Format Factory unveils lockdown slate

UK unscripted indie Format Factory has gone to market with a slate of shows that can be produced in lockdown, to cater to the need for content during the closure of production due to the coronavirus.

Barry Ryan

London-based Format Factory was launched in 2018 by Barry Ryan and David Walton as a “creative capital hub” representing producers, creative content and IP owners. It is the unscripted sister company of scripted prodco Free@Last TV, also founded by Ryan and Walton.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Format Factory has launched several entertainment formats it says are “suited to lockdown technology restrictions.”

First up is Watch this Space: The Lockdown Talent Show, a talent programme that rolls out from and into the living rooms of the audience, shot using smartphones and basic software. The contestants record and submit their contributions, with finalists included in a daily compilation clip show.

Isodate, meanwhile, is a dating show which matches potential couples and connects them through a variety of online methods. Each new couple is given the challenge of completing virtual dating experiences in their own homes, as well as cooking up what they think will be their partner’s perfect date dinner. The 30-minute format rights to Isodate are available now.

David Walton

In their Own Words is a biography series about deceased personalities in the arts. The show tells the stories of iconic performers’ lives using only archive material and their own words, with no narrator or third-party contributor. The aim is to find the hidden and unseen or forgotten elements of the subjects’ lives. Format Factory is in discussion with library partners on the show, which comprises feature-length 90-minute episodes (2×45′ for interntational).

Finally, The Ibiza Years (3×90’/6×45′) details the history of the party island, created from an archive owned by Free@Last TV of its own catalogue of Ibiza shows filmed in previous decades. Featuring key contributions from some of the island’s most famous music legends, The Ibiza Years tells the story of the island from the people who created it and those who inherited it.

Format Factory is also making several of its completed series available, including part reality, part docuseries The Retreat. The 8×30′ series follows a group of people who embark on a month-long intense detox programme on the Thai island of Koh Phangan.

Another completed series is drama-documentary Martina Cole’s Lady Killers, a 6×60′ series examining high-profile female serial killers. British crime author Cole tells the stories of six of the most notorious female murderers in history: Myra Hindley, Amelia Dyer, Beverly Allit, Mary Ann Cotton, Rosemary West and Countess Elizabeth Bathory.