Telling tales with Tall Story Pictures and a decade of shows including seaside crime dramas Grace and The Bay
Celebrating 10 years of Tall Story Pictures, co-founder and creative director Catherine Oldfield speaks to DQ about creating a slate of hits, led by crime dramas Grace and The Bay, why she never wants to repeat herself and the importance of not taking the audience for granted. “Ten years? I’m pretty chuffed about that.” Catherine Oldfield co-founded Tall Story Pictures in 2016, having previously worked at Sally Head Productions (The Cry), at Monkey Kingdom as head of drama and scripted comedy and at Greenlit (Foyle’s War), before joining ITV Studios (ITVS) as a development producer. At ITVS, she was an executive producer on ITV dramas including Home Fires and Tutankhamun as part of the production group’s new scripted unit, which was rebranded as Tall Story Pictures a decade ago. Since then, she has partnered with writer Mike Bartlett on workplace dramas Trauma and Sticks & Stones and worked as an EP on Sean Cook’s Redemption and Kate Brooke’s crime drama Bancroft. The company also has two major returning series on its slate, with Grace recently filming its seventh season and The Bay set to return for S6. “Given the tidal wave effect of the industry, it’s something everyone at Tall Story can be really proud of,” Oldfield tells DQ about reaching the milestone in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US actor and writers’ strikes and the general downturn in commissioning at the end of the Peak TV era. “We’ve weathered the headwinds of the market, which is probably … Continue reading Telling tales with Tall Story Pictures and a decade of shows including seaside crime dramas Grace and The Bay
