4D Studio Architects are delighted to share the news that The Story Collective producers have launched their major film and TV studio complex in Mortlake, London
UK producers Damian Keogh and Simon Vaughan, previously at TV drama Lookout Point, have launched their own film and TV studios The Story Works in Richmond, southwest London.
The 22-acre site, a former brewery dating as far back as the 11th century, was originally intended as a temporary base for production on Steven Knight’s upcoming Disney+ series A Thousand Blows which Keogh and Vaughan produced via The Story Collective with Matriarch Productions and Water & Power Productions.
Through their production company, founded in 2021 alongside Helen Jackson, they recently signed a lease with the developers to continue operating for the “foreseeable future” starting with a major UK film sequel shooting this summer.
Primarily funded through The Story Collective, a subsidiary of US-based company Fifth Season (previously Endeavour), the studio’s backers also include The Young Vic’s outgoing artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah who is a co-founder and sits on the board.
The Story Works currently have two soundstages, sound-proofed from the busy London Heathrow flight path overhead and production offices, workshops and car parks.
A Thousand Blows, which stars Stephen Graham and follows an illegal boxing club in Victorian London was shot at the studios from March to December last year. making use of the brewery’s original buildings as a backdrop. The production built a standing set replicating east London docklands and back streets which remains intact with the hope of a second series.
“We came here with our producer hats on, looking for a space,” Keogh said, speaking to Screen International.
As locals of the borough of Richmond themselves, the producers were familiar with the riverside brewery in Mortlake, which had not been in operation for over 10 years but had been used as a backlot by other productions including Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny.
“Having loved it, we thought, ‘Why isn’t this a studio all the time?’” Keogh added.
The Story Works’ central location in southwest London will set them apart from the competition. “When there’s an oversupply of studios, which there are at the moment, those studios that are incomparable in some ways are going to have more of a chance,” Keogh said.
