Speaker Details
Full Name
Mark Blaney
Company
Footprint Films
Title
Joint MD & Producer
Country (Address)
United Kingdom
Biography
Co-founder and joint Managing Director of Footprint Films, Mark has worked in film and television as a producer since 1993, having trained at the Bournemouth Filmschool in the UK.
In 2005, Mark joined forces with fellow producer Jackie Sheppard which led to the highly acclaimed feature, AFRICA UNITED. Their 2020 release, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA - shot on location in Adelaide, Australia, and starring Daniel Radcliffe & Daniel Webber - was produced by Footprint, David Barron’s BeaglePug, and Arclight Films.
Establishing Footprint in 1994 with fellow founders Simon Beaufoy, Bille Eltringham and Juliet Wills, Mark’s first theatrical feature producing credit was THE DARKEST LIGHT (Pathé, BBC Films). Other early producer credits included the award winning drama-short YELLOW, BBC 40 Minutes’ SHATTERED DREAM (BBC Television), DV feature THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG, real-life drama WANTED, and micro-budget feature EVERYONE’S HAPPY.
The highlights of the first 30 years include working with film makers in Rwanda & Burundi (AFRICA UNITED) and Kurdistan (with Kurdish filmmaker Kae Bahar, producing Footprint/Joka Films’ drama-short I AM SAMI), travelling to parts of the globe Mark never imagined he’d see, and being trusted by extraordinary people to share their real-life stories with the world. What a privilege!
In 2005, Mark joined forces with fellow producer Jackie Sheppard which led to the highly acclaimed feature, AFRICA UNITED. Their 2020 release, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA - shot on location in Adelaide, Australia, and starring Daniel Radcliffe & Daniel Webber - was produced by Footprint, David Barron’s BeaglePug, and Arclight Films.
Establishing Footprint in 1994 with fellow founders Simon Beaufoy, Bille Eltringham and Juliet Wills, Mark’s first theatrical feature producing credit was THE DARKEST LIGHT (Pathé, BBC Films). Other early producer credits included the award winning drama-short YELLOW, BBC 40 Minutes’ SHATTERED DREAM (BBC Television), DV feature THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG, real-life drama WANTED, and micro-budget feature EVERYONE’S HAPPY.
The highlights of the first 30 years include working with film makers in Rwanda & Burundi (AFRICA UNITED) and Kurdistan (with Kurdish filmmaker Kae Bahar, producing Footprint/Joka Films’ drama-short I AM SAMI), travelling to parts of the globe Mark never imagined he’d see, and being trusted by extraordinary people to share their real-life stories with the world. What a privilege!
Production Company Profile
Much of Footprint’s story telling is focussed on drama adaptations of true stories or on narratives that resonate in a similar way. Seeking to entertain, inspire and give audiences opportunity to consider people, cultures, beliefs and ways of life beyond their own experience, above all Footprint features, and drama series for TV/streaming, should ‘leave a stone in the shoe’ of audiences, giving them reason to be thinking, laughing, crying, wrestling way after they’ve left the cinema or switched off for the night. Footprint’s 2020 feature, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA, is a great example of what we’re looking for: a true story framed as a prison break (to reach audience), but with a historical and political heart that stands to inspire and provoke the ‘average’ cinema goer through to the most fervent of politicos. Next stop, a feature comedy, with, we hope, reason to think and laugh out loud
Speaking At
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Ready, Steady, Pitch!
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Ready, Steady, Pitch!
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - UK Connect 1:1 meeting
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Ready, Steady, Pitch!
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Ready, Steady, Pitch!
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
Footprint Films, Mark Blaney - Co-Production Forum
SCREEN FOREVER is proudly supported by the Queensland Government, through Screen Queensland.
Screen Producers Australia respectfully acknowledges the people of the Yugambeh language region, the traditional owners of the lands on which we met. We thank the traditional custodians for welcoming us all onto their lands.
We acknowledge and pay respects to them and all their descendants both past and present. We also acknowledge the many Aboriginal people from other regions as well as Torres Strait and South Sea Islander people who now live in the local area and have made an important contribution to the community.