Drive Studios moves into long-running scripted content

Since its launch in 2016, the fast-expanding Copenhagen-based Drive Studios has evolved from a commercials and digital production company, delivering video content for streamers and online platforms, to a solid creator of original storytelling across all formats.

Partly-owned by Nordisk Film, the company headed by Sigurd Bæk Jensen, first planted the seeds to its fiction ambitions by hiring in 2019 its new Head of Scripted Maj-Britt Landin, former production executive at TV2 Fiction.

Most recently, the company has appointed seasoned writer Adam August (Cry Wolf, Follow the Money, Valhalla, Darkland) as Creative Executive and Head-Writer.

Explaining her ambitions to nordicfilmandtvnews.com, Landin said: “I joined Drive Studios with the brief to expand on the existing slate, to build on already existing talent, and draw in new talent. Our scripted department is now the main driver of the current growth of the company.”

Landin says Drive Studios’ main focus so far has been on short-form drama within the YA/dramedy genres, faster to turn around and to produce with smaller budgets, such as the successful shows Limboland or 29, both produced for Fox/YouSee’s joint TV service Xee.

“The budget of 29 can’t compare to other series, yet its cultural impact and awards [2020 Robert award-Best Short Format for season 3) is a proof that there is another way to produce,” noted Landin. Five such low budget short formats with promising talents were produced this year (see details here under).

Drive Studios also delivers content (fiction and non-fiction) for the younger age group (3-12) through the ‘Oiii’ kids brand created in partnership with Nordisk Film for TV2 Norway and TV2 Denmark.

Going forward, the company’s scripted strategy is to deliver annually at least one high-end long-running series, alongside three multiple season low budget short formats, as well as family content under the Oiii brand.

The first premium long running Danish series in development will be created by Adam August. “It will be a big scale undercover cop crime series,” says August who is putting together a writers’ room for the yet untitled eight-part series to be developed across three seasons. Details will be unveiled at a later date.

Drive Studios also has scripted ambitions outside Scandinavia, hoping to build on its existing offices in Oslo and Berlin (DriveBeta). “We are planning to use our experience, as well as the culturally transferable Danish shows to develop scripted content both in Norway and Germany,” continues Landin who is considering keeping German rights to Drive Studios upcoming long-running crime series.

Drive Studios’s Head of International & Sales Jes Brandhøj tells nordicfilmandtvnews.com: “Our German sister company is clearly digitally-cut and they have great partnerships with ZDF, ARD, Youtube among others. Together with our more traditional TV scripted approach and Adam [August]’s writing expertise, we can create a holy trinity that will take them to the next step as well.”

Drive Writing Studio
Meanwhile to support the company’s scripted impulse, Drive Studios has just launched a one-year intensive TV drama screenwriting programme for promising Danish writing talents. The free of charge screenwriting course Drive Writing Studio, is supervised by August, who has taught notably at Copenhagen’s National Film School of Denmark and the European Film College. “I love teaching, it’s a good way to see what stories young talents want to tell and it reminds you of the craft’s process,” he says.

The writing course will accept 4-8 writers who haven’t had a traditional education at a film school but have a strong personal voice. The TV pilots developed at Drive Writing Studio will eventually be produced by Drive Studios.

Brandhøj says: “We’re good at creating the best environment for young voices and help them develop. We’re confident to attract promising talents, and if the programme is successful and creates value for Drive Studios, then we might expand its concept outside Denmark.”

Deadline to apply is December 2, 2020.
The course will start January 11, 2021
Contact sara@drivestudios.dk

Drive Studios’ short format scripted line-up:

• Noget om Emma/My Different Ways (DR).
  The 7x20-30’ series premiered on the youth channel DR3 on October 23. The YA relationship directed by Mads Mengel is based on Sigurd Hartkorn Plaetner’s novel Something about Vitus. Vitus starts dating Emma, but hasn’t told her that his ex-girlfriend Sara is pregnant and has decided to keep the baby, much against his will. In the title roles are Kristine Kujath Thorp (The North Sea) and Mads Reuther (Chemo Brain).

• Limboland (Xee). The series aired on TV2 Norway’s streaming service TV2 Sumo a few months ago and just premiered this Monday on TV4 Play in Sweden. The show from show-runner Rikke Louise Schjødt centres on three Danish women in their mid-20s, Freja (Frederikke Dahl Hansen), Katrine (Emma Sehested Høeg), and Nadja (Angela Bundalovic) who develop a strong friendship while struggling to find themselves. A second season starring as well Paprika Steen and Cyron Melville is due to launch in the spring 2021.
• 32 (Xee) Fourth YA web series after 29,30,31 created by acting comedy duo Jesper Zushlag and Julie Rudbæk, inspired by their own experiences of turning 30 and feeling the pressure of adulthood. 31 won a Danish TV Roberts Award and TVprisen for Best Short Form Scripted. The fifth season 33 is in the editing room.

• The Jungle (Xee) Urban dramedy following the rials and tribulations of a globally-rooted bohemian collective of the same name. The series starring Sons of Denmark’s Zaki Yousef was created by Nitesh Anjaan (Dreaming Murakami).
• Sunday season 3 is a fish-out-of-water tale about Sunday (Melvin Kakooza) of Kenyan-origin, who is being recruited supposedly as the new star of a football club in a small rural Danish town, but Sunday has never played football in his life. The series directed by Jesper Rofelt (Dan Dream) won best short comedy series at Denmark’s local TV Prisen awards 2020
• 2 døgn/2 Days (Xee) 6X30’ crime drama created by actor/scriptwriter Oscar Dyekjær Giese (Chernobyl, Pulse) and director Nicolai Achton, written by Giese and Simon Weil (The Rain, Norskov). Dejan Cukic (Borgia, Before We Die) and Clara Rosager (The Rain, Face to Face) star in the series about two cousins who, on a fun night out, suddenly encounter a notorious gangster. The series will premiere on Xee in February 2021.