Off the Fence

OTF Studios Showcases Co-Pro Track Record

For the last 30 years, OTF Studios has produced more than 700 hours of original content for broadcasters and platforms worldwide. Ingrained in this rich history is a measurable talent for collaboration, which has seen OTF fuse ideas, talent and contributors with creative expertise to outstanding effect. This has resulted in a slate that boasts Emmy nominations and a win in the environmental and wildlife category at Banff’s Rockie Awards for Silverback (BBC, France Télévisions); an Academy Award for My Octopus Teacher; and an environmental justice film, The Letter, made with Pope Francis in 2022, which has been viewed almost 9 million times on YouTube.

Andrew Zikking, OTF Studios’ managing director of production, weighs in on the unit’s long and impressive track record, which recently landed the company in Realscreen’s Global 100 as one of the top ten co-production partners in the world.
Awards are the icing on the cake, but being seen as a preferred and respected co-pro partner is an important badge of honor right now. As every production company knows, almost every potential project requires the ability to draw in financing from every corner of the industry to piece together a deal, so I’m extremely proud of the relationships we’ve built and maintained over the last 30 years.

Producing in the current climate isn’t an easy feat, especially for a production company that’s so well known in the wildlife space. But over the last few years, more than 50 percent of our output has been in other genres, including history (Underworld, Ancient Engineering) and science (Great Inventions, Future from Above). We’ve also curated a diverse distribution slate ranging from true crime (The Sex Trafficker’s Wife, The Amazon Review Killer) to cross-genre hybrids of all of the above (Unearthed: Ancient Murder Detectives). We’re lucky enough to benefit from our in-house distribution team, which works collaboratively with us on our ideas to find presale and co-pro partners.

OTF’s nine-strong sales and acquisitions team has always been one of our key assets. We recently collaborated with Iceland’s Saga Film on Iceland from Above, an idea that came through our in-house acquisitions team. The sales team knew there was a demand in this space and pitched it to their network, and OTF Studios came on board as a co-producer. We replicated this model with Beavers from Above with Markham Street Films and CBC in Canada, which took us to the wilds of Alaska to chart an extraordinary invasion of Canada’s most famous animals on the frontline of climate change.

Loren Baxter, head of acquisitions and co-productions at OTF, adds the perspective from her remit.
We are constantly reacting to what our buyers are telling us and thinking about how we can deliver that. On the acquisitions side, wherever that content comes from—third party or in-house—if it fits the brief, we’ll put all of our teams behind it, which often propels these projects forward.

This established co-production model has persuaded channels such as National Geographic, ARTE, ZDF, Curiosity Stream and the BBC to become trusted strategic partners. These partnerships have produced recent productions such as Wild Talk with ZDF Studios and ARTE about animal communication, and Zombie Animals with National Geographic International about the various parasites, viruses and fungi that take over animal hosts. Another example is AI-focused What If Evolution with production company Return to Earth Studio, which is also headquartered in Amsterdam.

Stefanie Fischer is the managing director of Amsterdam-based OTF Distribution and a key part of the company’s co-pro efforts.
We maintain strong partnerships in Germany, a key region for co-production, particularly with the channels within the ZDF group. In addition to the projects already mentioned, we’ve collaborated with ZDF and ARTE on several productions. These include Pharaohs: Rise and Fall, a co-production with ARTE; the licensing of our upcoming film on CERN, The Peace Particle; and an exciting new OTF original with ZDFinfo that is about to be greenlit.

The acclaimed conservation documentary Silverback exemplifies the quality of OTF’s partnerships. A co-production between the BBC, France Télévisions, Xumo and Featuristic Film, the film has scooped a string of awards and nominations since it premiered on the BBC in 2023, including at the Emmys, BAFTAs, the Banff World Media Festival Rockie Awards and the RTS Programme Awards. Prizes this year include Best Natural History or Environmental Documentary at The Grierson Awards and a trio of Jackson Wild Media Awards: the Grand Teton Award; the People & Nature, Long Form Award; and the On-Screen Personality Award for protagonist Vianet Djenguet.

As co-production and content financing models shift inexorably toward a more collaborative culture, OTF’s Bristol-based arm is celebrating this legacy as we look to the future. With an increasing need to embrace storytelling more strategically to stand out and reach audiences in today’s content-driven economy, OTF Studios also enables brands, businesses and funds to access professional-grade storytelling—stories with reach, resonance and relevance.

As well as continuing to target commissions and build co-productions, we are adding focus on digital commissioning and harnessing our IP to take advantage of the expanding B2C frontier that has been opened up by influencers. In some way, they have shaken up the entire industry, so perhaps we need to be humble enough to learn some lessons from them.