It was an autumn’s evening in October of 2019 and the team over at Wolf Studios Wales attended the Welsh premier of BBC One and HBO’s His Dark Materials. The team is so large that it filled out two entire screenings at Cardiff Bay’s Odeon cinema: one screen for Bafta Cymru and BBC Wales and the other screen for the entire HDM crew. As everyone took to their seats, a buzz of excitement began to grow around the room. Popcorn was in hand, slushies were at the ready but before the lights went down, Bad Wolf C.E.O and Executive Producer Jane Tranter said a few words of thanks to the amazing crew who had worked so tirelessly to create such a fantastic piece of work.

Finally, the lights dimmed and the series premier of His Dark Materials series 1 was underway. A very quick hour later and the credits began to roll, name after name and the crew were whooping and hollering, cheering and applauding. From veterans of the industry to trainees who for them, HDM will be their first professional job, it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, it’s the biggest thrill to see your name attached to something you’ve worked on. At Screen Alliance Wales, we were so proud to have seen the hard work and dedication pay off of all the crew but especially our 5 SAW Trainees, many of whom are now working as assistants on ‘His Dark Materials’ series 2. It was also a real pleasure to see many of our 67 work shadowing placements sitting in the screening who joined us for a few weeks on series one and are now part of the team for series 2. We can’t wait for you to see `His Dark Materials’ when it premieres in the UK on November 3rd 2019 on BBC One and then in the United States on November 4th on HBO.