In Cold Blood

A 90-minute feature-length documentary for ITV’s Bafta-winning Exposure strand examines the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history. In the 1970s, a new treatment for haemophilia known as Factor VIII was prescribed on the NHS. It infected over 1,300 people with HIV and more than 4,000 people with Hepatitis C.

In the same week the long public inquiry looking into this scandal re-opens, In Cold Blood offers a window into a tragedy which killed more people than Grenfell, Hillsborough, 7/7 and the Birmingham bombings combined. Yet its scale and impact has until now been relatively understated in Britain.

With access to hundreds of previously unexamined documents from inside the government, In Cold Blood  explores the full story behind the scandal, and investigates claims that warnings were systematically ignored and subsequently covered up. In the wake of Covid-19, this landmark film tells some shocking truths about our Health Service’s past – at a time when, perhaps more than ever, we are looking for it to function properly.

★★★★★ THE INDEPENDENT
“A difficult and powerful watch”

★★★★ THE TIMES
“A vital film”

★★★★ THE TELEGRAPH
“A staggering investigation to make your blood boil”

Production Company: Darlow Smithson for ITV
Director: Marcus Plowright
Producers: Celia Watson, Marcus Plowright
Editor: Leigh Brzezki
Composer: Alexander Parsons

Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm

Feature Documentary // ieie Productions

50 years ago, deep in the Welsh countryside, two brothers were milking cows and preparing to take over the family farm – but dreamed of making music. They had the audacious idea to build a studio in their farmhouse attic and record their own tunes. Animals were kicked out of barns and musicians were moved into Nan’s spare bedroom. Inadvertently, they launched the legendary Rockfield studios.

Black Sabbath, Oasis, Coldplay, Stone Roses, Robert Plant, Simple Minds and more recall the mayhem and music they made at Rockfield over the decades. This is a story of rock and roll dreams intertwined with a family business’s fight for survival in the face of an ever-changing music landscape.

Director: Hannah Berryman
Producer: Catryn Ramasut
Composer: Alexander Parsons
Editor: Rupert Houseman

★★★★★ THE TELEGRAPH | Anita Singh
“A wonderful tale of pigs, drugs and rock ‘n roll”

★★★★★ iNEWS | Emily Baker
“This joyous, funny, exciting documentary captured [Rockfield’s] infectious, inspiring nature perfectly.”

About the Score

As the film contained music by artists who recorded there, Hannah Berryman (director) and I intended for my score to represent a voice of the studio itself and at its heart, the warmth of the family who built and manage it to this day.

Hannah’s starting point for discussion was that the score should feel handmade – as if it were being played by a band noodling away in the corner of a pub. As we needed to cover a range of emotions and different decades of recording, the music needed to develop too, whilst at the same time conveying a studio that stayed stuck in time, insisting on recording directly to tape and with original and outdated (as some might consider) equipment.

I used a selection of old synthesisers and battered old tape machines to create the score, which at times voiced the humour of the tales of drugs and debauchery in the studio, but also brought out the deeper emotional stories in the film, including a theme for the death of Charlatans drummer Rob, who died in a car crash at Rockfield in the 90s.

Since 2019, the debate about Michael Jackson has intensified, and opinions about how he should be remembered are now more fractured than at any time since his death a decade ago.

In this one-off, feature-length film, Jacques Peretti – who has spent much of his life analysing Jackson, having made three previous films over 15 years – goes back to Jackson’s beginnings, charting his rise and fall and seeking a fuller picture of this complex, contradictory character by exploring the clues that were missed. He investigates how Jackson become what he was, whether he manipulated his fame and the entertainment machine to conceal the truth and what the audience’s part was in it all.

What emerges is a fascinating, thoughtful and multi-layered reappraisal of one of the world’s most famous and controversial artists that investigates what the public failed to see – or were willing to ignore.

Presenter: Jacques Peretti
Editor: Lennaart Van Oldenborg
Composer: Alexander Parsons

★★★★ THE GUARDIAN | Ellen E Jones
★★★★ iNEWS | Sarah Hughes