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Nicola Lees

Goodreads Author

Born

The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.tvmole.com

Twitter

tvmole

Genre

Nonfiction, Fiction

Influences

Angela Carter, Lily Prior, Mark Burnett, Kay Mellor, Alma Har'el ...more

Member Since

April 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/tvmole

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Nicola has worked in the television industry – in London and New York - for more than 15 years. She has developed documentaries, docudramas, multiplatform and reality programmes for network and cable channels, including the BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and Channel 5 in the UK and Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, National Geographic and TLC in the USA.

Nicola originally worked as an operating room and ER nurse and spent ten years dealing with drunks and DIY victims. On the spur of the moment she accepted a job as an expedition medic in Chile and Zimbabwe where she dug latrines and almost drowned in the Zambezi River during a rafting trip that went wrong (which was awkward, as she was the only qualified medic).

Back home she spent time answering Nicola has worked in the television industry – in London and New York - for more than 15 years. She has developed documentaries, docudramas, multiplatform and reality programmes for network and cable channels, including the BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and Channel 5 in the UK and Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, National Geographic and TLC in the USA.

Nicola originally worked as an operating room and ER nurse and spent ten years dealing with drunks and DIY victims. On the spur of the moment she accepted a job as an expedition medic in Chile and Zimbabwe where she dug latrines and almost drowned in the Zambezi River during a rafting trip that went wrong (which was awkward, as she was the only qualified medic).

Back home she spent time answering the phones for a radio gardening where her progress was hampered by her complete lack of horticultural experience and even less knowledge of Latin plant names. Later, she worked briefly as a Holiday Rep in Lanzarote, where she found herself dancing the can-can in a cabaret act and putting her medical knowledge to good use when her guests became ill (the two weren't related).

After signing on with a temping agency Nicola was sent to answer the phones at the BBC in London for one day. Ten years later, she was still working at the BBC had established herself in the newly emerging, and much misunderstood, discipline of programme development.

Nicola's first commission, The Guinea Pig Club, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kct2bJ..., was a documentary about a group of WWII airmen who were badly burnt and became the guinea pigs for a maverick plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe. Knowing from her time as a scrub nurse that McIndoe forceps and McIndoe scissors are standard surgical instruments, her interest was piqued when she saw a book called McIndoe's Army, and she discovered a remarkable story of resilience and camaraderie. The documentary went on to win a Royal Television Society History Award (2005). Since then, Nicola has been directly involved in researching, writing or pitching more than 80 commissioned programmes, many of which have won industry awards.

Nicola left the BBC after ten years and continued to write; her first effort was a rom-com, which a reader said reminded him of A Clockwork Orange. Sensing that rom-com perhaps wasn't her forte she turned to non-fiction and has published Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas From Concept to Pitch (Methuen, 2010) and Give Me the Money and I'll Shoot! Finance Your Factual TV/Film Project (Methuen, 2012).

Nicola is the founder and editor of http://www.tvmole.com a website aimed at inspiring, informing and improving factual TV development, which attracts an international readership for its blend of commissioning news, how-to articles, funding and pitching opportunities and development tips.

Nicola is currently researching the final book of her non-fiction TV trilogy. She is also having another attempt at fiction and has three different projects on the go (including an unromantic comedy).

...more

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TVMole started as a way to share industry intelligence with a small but dedicated band of factual TV developers, at a time when development was barely recognised as a discrete discipline, with its own unique skillset and challenges, let alone a viable career choice. Over time, TVMole's subscriber base gradually expanded from London, NYC and LA to reach development people in Sydney, Johannesberg, B Read more of this blog post »

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Published on December 08, 2016 07:00

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Nicola Lees’s books

Average rating: 3.92 · 24 ratings · 0 reviews · 3 distinct works

	Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch 3.78 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Give Me the Money and I'll Shoot!: Finance your Factual TV/Film Project 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	(Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch (Professional Media Practice)) [By: Lees, Nicola] [Aug, 2010] 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Nicola is Currently Reading

Nicola Lees is currently reading

Creating Characters: Let Them Whisper Their Secrets

by Marisa D'vari

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Jan 12, 2013 02:52AM

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The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories

by Christopher Booker

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Dec 27, 2012 02:45PM

Nicola Lees is currently reading

Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era

by Jon Reiss

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Dec 21, 2012 01:53PM

Nicola’s Quotes

“Anybody can have ideas—the difficulty is to express them
without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that
ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”
― Mark Twain

4 likes

“The best documentaries are independent. They don’t exist to serve interests, philanthropic or otherwise.”
― Nick Fraser

tags: documentary, filmmaking

2 likes

“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.”
― Mark Twain

16 likes