Dreamchaser adds trio of Australian producers to team
Endeavor Content–backed TV production and distribution studio Dreamchaser has completed a multi-year development and production deal with some of Australia’s top unscripted producers.
Debbie Cuell (Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, Ambulance Australia), Leigh Aramberri (The Voice) and Emma Lamb (Married at First Sight, Byron Baes) will join Dreamchaser as production partners. The trio will develop and produce new projects for TV and streaming platforms for the studio’s factual and entertainment divisions. Dreamchaser will serve as executive producer on all projects and take them out internationally.
Cuell (pictured, left) joins Dreamchaser as executive producer, partner: documentary and factual entertainment. She has more than 20 years of experience in factual and entertainment genres in Australian TV, and has previously worked with Endemol Shine Australia. Her projects will be made by Dreamchaser through her own production company, Sparkle Pictures.
Aramberri (pictured, right), joining the team as executive producer, partner: non-scripted entertainment, has worked on The Voice since its inception a decade ago, serving as executive producer for the past seven seasons and helping to produce spin-offs like The Voice Kids and The Voice Generations. He also has credits on MasterChef, Australia’s Next Top Model, The Apprentice, Project Runway, The Biggest Loser and The X Factor.
Lamb (pictured, center), who joins the team as executive producer, partner: non-scripted entertainment, has worked as co-executive producer on Married at First Sight for four years, and recently executive produced Netflix Australia’s first original unscripted series, Byron Baes. She’ll launch her production label Mischief Maker in July, as an exclusive partnership with Dreamchaser.
Dreamchaser also announced it will have further producer partner announcements to make later this year.
Vice World News acquires Pleistocene Park doc
Vice World News has acquired Java Films’ Pleistocene Park for the third season of its spotlight documentary series, The Short List with Suroosh Alvi.
Vice picked up worldwide broadcast and streaming rights to the documentary, which looks at Russian geophysicist Sergey Zimov’s Pleistocene Park project that aims to rewild a remote corner of Siberia. The film is produced by Jed Riffe Films and directed by Luke Griswold-Tergis, who spent eight years filming Zimov and his son Nikita as they searched around the globe for holdovers from the Ice Age and transported them to the Pleistocene Park site.
The documentary was selected for CPH:Dox, Hot Docs and Thessaloniki earlier this year.
Beck Media acquires pair of PR agencies
Entertainment and technology communications firm Beck Media & Marketing has acquired San Francisco–based media technology boutique Big Noise PR, as well as Nashville-based bespoke agency Beacoup Media.
The combined companies will operate under the Beck Media banner, effective immediately. Both deals closed earlier this year.
Big Noise PR is led by industry veteran Bronagh Hanley, and its clients and staff have already been integrated into Beck. Hanley will join Beck in an advisory role while pursuing other ventures, Beck announced.
“After more than a dozen years of running Big Noise PR independently, this feels like the right time to trade independence for a new opportunity,” Hanley said in a news release. “The refreshing combination of professional excellence and personal kindness that Todd and the entire team at Beck embody is exceedingly rare in our business, and I know Big Noise’s clients and staff will truly benefit from this deal.”
Beacoup Media was founded in 2019 by executive Amber Williams-Wright, who has joined Beck as a vice president managing special projects; she will still be based in Nashville, and will work closely with Beck’s Atlanta office. Previously, Williams-Wright opened Beck’s New York City office in 2011, and led it for six years. She later worked for the Country Music Association before launching her own firm to represent music artists, songwriters, labels, publishing houses and other entertainment clients in Nashville.
“I’ve seen a lot of companies from the inside and out during my career, and Beck Media rises above with the best colleagues and clients and the most conscientious leadership,” Williams-Wright said. “I’m honored to be back and look forward to contributing to this amazing agency culture.”
