blood steel - irish actor ciarán hinds's past and … · blood & steel 12 x 1 hour epic...
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Blood & Steel
12 X 1 HOUR EPIC DRAMA SERIES
(WORKING TITLE)
How the legend came into being...
Blood & Steel
From the team behind projects such as Camelot, The Tudors, Vanity Fair, Hannibal, Wire inthe Blood, and Julius Ceasar.
12 x 1 hour series
Written by Mathew Faulk & Mark Skeet, Alan Whiting, Stefano Voltaggio and Francesca Brill.
Produced by De Angelis Group,Take 5 Productions, Epos Films.
In production: Summer 2011
AN EPIC NEWDRAMA SERIES
TITANIC: BLOOD & STEEL
Blood & Steel
CAMELOTSeries Lead Director, first two episodes for World 2000/GK Films/CBC and Starz Prod.Starring Eva Green, Joseph Fiennes and James Purefoy.
STARDUSTSingle film for RTE about the infamous Dublin nightclub fire.Winner of four IFTA awards (2007) including Best Single Drama.
COLD FEETFinal two episodes (including Australian special) of the acclaimed Granada comedy-drama, starring James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale.Winner Best Drama Series, BAFTA Television Awards 2002.
THE TUDORS13 episodes across four seasons for Showtime, CBC, BBC.
PROOFFour-part serial for Subotica Entertainment /RTE.
INSPECTOR GEORGE GENTLYFour x 90 minute films for Company Pictures/BBC. Written by Peter Flannery and starring Martin Shaw.
SPOOKSTwo episodes for Kudos/BBC Winner, Drama Series, RTS Awards (2003).
TITANIC SERIES DIRECTOR, SHOW RUNNER AND CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER12 X 1 HOUR SERIESSHOWRUNNER
& DIRECTOR
CIARAN DONNELLY
Blood & Steel
+ Kingdom
+ Wire in the blood
+ The Scarlet Pimpernel
+ Hannibal
+ Vanity Fair
+ Morlang
+ The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells
+ Jason and the Argonauts
with FRANCESCA BRILL and STEFANO VOLTAGGIO
WRITING TEAMHEADED BY CIARAN DONNELLYShowrunner/Director
MARK SKEET &MATTHEW FAULK
ALAN WHITING
Blood & Steel
Tom Conroy designed all four seasons of The Tudors and the first series of Camelot. He won an Emmy Award for the design of The Tudors in 2010 and has been twice previously nominated. He has also won 3 Gemini Awards and has been nominated two times for an Art Directors Guild Award.
Tom has designed many films for both cinema and television, including East is East, Intermission, Rory O’Shea was Here, The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, Breakfast on Pluto and West is West.
PRODUCTION DESIGNER PRODUCTIONDESIGN
TOM CONROY
Blood & Steel
TITANIC : BLOOD & STEEL is thepassionately told story of how thelegendary ship came into being.The series portrays the epic process of building the great ship from the ground up and the people who gave life to its creation. It ends when the ship begins its journey, taking with it the souls of our story.
The series strips away the pop cultureromance that surrounds the “shipof dreams” and presents the realityof its making and the harsh world that spawned Titanic. Through our characters we are at the very heartof the construction of the ship andthe society that built her.
The story crosses all human facets of the turbulent society in which the ship was built - Edwardian Belfast in 1907 -
and depicts how the greatest leviathan of all time was hand made in a city on the edge of revolution. The reality of theship’s making is perhaps more profoundand compelling than its demise. Titanicis a ship created by the flawed humancondition.
THE TITANIC ERAThe Titanic was built in Belfast betweenthe years 1907 and 1912 at the largestshipyard in the world, Harland & Wolff.This was the heyday of steam travel, anera of complacency and leisurely comfort; of sharp social distinctions and smug self-sufficiency. It was also an era where Mankind was deluded by the notion that Nature was at last his slave. That era died with the Titanic.
THESTORYLINE
Blood & Steel
POLITICAL ANDRELIGIOUS BACKGROUND
Belfast 1907 was the largest and mostindustrialized city in Ireland. It was also a city on the edge of revolution. Catholics and Protestants had long battled on the streets over the union with the British Crown and government. The divisions werereligious and economic as well as political. Catholics had fewer rights, lower pay, less work and poorer quality housing. It was simply not possible to be employed atmanagement level if you were a Catholic, regardless of education and experience. Women were an almost enslaved section of society. The lot of the working class woman was disgracefully poor. Many diedin their mid-thirties of malnutrition.
It was not until 1928 that women in theUK received equal voting rights to men.As in most highly industrialized cities,conditions for workers in Belfast wereslavish, Dickensian, cruel and dangerous. There was a wave of worker socialist and women’s suffrage activity sweeping across Europe, uniting the worker against the capitalist industrialist, whilst women sought equal status with men.
The combination of these social movements created an exceptionally tense society and form the circumstances in which the Titanic was built.
THESTORYLINE
Blood & Steel
Mark Muir is our central character inthe series. When we meet him he’s very much the cultured English man in New York, blazing a trail through society with looks, wit and acumen. In 1907 he is the equivalent of the young free and single jetsetter.
But Mark is a product of two very different worlds which will clash violently as his story evolves. He will discover that his successful life is based on the sins and sacrifices of his father in the past.He is installed as the metallurgist on the world’s greatest shipbuilding project, Titanic, but discovers
potentially fatal flaws in the quality of metal being used to build the ship which will carry four thousand passengers. This story line sees him battle with his superiors at the yard - Lord Pirrie, Thomas Andrews and owner JP Morgan.Mark still has a pure heart when it comes to life and building ships and seeks the ideal in all things. He has yet to learn about the flawed nature of humanity and its creations. His greatest professional issue is accepting that profit trumps risk. In life, it is accepting that humanity is flawed.
[Fictional]CORECHARACTERS
MARK MUIR
Blood & Steel
In 1902, J. P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of International Mercantile Marine Company, an Atlantic shipping combine which absorbed several major American and British lines. IMM was a holding company that controlled subsidiary corporations that had their own operating subsidiaries. One of IMM’ssubsidiaries was the White Star Line,which owned the RMS Titanic. The ship’s famous sinking in 1912, the
year before Morgan’s death, was a financial disaster for IMM, which was forced to apply for bankruptcy protection in 1915.
Morgan features through the story at keypoints of the ship’s gestation: from thelaying of the keel to the launching of thehull. He is merciless in his schedulingdemands and his budgetary constraints. He presents an imposing and historic figure in the series.
[Historical]CORECHARACTERS
JP MORGAN
Blood & Steel
William is 60 years old and he is thegenius behind Titanic’s conception.A large, bearded man, a former mayor of the city, a knight and peer of the realm by his own merit, he possesses immense energy, intellect and achievement. But one of Pirrie’s most engaging characteristics is that although of the Establishment andsocial elite, he is a man who knows his own mind.
If he has a fault, it is that he becomestoo passionate about his projects, andis swept along by the momentum of his own enthusiasm. Like many idealists, he is not always practical and sees what he wants to see.
This is certainly true in the construction of Titanic. He is also put under great pressure by Titanic’s owner, J.P. Morgan. Pirrie is forced into an unpleasant balancing act between the needsof the shipyard for which he is responsible, and his own worries about the project.
William is also a man who believes in thecause of Irish Home Rule, putting himin opposition to the vast majority of his14,000 strong workforce. Belfast politicsand the struggle to build the world’sgreatest ship breaks the man’s spirit.He is almost run out of Belfast by the very people he employs.
[Historical]CORECHARACTERS
LORD WILLIAM PIRRIE
Blood & Steel
Sofia is the female lead. Sofia is a woman looking for self determination, and release from definition by men. The eldest daughter in a family of Italian immigrants, Sofia is highly intelligent and attractive.She has done well, working as a “copyist” in the Harland & Wolff offices – a skilled draughtsman who copies plans and blueprints for the designers.
Sofia is a pioneer for a new centuryin which intelligent young women strove for the fulfillment of their own destinies.
She is drawn to Mark’s wider breadth ofvision, his intelligence and his attractiveseriousness. Mark and Sofia findthemselves at profound turning points intheir lives. Their relationship is complexand emotional, never truly blossominginto the cliché of young abandoned love.Any innocence they may harbor is crushed by sectarian Belfast, the tsunami of the workers rights movement and the flawed creation of building what should be a ship of dreams.
[Fictional]CORECHARACTERS
SOFIA SILVESTRI
Blood & Steel ABOUT TO BE CONFIRMED CONFIRMED
Kevin Zegers+ Gossip Girl
+ Frozen
+ Transamerica
Martin Sheen+ West Wing
+ Apocalypse Now
+ The Departed
Taylor Kitsch+ Friday Night Lights
+ Snakes on a Plane
+ X-Men
Tom Wilkinson+ Shakespeare In Love
+ Michael Clayton
+ In the Bedroom
Michael Huisman+ Black Book
+ The Young Victoria
Alessandra Mastronardi+ La bestia nel cuore
+ Romanzo Criminale
+ AmeriQua
CASTINGTHOUGHTS
MARK MUIR
LORD WILLIAM PIRRIE SILVIA SILVESTRI
Blood & Steel
Ciaran Hinds+ Munich
+ Road to Perdition
+ There Will Be Blood
Will Kemp+ Van Helsing
+ Mind Hunters
+ Step Up to the Streets
Brian Cox+ Troy
+ The Bourne Identity
+ Braveheart
Richard Coyle+ Coupling
+ Lorna Doone
+ Human Traffic
Ed Harris+ A Beautiful Mind
+ The Abyss
+ A History of Violence
Tobias Menzies+ Casion Royale
+ The Lowdown
+ Persuasion
CASTINGTHOUGHTS
JP MORGAN
THOMAS ANDREWS
Blood & Steel
DAP ITALY Srl was created in 2000by Guido De Angelis and Maurizio DeAngelis. Currently, DAP ITALY is oneof the leading audiovisual productioncompanies in Europe, with established expertise in editorial development, international funding and co-production, post-production, and product placement.Its success has been definitivelyestablished by productions such as“Aurelio Zen”, “Julius Caesar”, “TheMagnificent Ambersons”, “BenedictArnold – A question of Honor” and “Elisa di Rivombrosa”, which gained a 42% share on Canale 5 (Mediaset) and was successfully sold worldwide.
GUIDO DE ANGELISPresident
As an acclaimed music composer, he has composed soundtracks for more than 350 films. As an executive producer, he has produced over 600 hours of prime time television series in Europe. Amongst these, major titles include “Julius Caesar” (TNT),“The Magnificent Ambersons” (A&E),“Benedict Arnold – A question of Honor”(A&E). He is currently the executiveproducer of “Titanic – Blood and Steel”.
DE ANGELISGROUP
DE ANGELIS GROUP
ANSELMO PARRINELLOProducer
Anselmo Parrinello has been in the movie industry since 1970. He has worked as Line Producer and Executive Producer on projects such as “The Curse”, “Hurricane”, “Bribe of Violence”, “Tai Pan”, “Almost America”, “Pope John Paul II” and many more.
ANDREA ZOSOManaging Director
Andrea Zoso has extensive international business development and finance experience in the film industry. He currently serves as the Managing Director of De Angelis Group.
NICOLA DE ANGELISHead of Development andInternational Co-Productions
Nicola De Angelis is the Head ofDevelopment and VP of InternationalCo-productions for De Angelis Group.He is actively seeking new partnersand projects for co-production fromthe US and abroad.
Blood & Steel
THE PRODUCERS
Justin Thomson-Glover, Artists StudioPRODUCER
Pascal Breton, Marathon GroupPRODUCER
Fabrizio Del Noce, RAICO-PRODUCER
Antena 3CO-PRODUCER
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTIONBY ZODIAK RIGHTS
JOHN WEBERTake 5 ProductionsExecutive Producer
Toronto-based Take 5 Productions wasfounded in 2009 to finance and produce high-quality international television, and quickly established itself as an industryleader. The company completed anddelivered the final season of the awardwinning series ‘The Tudors’. Buildingon the success of ‘The Tudors’, Take 5successfully co-produced and deliveredthe first season of ‘The Borgias’ forShowtime Networks and CTV, followedby the delivery of the first season of‘Camelot’ for Starz Entertainment,G-K Films and CBC in Canada.
PAUL MYLEREPOS FilmsExecutive Producer
EPOS Films is a Dublin basedproduction company established in2007. The company is headed up byPaul Myler who has extensive industryexperience covering a period of 25years of productions that include, Farand Away, In The Name Of The Father,In America and Bloody Sunday. TheCompany has access to provide fundingunder the Irish Tax Incentive Program.
Blood & Steel
