Biographies

 William Cran

Writer/Producer/Series Producer

Bill Cran has won four national Emmys and received Emmy nominations in ten successive years. His other major prizes include The Columbia School of Journalism’s du Pont Columbia Award (4 times), the Peabody Award (twice) and The Golden Gate Award (twice), The Cine Golden Eagle (twice) and The Overseas Press Club Award.

During his career in America, Canada and Britain he has produced more than 50 full length documentaries and landmark series. His recent credits as series producer/director include: JIHAD: The Men and Ideas Behind Al Qaeda (PBS/C4), The Age of Aids (PBS/Channel 4) Do You Speak American (PBS), The Curse of Oil, a three part series for PBS/CB C/BBC, Commanding Heights (PBS/BBC) and the HBO/BBC movie Hostile Waters (Executive Producer). Critical acclaim of his work has been fulsome:

Commanding Heights was acclaimed by the Washington Post as

“Stunningly ambitious…brilliantly successful.. No more important programme for making sense of our life and times has been seen on the air in at least a decade…. a ringing reaffirmation of TV’s still-limitless possibilities”. Apocalypse! (PBS/C4), the story of The Book of Revelations and the origins of apocalyptic thinking, was described by The New York Daily as an “achievement nothing less than extraordinary“. The New York Times praised The Prize: the epic story of oil, money and power (BBC/PNS) as “mastery of the television documentary”. For The Financial Times The Secret World of Richard Nixon (BBC/A&E) was “gripping stuff”. For The Times Nelson’s Trafalgar (Channel 4) a feature length biographical drama documentary about Britain’s great naval hero was “a brilliant documentary”. For The New York Times Cran’s From Jesus to Christ (PBS) was “what television should aspire to be”.

His other documentaries include: Ambush in Mogadishu (WGBH/BBC); The History of a Mystery (BBC/A&E); War Against Terror - Afghanistan (PBS); The Survival of Saddam Hussein (PBS); The Man who made The Supergun (PBS); Holy War, Holy Terror (PBS); Saudi Arabia - Land of Oil and Money (BBC) and Black September (BBC).

Clive Syddall

Executive Producer

Clive Syddall has extensive experience as a producer, director and executive producer on a wide range of projects from current affairs, history, music and arts and long form documentaries. His recent credits as Executive Producer include JIHAD: The Men and Ideas Behind Al Qaeda 1 x 2hrs for PBS, Channel 4, SBS Australia - winner of the 2007 du Pont Columbia University Award for excellence in journalism; Sinatra: Dark Star 1x90’ for BBC ONE, French, German and American co-producers - nominated for the prestigious Grierson Award for Best Arts Documentary and 1421: The Year China Discovered America? 1 x 2hrs for PBS/Pearson Television - an investigation into the book of the same name.

Formally a producer on BBC’s Panorama, programme editor of Newsnight and producer for the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour his other documentary credits include Plague Wars (BBC ONE/WGBH) reviewed by The London Times as “important TV… a chilling investigation into the new threat of biological warfare”; The Guardian reviewed The Shearing Touch (ITV South Bank Show) - a tribute to George Shearing “The music came out like lakeside ripples”; The London Telegraph said of The People’s Duchess (Channel 4) - the dramatised documentary of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire “this sumptuous recreation of the life of Princess Diana’s equally ill-fated ancestor will be the bench mark for all future history documentaries”

Other credits include: Lost in Africa - the fight to save 100,000 children separated from their parents by the civil war in Rwanda (C4); Wallis Simpson - The Demonised Duchess the controversial American who spent 36 years looking after a King nobody wanted (C4); the 90’ biographical special The Margot Fonteyn Story (C4); The Real Tommy Cooper (C4) Great Railway Journeys (BBC/PBS) and the BAFTA award winning series River Journeys (BBC/PBS). He was also part of the development team of a number of feature films including Schultz based on the book fo the same name by JP Donleavy and the Oscar winning movie The Mission (Warner Brothers).

His campaigning film The Last Flight of Zulu Delta 576 - an investigation into the Chinook helicopter crash over the Mull of Kintyre killing 29 of Britain’s top secret service personnel (Channel 4) led to a Parliamentary Inquiry and a decision in January 2008 by The Secretary for Defence to review the case finally clearing the names of the two helicopter pilots.