Remy Blumenfeld
Remy Blumenfeld (born, Paris, France) is a British Television executive and content creator who founded two British television production companies, Thinking Violets (http://thinkingviolets.com/) in 2013 and Brighter Pictures which he sold to Endemol in 2004. In 2008 he launched the Formats division of ITV Studios, the production arm of Britain's largest commercial TV station and exported shows such as Come Dine With Me, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and Four Weddings around the world.[1]
Remy Blumenfeld has created more than 30 television formats such as There's Something About Miriam which have been exported around the world.
Often the programmes he has produced have been about exploring the edges of society which he has helped bring into the mainstream. FLAVA (Channel 4) was the first black music series on terrestrial TV. Bombay Blush (BBC2) was the first time India’s modern and offbeat pop culture was featured on terrestrial TV. Airing for two series, the show looked at the pink underbelly of India’s subculture. Get A New Life (BBC2) was a transformation show like no other. Each episode, one family got to make a fresh start in another part of the world. The series ultimately re-located 100 families, who it helped find jobs, homes and schools. In the process, Remy redefined the whole make-over genre. Gay Straight or Taken (Lifetime USA) asked female contributors to go on a group date with three men and must try to figure out which man is gay, which one is straight but taken, and which one is straight and available.
The Independent newspaper has ranked him as one of the top 20 most influential gay men or women in the UK.[2] In September 2010 he was by his named by his peers as one of the world's top 5 format creators[3] In March 2012 Remy Blumenfeld was named as one of the world's Greatest Reality Show Villains.[4] and in 2016 he was profiled as "one of the great sages of contemporary TV" by Monocle Magazine.[5]
Career
After school in England, Blumenfeld joined WPIX-TV in New York as a news intern and was soon promoted to reporter, covering celebrity and lifestyle features in Remy's People and The Remy Report. He was awarded the New York Daily News award for outstanding foreign-born journalist and the Pan Arts award for coverage of the arts. He later moved to WWOR-TV before returning to the UK where he presented 31 West, a daily magazine show on BSB.
In 1991, Blumenfeld co-founded Brighter Pictures with Gavin Hay in a bedroom of their house in Brixton. He created many programmes for British TV including There's Something About Miriam, in which 6 men date "the woman of their dreams" who turns out to be a trans-sexual.
In 2004, the sale of Brighter Pictures to Endemol completed and Remy remained as creative director at Endemol UK for Brighter Pictures and sat on the Global Creative Board of Endemol BV and on the Editorial Board of Endemol UK. In 2004 Brighter Pictures produced more than 300 hours of original programming.
At Brighter Pictures, Remy was responsible for creating more than 30 original formats, many of which have been sold around the world. These included, Flava (Channel 4) Bombay Blush (BBC2) Dynasty or Disaster (FOX) Get A New Life (BBC2) Tabloid Tales with Piers Morgan (BBC1) My Worst Week (BBC1) Wudja? Cudja? (ITV1) Love Match (ITV1) Undercover Lovers (TROUBLE) Cruel Summer (TROUBLE) and Gay, Straight or Taken? (Lifetime). From 2004 Brighter Pictures was also the division of Endemol UK that produced Big Brother.
After Brighter Pictures, Blumenfeld went on to launch a global formats division at ITV Studios, the production division of ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster. Here, he exported shows such as Come Dine With Me, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and Four Weddings around the world and launched production divisions in the France and Spain and sat on the board of ITV Studios.
In 2013, Remy Blumenfeld launched a new company, Thinking Violets [6] He is the producer, writer and executive-producer of many acclaimed British documentary films, such as The Dark Matter of Love, about the science of love[7] BBC4, 30 October 2013, The Other Francis Bacon, about a new cache of work by the British Painter, Channel 4, The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women[8] about his grandfather Erwin Blumenfeld for BBC4, 19 May 2013 and the UK Gold[9] about Britain's role as a tax haven.
Other work
In 2001, Remy Blumenfeld was the driving force, together with Producer Anne Mensah, of TVYP at work, a scheme which sponsors 15 youngsters each year to find paid placements with some of the UK's most prestigious TV companies. The scheme, which continues to run successfully as part of the Edinburgh TV Festival’s talent schemes, has been directly responsible for getting some 200 people into their first paid jobs.[10]
In 2016 with fellow producer Justin Bodle, Remy Blumenfeld co-founded the Hot House, creative incubator called The Hot House, a unique venture launching specifically to enable the UK’s most exciting content creators to start their own production companies.[11]
Greatly influenced by the legendary Impresario Michael White (producer) with whom Remy produced the TV series Shoot Me, Remy supports emerging writers and actors as the producer of new plays at Edinburgh, including Silas Carson's Eunuchs In My Wardrobe, Tim Fountain's Julie Burchill Is Away and Jack Silver's critically acclaimed production of Confessional by Tennessee Williams, which Remy also produced in London at the Southwark Playhouse [12]
He has worked with English Heritage to recognise the work of pioneering architect Michael Manser through the Grade II* listing of his modernist masterpiece, Capel Manor House in Kent, which Remy acquired in 2001.
Background
Remy Blumenfeld is the grandson of the photographer, Erwin Blumenfeld who is credited with having taken more covers of Vogue Magazine than any other photographer. He is the son of the Sculptor, Helaine Blumenfeld and the writer, Yorick Blumenfeld. The Sunday Times Magazine wrote of the relationship between Remy and his mother, Helaine, in Relative Values[13] "I've learnt a lot from my mother and father about what is really of value in life - it's about who you love and who loves you. And I think they've learnt from me that life isn't all about what you leave behind."
Remy attended the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and Bedales School in Hampshire. Interviewed about the experience, Remy said: “The Bedales that I left in 1983 was a place where poets, potters, botanists and carpenters were all encouraged, as I was, to believe that whatever we wanted for ourselves and our lives we could have. At the same time, none of us were taught how to deal in the real world of budgets and time-frames. So I think my 18 year-old self would be surprised by what a pragmatist I have become. In living the life that I love I have learned the importance of a well-constructed plan in allowing me and those around me to thrive.” [14]
References
- ↑ "Hollywood Reporter" Hollywood Reporter 10/14/2010 by Mimi Turner
- ↑ "Independent on Sunday" Ben Summerskill in the Independent On Sunday, Gay Power the Pink List
- ↑ "Broadcast Magazine" Dealmakers, 1 October 2010
- ↑ "News.Com.Au" Switched On's List of the Greatest Reality Show Villains
- ↑ Monocle Magazine, September 2016 by Rob Bound
- ↑ http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/indies/remy-blumenfeld-launches-indie/5054135.article/
- ↑ http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/dark-matter-of-love-film-review-1200664190/
- ↑ http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/tamsin-blanchard/TMG10062375/The-extraordinary-story-of-Erwin-Blumenfeld.html
- ↑ http://www.theukgold.co.uk/
- ↑ "Scottish Screen", 27 July 2007.
- ↑ http://wsimag.com/entertainment/20842-a-hot-house-for-creative-talent/
- ↑ https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2015/confessional/
- ↑ "Relative Values" Helaine Blumenfeld and her son Remy - Times Online 2 Nov 2008 Relative Values A Mother and Son Who Break The Mould by Caroline Scott
- ↑ "http://www.bedales.org.uk/alumni/remy-blumenfeld/