Blood & Steel

(WORKING TITLE)

How the legend came into being...

12 X 1 HOUR EPIC DRAMA SERIES

TITANIC: BLOOD & STEEL AN EPIC NEW DRAMA SERIES

From the team behind projects such as Camelot, The Tudors, Vanity Fair, Hannibal, Wire in the Blood, and Julius Ceasar.
12 x 1 hour series Written by Mathew Faulk & Mark Skeet, Alan Whiting, Stefano Voltaggio and Francesca Brill. Produced by De Angelis Group, Take 5 Productions, Epos Films. In production: Summer 2011

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CIARAN DONNELLY SHOWRUNNER & DIRECTOR

TITANIC SERIES DIRECTOR, SHOW RUNNER AND CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER 12 X 1 HOUR SERIES

CAMELOT
Series Lead Director, first two episodes for World 2000/GK Films/ CBC and Starz Prod. Starring Eva Green, Joseph Fiennes and James Purefoy.

STARDUST
Single film for RTE about the infamous Dublin nightclub fire. Winner of four IFTA awards (2007) including Best Single Drama.

PROOF
Four-part serial for Subotica Entertainment /RTE.

THE TUDORS
13 episodes across four seasons for Showtime, CBC, BBC.

SPOOKS
Two episodes for Kudos/BBC Winner, Drama Series, RTS Awards (2003).

INSPECTOR GEORGE GENTLY

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Four x 90 minute films for Company Pictures/BBC. Written by Peter Flannery and starring Martin Shaw.

COLD FEET
Final two episodes (including Australian special) of the acclaimed Granada comedy-drama, starring James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale. Winner Best Drama Series, BAFTA Television Awards 2002.

WRITING TEAM

MARK SKEET & MATTHEW FAULK

+ Hannibal + Vanity Fair + Morlang + The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells + Jason and the Argonauts

ALAN WHITING
+ Kingdom + Wire in the blood + The Scarlet Pimpernel

HEADED BY CIARAN DONNELLY Showrunner/Director

with FRANCESCA BRILL and STEFANO VOLTAGGIO

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TOM CONROY PRODUCTION DESIGN

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Tom Conroy designed all four seasons of The Tudors and the first series of Camelot. He won an Emmy Award for the design of The Tudors in 2010 and has been twice previously nominated. He has also won 3 Gemini Awards and has been nominated two times for an Art Directors Guild Award.

Tom has designed many films for both cinema and television, including East is East, Intermission, Rory OShea was Here, The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, Breakfast on Pluto and West is West.

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THE STORYLINE

TITANIC : BLOOD & STEEL is the passionately told story of how the legendary ship came into being. The series portrays the epic process of building the great ship from the ground up and the people who gave life to its creation. It ends when the ship begins its journey, taking with it the souls of our story. The series strips away the pop culture romance that surrounds the ship of dreams and presents the reality of its making and the harsh world that spawned Titanic. Through our characters we are at the very heart of the construction of the ship and the society that built her. The story crosses all human facets of the turbulent society in which the ship was built - Edwardian Belfast in 1907 -

and depicts how the greatest leviathan of all time was hand made in a city on the edge of revolution. The reality of the ships making is perhaps more profound and compelling than its demise. Titanic is a ship created by the flawed human condition. THE TITANIC ERA The Titanic was built in Belfast between the years 1907 and 1912 at the largest shipyard in the world, Harland & Wolff. This was the heyday of steam travel, an era of complacency and leisurely comfort; of sharp social distinctions and smug self-sufficiency. It was also an era where Mankind was deluded by the notion that Nature was at last his slave. That era died with the Titanic.

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THE STORYLINE

POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND Belfast 1907 was the largest and most industrialized city in Ireland. It was also a city on the edge of revolution. Catholics and Protestants had long battled on the streets over the union with the British Crown and government. The divisions were religious and economic as well as political. Catholics had fewer rights, lower pay, less work and poorer quality housing. It was simply not possible to be employed at management level if you were a Catholic, regardless of education and experience. Women were an almost enslaved section of society. The lot of the working class woman was disgracefully poor. Many died in their mid-thirties of malnutrition.

It was not until 1928 that women in the UK received equal voting rights to men. As in most highly industrialized cities, conditions for workers in Belfast were slavish, Dickensian, cruel and dangerous. There was a wave of worker socialist and womens suffrage activity sweeping across Europe, uniting the worker against the capitalist industrialist, whilst women sought equal status with men. The combination of these social movements created an exceptionally tense society and form the circumstances in which the Titanic was built.

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MARK MUIR CORE CHARACTERS

[Fictional]

Mark Muir is our central character in the series. When we meet him hes very much the cultured English man in New York, blazing a trail through society with looks, wit and acumen. In 1907 he is the equivalent of the young free and single jetsetter. But Mark is a product of two very different worlds which will clash violently as his story evolves. He will discover that his successful life is based on the sins and sacrifices of his father in the past. He is installed as the metallurgist on the worlds greatest shipbuilding project, Titanic, but discovers

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potentially fatal flaws in the quality of metal being used to build the ship which will carry four thousand passengers. This story line sees him battle with his superiors at the yard - Lord Pirrie, Thomas Andrews and owner JP Morgan. Mark still has a pure heart when it comes to life and building ships and seeks the ideal in all things. He has yet to learn about the flawed nature of humanity and its creations. His greatest professional issue is accepting that profit trumps risk. In life, it is accepting that humanity is flawed.

JP MORGAN CORE CHARACTERS

[Historical]

In 1902, J. P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of International Mercantile Marine Company, an Atlantic shipping combine which absorbed several major American and British lines. IMM was a holding company that controlled subsidiary corporations that had their own operating subsidiaries. One of IMMs subsidiaries was the White Star Line, which owned the RMS Titanic. The ships famous sinking in 1912, the

year before Morgans death, was a financial disaster for IMM, which was forced to apply for bankruptcy protection in 1915. Morgan features through the story at key points of the ships gestation: from the laying of the keel to the launching of the hull. He is merciless in his scheduling demands and his budgetary constraints. He presents an imposing and historic figure in the series.

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LORD WILLIAM PIRRIE CORE CHARACTERS

[Historical]

William is 60 years old and he is the genius behind Titanics conception. A large, bearded man, a former mayor of the city, a knight and peer of the realm by his own merit, he possesses immense energy, intellect and achievement. But one of Pirries most engaging characteristics is that although of the Establishment and social elite, he is a man who knows his own mind. If he has a fault, it is that he becomes too passionate about his projects, and is swept along by the momentum of his own enthusiasm. Like many idealists, he is not always practical and sees what he wants to see.

This is certainly true in the construction of Titanic. He is also put under great pressure by Titanics owner, J.P. Morgan. Pirrie is forced into an unpleasant balancing act between the needs of the shipyard for which he is responsible, and his own worries about the project. William is also a man who believes in the cause of Irish Home Rule, putting him in opposition to the vast majority of his 14,000 strong workforce. Belfast politics and the struggle to build the worlds greatest ship breaks the mans spirit. He is almost run out of Belfast by the very people he employs.

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SOFIA SILVESTRI CORE CHARACTERS

[Fictional]

Sofia is the female lead. Sofia is a woman looking for self determination, and release from definition by men. The eldest daughter in a family of Italian immigrants, Sofia is highly intelligent and attractive. She has done well, working as a copyist in the Harland & Wolff offices a skilled draughtsman who copies plans and blueprints for the designers. Sofia is a pioneer for a new century in which intelligent young women strove for the fulfillment of their own destinies.

She is drawn to Marks wider breadth of vision, his intelligence and his attractive seriousness. Mark and Sofia find themselves at profound turning points in their lives. Their relationship is complex and emotional, never truly blossoming into the clich of young abandoned love. Any innocence they may harbor is crushed by sectarian Belfast, the tsunami of the workers rights movement and the flawed creation of building what should be a ship of dreams.

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MARK MUIR

CASTING THOUGHTS
Kevin Zegers
+ Gossip Girl + Frozen + Transamerica

Taylor Kitsch
+ Friday Night Lights + Snakes on a Plane + X-Men

Michael Huisman
+ Black Book + The Young Victoria

LORD WILLIAM PIRRIE

SILVIA SILVESTRI

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Martin Sheen
+ West Wing

ABOUT TO BE CONFIRMED

Tom Wilkinson
+ Shakespeare In Love + Michael Clayton + In the Bedroom

Alessandra Mastronardi
+ La bestia nel cuore + Romanzo Criminale + AmeriQua

CONFIRMED

+ Apocalypse Now + The Departed

JP MORGAN

CASTING THOUGHTS
Ciaran Hinds
+ Munich + Road to Perdition + There Will Be Blood

Brian Cox
+ Troy + The Bourne Identity + Braveheart

Ed Harris
+ A Beautiful Mind + The Abyss + A History of Violence

THOMAS ANDREWS

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Will Kemp
+ Van Helsing + Mind Hunters + Step Up to the Streets

Richard Coyle
+ Coupling + Lorna Doone + Human Traffic

Tobias Menzies
+ Casion Royale + The Lowdown + Persuasion

DE ANGELIS GROUP

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DAP ITALY Srl was created in 2000 by Guido De Angelis and Maurizio De Angelis. Currently, DAP ITALY is one of the leading audiovisual production companies in Europe, with established expertise in editorial development, international funding and co-production, post-production, and product placement. Its success has been definitively established by productions such as Aurelio Zen, Julius Caesar, The Magnificent Ambersons, Benedict Arnold A question of Honor and Elisa di Rivombrosa, which gained a 42% share on Canale 5 (Mediaset) and was successfully sold worldwide.

GUIDO DE ANGELIS
President
As an acclaimed music composer, he has composed soundtracks for more than 350 films. As an executive producer, he has produced over 600 hours of prime time television series in Europe. Amongst these, major titles include Julius Caesar (TNT), The Magnificent Ambersons (A&E), Benedict Arnold A question of Honor (A&E). He is currently the executive producer of Titanic Blood and Steel.

DE ANGELIS GROUP ANSELMO PARRINELLO ANDREA ZOSO

Managing Director
Andrea Zoso has extensive international business development and finance experience in the film industry. He currently serves as the Managing Director of De Angelis Group.

Producer

NICOLA DE ANGELIS
Head of Development and International Co-Productions
Nicola De Angelis is the Head of Development and VP of International Co-productions for De Angelis Group. He is actively seeking new partners and projects for co-production from the US and abroad.

Anselmo Parrinello has been in the movie industry since 1970. He has worked as Line Producer and Executive Producer on projects such as The Curse, Hurricane, Bribe of Violence, Tai Pan, Almost America, Pope John Paul II and many more.

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THE PRODUCERS
Justin Thomson-Glover, Artists Studio PRODUCER Pascal Breton, Marathon Group PRODUCER Fabrizio Del Noce, RAI CO-PRODUCER Antena 3 CO-PRODUCER INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION BY ZODIAK RIGHTS

JOHN WEBER
Take 5 Productions Executive Producer
Toronto-based Take 5 Productions was founded in 2009 to finance and produce high-quality international television, and quickly established itself as an industry leader. The company completed and delivered the final season of the award winning series The Tudors. Building on the success of The Tudors, Take 5 successfully co-produced and delivered the first season of The Borgias for Showtime Networks and CTV, followed by the delivery of the first season of Camelot for Starz Entertainment, G-K Films and CBC in Canada.

PAUL MYLER
EPOS Films Executive Producer
EPOS Films is a Dublin based production company established in 2007. The company is headed up by Paul Myler who has extensive industry experience covering a period of 25 years of productions that include, Far and Away, In The Name Of The Father, In America and Bloody Sunday. The Company has access to provide funding under the Irish Tax Incentive Program.

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