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Oliver Morse - Company Director
Oliver Morse served his
apprenticeship in the BBC at a time when confidence was high, and free
and creative thinking were encouraged. Whilst there, he devised and
produced two highly distinctive and innovative programme formats:
Doctors Dilemmas, which confronted working doctors with intractable
ethical problems, and, together with Ian Duncan, Indelible Evidence, a
series about true murder stories solved through forensic science.
Combining high-end drama with the testimony of serving police officers
and forensic scientists, the series was an outstanding creative,
critical and ratings success. In both design and content this series
has been recognized as being 20 years ahead of its time.
After forming Windfall with Ian and David, Oliver's interest focussed
on the observational documentary. Having pinpointed failings in the
conventional way of making films about people, he was determined to
break down the barrier between camera and subject, and pioneered ways
of doing so. He sliced up budgets differently, introduced single person
camera teams, small cameras and longer production schedules to allow
for relationships to build.
He also gained access to areas of life normally considered too
difficult to enter. Two of his series for Channel 4, The Decision, and,
Fifteen, won the RTS Best Documentary Series Award in successive
years. He also took risks with very young people, giving first
chances to a generation of today's most talented directors, including
Daisy Asquith, Nichola Koratjitis and Robert Davis. Other notable films
include Bullying, The Lion's Den, and Marrying a Stranger, a two part
series on arranged marriages in the Asian Community.
Oliver then moved on to explore with Ian Duncan ways of combining the
beauty, economy and emotional power of drama with the raw present tense
uncertainty that documentary has to offer. Always interested in shining
the spotlight on life's most difficult dilemmas. they devised a format
which would allow a story's narrative to be shaped by the decisions
taken by the real professionals appearing within it. With screenwriter
Zinnie Harris and a group of leading actors, they set up stories drawn
from life which would challenge the most confident decision-maker.
In Born With Two Mothers, a top London fertility team have to think on
their feet when it appears that a black embryo may have been mistakenly
placed inside a white woman.
Richard is My Boyfriend considered the dilemma of a girl with learning
difficulties who is very interested in sex but cannot manage birth
control. Should she be sterilized?
With these two groundbreaking films, produced for Channel Four, Oliver
and Ian had unwittingly created a new genre, ”Reality
Drama”.
Oliver's sensitive handling of real life dilemmas has also earned him a
reputation outside television. Many of his documentary films are
considered unique and valuable social documents, and are widely used in
the training of judges, social workers, teachers and doctors.
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