Tenzing Norgay is the spiritual sherpa who makes the first ascent of Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in the new film Tenzing.
asserted
who → make → film
While it’s hard to imagine two more contrasting characters on screen, they share the same DNA.
asserted
they → ’ → DNA
It’s also shared by Saroo Brierley, the Indian-Australian author who tracks down his birth mother in the hit film Lion, and Peter Gordon, the fey medical student who wants to protect his mother in the Oscar-winner The Power of the Dog.
asserted
who → share → Dog
They all feature in projects made by Australian-British production company See-Saw Films.
asserted
They → feature → Films
It “champions underdog stories” in high-quality productions, co-founder Emile Sherman says in his Sydney office, which was once his mother Gene Sherman’s Paddington gallery.
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which → champion → office
His London counterpart, Iain Canning, describes its output slightly differently.
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counterpart → describe → output
“We’ve gravitated to lots of stories about outsiders but, centrally, we just want to tell a story with integrity,” he says on Zoom.
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he → gravitate → Zoom
Either way, See-Saw has become a global film and TV powerhouse since Sherman and Canning founded it in 2008 despite what the latter calls “the hell of our time zone difference”.
asserted
latter → become → difference
They met at the Cannes Film Festival when Sherman, as co-producer, was trying to finance the Heath Ledger-Abbie Cornish film Candy and Canning was working for a British sales agent.
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Canning → meet → agent
The King’s Speech put the two-year-old company on the entertainment map when it became a box office hit, taking $590 million around the world.
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it → put → world
Then it beat The Social Network and Inception to win best picture, director and two other Oscars.
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it → beat → picture
“We didn’t really know each other that well but we ended up making a film about an energetic Australian and a slightly reserved Englishman who hated public speaking, which is very us,” Canning says.
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Canning → know → speaking
The King’s Speech was a classy historical drama with standout performances by Colin Firth as the future King George IV and Geoffrey Rush as Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue but, for Sherman, there was no way of predicting its success.
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Speech → be → success
“We’re in the business of creating the conditions for lightning to strike and to then capture the benefits of lightning striking,” he says.
asserted
he → ’re → striking
“And you never know when it’s going to strike.”
asserted
it → know → ?
As cinemas became dominated by Hollywood superhero movies and streaming services increasingly needed more content, See-Saw focused on upmarket projects, initially for cinema then moving into TV and streaming.
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Saw → dominate → TV
Its other films have included Tracks, Widows, Operation Mincemeat, Netflix smash The Stranger and One Life.
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films → include → Tracks
In TV, it has had success with Top of the Lake, The New Legends of Monkey, State of the Union, Heartstopper, Sweetpea and Apple Cider Vinegar.
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it → have → Union
Sherman says they had no idea that Slow Horses would be as successful as it has been.
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it → say → idea
Season six on air and two more have been commissioned.
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Season → commission → air
“It sat in exactly the same category as every single other show we took on,” he says.
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he → sit → show
“We believed that there was something exciting there.
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We → believe → ?
It was a gamble because it didn’t sit in the normal bucket of the genre.”
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it → sit → genre
See-Saw’s output has been so impressive thatVariety called them “tastemakers” and it described as a major coup French entertainment giant Mediawan’s buy-in of a 51 per cent stake for an undisclosed sum in shares and cash last year.
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it → call → shares
Variety said: “It will become a significant asset under Mediawan’s umbrella, having not just amassed industry-wide admiration as one of the most successful and best-known scripted label working across both film and TV but accolades including five Oscars, 13 Emmys, five Golden Globes and 15 BAFTAs.”
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It → say → Oscars
It was a surprise sale given that only two years earlier, Sherman said one of the secret ingredients of See-Saw’s success had been its independence in an era of increasing industry consolidation.
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one → give → consolidation
“We are not owned by anyone and that is really unusual when you think of the Australian landscape.”
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you → own → landscape
So what’s the secret ingredient now that it’s majority owned by Mediawan?
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it → ’ → Mediawan
“That we’re owned by Mediawan,” Sherman deadpans.
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Sherman → own → Mediawan
“Iain and I … were never building the company to sell.
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Iain → build → company
It had been nearly 20 years and it felt like the right moment to do something different.
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it → feel → something
“Obviously realising some value out of it is important but we’d done quite well out of the company so it wasn’t entirely motivated by that.
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it → realise → that
It’s a big burden to carry every day when you are solely responsible for the company and there’s no external support.
asserted
you → ’ → company
Sherman says Mediawan, which has also bought a majority shareholding in Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and teamed up with Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment in a joint venture as part of its English-language expansion, will buy out the rest of See-Saw over multiple years.
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which → say → years
The company now has about 45 staff and the two founders have stepped back to be joint chief executives, leaving day-to-day business to joint managing directors Simon Gillis and Ben Irving.
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founders → have → directors
Describing Mediawan’s leading executives as “proper hustling producers”, Sherman says “they want to see things happen, they want to finance, they want to help with IP” since the deal.
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they → describe → deal
It seems to work for both parties, giving Mediawan another source of British-Australian production and influence on a pipeline of projects from a proven team.
asserted
It → seem → team
It helped source international finance and co-commissioners for See-Saw’s just-finished-shooting drama series The Great White, which stars Hugo Weaving as a disgraced barrister who is drawn into the world of animal law, for the ABC and Disney+ in Britain.
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who → help → Britain
“It’s just opened up the scope of See-Saw,” Sherman says.
asserted
Sherman → open → Saw
“It hasn’t changed what we’re looking for but sometimes you can do these deals and you find that you become corporatised and your taste becomes flattened.
asserted
taste → change → deals
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
