A London television and film production company, founded in 2007, that makes drama including The Crown, Wallander and Outlander.
Left Bank Pictures is a British film and television production company based in London. It specialises in drama, and its credits include Wallander, Strike Back, DCI Banks, Mad Dogs, Outlander and The Crown, which Wikipedia describes as the first British-American series produced exclusively for Netflix. Its other work includes Behind Her Eyes and Dept. Q on television and The Damned United and Misbehaviour among its films. Many of its shows are adaptations of novels and are made with broadcasters and funders in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere.
The company was formed in 2007 by Andy Harries, Francis Hopkinson and Marigo Kehoe. Harries had been controller of drama, comedy and film at Granada Productions. Its first television commission was Wallander. Sony Pictures Television bought a majority stake in 2012, and Harries remains chairman. In a 2017 interview Harries said he started Left Bank to focus on drama even though industry executives told him drama was declining, and that most of its work was for US companies. We did not find a written mission statement, so we have not invented one.
Left Bank's headquarters is on High Holborn in central London, according to the 2017 interview, which describes a boardroom overlooking west London and the river. We found no information on offices elsewhere in the UK. Shooting for its programmes takes place in locations and studios around the country, and York Minster was used for The Crown, according to a local report, but those are production visits and not company offices. The Crown was reported in 2016 as having a budget of about £5 million per hour.
Harries has worked with the screenwriter Peter Morgan for about 30 years, and The Crown grew out of Morgan's play The Audience, which Harries produced. Describing the show, he said "The best people are on it and we work 24/7 to make it." He also described feeling that the company was at first misunderstood after the Sony deal, and that he kept working as he always had. These are the company's leader's own words, and we found no staff-written account of daily working life.
Roles in a drama company include producers and executive producers, development executives who work with writers, script editors, production managers and coordinators, business affairs and finance staff, and assistants. Interests in reading, writing, history, television or business can all lead here. The company's own website is the place to check for current openings.
Website: www.leftbankpictures.co.uk
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