feature; scored factual entertainment hits with porgrammes like The Child Star Jinx, and Sex, Magick and Murder; and mined pop culture for biographies of Linda Lovelace and Mel Gibson, among others.
And just before joining Matchlight, Andrew finally made the move in front of the camera - playing Lord Lucan in his Channel 4 documentary about aristo gamblers and East End gangsters, The Real Casino Royale.
Andrew recently completed Taking the Keys Away.
Andrew is currently producing and directing So You Think You Can't Drive.
Russell Leven is an RTS and Grierson award winning documentary producer/director.
Starting his career in the BBC film documentary unit on productions such as Stay Tuned With Tony Robinson, Moviedrome. Film 97/98 and the award winning Close-Up series, Russell set up his own indie, Nobles Gate, in 2000 with filmmaker Andrew Abbott. He directed a number of episodes of Channel 4's The Real... series including the BAFTA nominated Linda Lovelace. In 2003, Russell received a Saltire Grierson award for his ITV 1 observational documentary She Toon: City Of Bingo before going on to produce and direct a number of critically acclaimed drama documentaries including Wearside Jack: The Ripper Hoaxer which won the 2006 RTS Creative Cities Award and Timewatch: The Last Duel which was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award in 2007.
Russell has also produced and directed a number of films for the Timewatch and Horizon strands, as well as Five's award winning Extraordinary People strand and a wide variety of drama documentary seasons for Channel 4. In 2009, Russell was nominated for both a BAFTA Scotland and an RTS Regions award for his final Nobles Gate film, the BBC 2 documentary In Shackleton's Footsteps.
Russell is currently producing and directing So You Think You Can't Drive.
Chris is one of the most accomplished and sought-after editors in the UK, with 30 years experience. His work, prior to joining Matchlight ranged across drama and factual from Rebus and Taggart to the BAFTA, Flaherty Award winning After Lockerbie and the International Emmy Award winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Diart of the Manic Depressive. Since joining Matchlight Chris has cut See You In Court, At Home with the Georgians, My Boyfriend the War Hero and Taking Away the Keys.
Chris is about to start editing an new project for BBC Three, further details will be announce shortly.
Anne-Claire made her entry into documentary directing by losing her glasses and wondering how she would ever find them again if she didn't have them on. Thus the concept for Specky, an autobiographical film about how short-sighted people survived the Stone Age, was born.
Specky was the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation's first commission and the documentary went on to win two BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards for Best New Producer and Best New Work. Creative director of Matchlight, Ross Wilson, was Anne-Claire's mentor on the film.
On the back of Specky, Anne-Claire worked her way up the Channel 4 talent ladder, directing a 3MW and Allergic to the 21st Century for the new talent strand First Cut. She subsequently went on to make an access-led arts documentary on Tracey Emin for BBC Scotland's Artworks.
Most recently, Anne-Claire worked on the follow up film to Channel 4's award-winning Meet the Natives. For this series Anne-Claire gained access to this notoriously private Amish community by going tenpin bowling with Amish teenagers. Before she knew it, news of the 'English' girl who could never, no matter how hard she tried, score more than 80 points in a game spread like wildfire round the farms and communities of Amish America.
Following a few months in development at Matchlight Anne-Claire, supported by Matchlight development executive Jacqui Hayden, secured a commission for her first hour-long documentary My Soldier's Story for BBC Three's new director's strand Fresh. She is now directing the documentary.
Anne-Claire speaks fluent French and Spanish and lives in Glasgow with her husband Rab with whom she speaks Glaswegian. She still loses a lot of things, especially her glasses.
Anne-Claire recently completed My Boyfriend the War Hero and Pre Teen Proms.
Having gained an M.Phil in Geography and an MA in International Journalism at Cardiff University, Rosy began her media career in the BBC Wales Newsroom. She soon realized that her passion was for making documentaries and joined the current affairs team at the BBC, as a Researcher on the weekly 'Week In, Week Out' series.
Keen to spread her wings Rosy broke her Welsh ties and moved to London to work for Firecracker Films, before taking the leap up to Scotland. Taking a position at IWC Media, Rosy met Matchlight's Head of Development, Jacqui Hayden while working on projects such as 'Crimes That Shook the World' (FIVE) and 'Scots Who Made The Modern World' (BBC Scotland). Rosy followed Jacqui joining Matchlight on its first day in business, back in 2009.
After working in development on projects such as Taking The Keys Away and Unequal Opportunities, Rosy left to take a producer position elsewhere. Having recently finished work on a Terry Pratchett documentary for Keo North for BBC2, Rosy has returned to Matchlight as an Associate Producer on So You Think You Can't Drive for Channel Five.
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