Masterclass: TV to Change the World: How to make presenter-led campaigning films have impact on and off the screen

Executive Producer Dominique Walker has been at the forefront of producing popular factual campaigning films for the past twenty years, including the BAFTA award-winning Jamie’s School Dinners which led to a fundamental overhaul of the food kids eat in schools, several Channel 4 campaigning commissions including Fowl Dinners, which pressured most of the major supermarkets into withdrawing battery farmed eggs and The Doctor who Gave up Drugs with presenter Dr Chris van Tulleken, which campaigned to wean Brits off prescribed drugs.

In this exclusive WFTV masterclass, Dominique and Chris will share their collective wisdom about how producers and presenters can collaborate to create powerful TV campaigns that are also entertaining television, and talk about their latest film for BBC1 which questions the role the food industry and ultra-processed food in the alarming rise in childhood obesity. They will unpack some of the editorial, legal and ethical challenges which present themselves when making films that change the world one school dinner, battery farmed egg, plastic bag, or anti-depressant at a time.

Dominique Walker is an executive producer with a career in the television industry spanning 30 years. She worked as a commissioning editor at Channel 4 in the documentary and factual entertainment departments and now works as a freelance executive producer.

Dominique has been the driving force behind some of the UK’s best-known television series. From Jamie’s School Dinners to the award-winning wildlife feature documentary Drowning in Plastic, and several series of BAFTA nominated The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs. More recently she made The British Tribe Next Door, a fact-ent hit which won the RTS for best formatted popular factual programme. Dominique is passionate about programmes with social purpose and is an ardent believer in the power of television to create meaningful change.

Dr. Chris van Tulleken is an infectious diseases doctor at UCLH, and one of the BBC’s leading science presenters having worked on many flagship Health & Science programmes.

During 2020, Chris shared his own personal experience of COVID19 in the BBC One documentary Surviving the Virus: My Brother & Me and hosted two Horizon Coronavirus specials for BBC Two.

In 2017 Chris’ concerns about antibiotic resistance and over-reliance on prescription drugs led him to create a campaigning series for BBC One; The Dr Who Gave up Drugs and in 2018, he turned the focus of the topic to children with the second series. Chris also presents Operation Ouch, a double BAFTA and Broadcast award winning series for CBBC alongside his twin brother, Xand.

How will the online event work?

This event will be live streamed via Zoom.us. Viewing details will be sent via your confirmation.

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