Euston Films - History

History

The company was founded in 1971 when three Thames executives, Lloyd Shirley, George Taylor and Brian Tesler realised there was a market for a new type of television drama. To facilitate this new-style of quick-changing action, Euston utilised the use of two crews filming different scenes of the same programme at the same time, which ensured production times were quicker. Euston eschewed studio filming and all material was filmed on location using the more expensive but higher quality 16mm film stock.

Initial shows such as Special Branch gained reasonable praise but it was the series The Sweeney which first gave the company its first critical and commercial success. Using a storyline style known as kick, bollock and scramble, this formula continued in such shows as Fox and Widows. In 1979, the company created Minder as a vehicle for Sweeney star Dennis Waterman giving the company its longest running show.

With the demise of parent company Thames as an ITV company, Euston's output reduced. It continued to make Minder but for Central Television but when this series was axed in 1994, further work was not coming. The company eventually disbanded and no longer exists.

Read more about this topic:  Euston Films

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.
    Norman Mailer (b. 1923)

    I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.
    —J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)

    We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
    Milan Kundera (b. 1929)