EXCLUSIVE: Samuel Kissous’ journey from French documentaries to British TV thrillers starring David Suchet and Joanna Scanlan isn’t a traditional one, but he insists his work has always had a throughline.
Kissous’ production outfit Pernel Media is a rare breed in having its HQ outside of Britain but now being one of the trusted drama suppliers of Paramount UK network 5. As traditional UK drama indies shut their doors amid the slowdown, Pernel is on a bit of a streak. Next week, Kissous will sit down with fellow drama producers like Clapperboard’s Mike Benson, another trusted Paramount UK supplier who is on a roll, to speak on a Series Mania panel titled “Producing for less without losing quality. Anyone?”
For Kissous, it all started when he was a commissioner at French broadcaster M6, wowed by the strength of British-made formats as he worked across French versions of Who Do You Think You Are? and Jamie’s Kitchen.
“I realized that half of our formats [at M6] came from the UK, lots from Channel 4,” he tells us. “It was such a hotbed.”
Witnessing close up how these formats got from idea to screen helped sharpen his approach.
“I worked with a guy once who used to say, ‘There is only one rule and that is that there is no rule’,” he adds. “I thought the commissioning job at M6 would be a rational process but five years at the channel taught me how irrational it was. No one has absolute wisdom as to how things must be done, which means a good idea can come from everyone and there is never just one way of doing something.”
Kissous has transported this energy from his journey as commissioner through to running a French factual company producing shows with titles like Rise and Fall of the Incas and Secret Gardens of Pompeii, to one that now spends much of its time in the UK seeking scripted opportunities.
Following several lengthy ideas meetings between Kissous and highly-regarded Paramount UK commissioner Seb Cardwell, Pernel was behind 5’s The Au Pair last year starring Agatha Christie legend Suchet in his first TV role for six years alongside Lupin’s Ludmilla Makowski. Pernel has been busy this year prepping Missed Call, also for 5, a French-set thriller starring BAFTA-winner Scanlan and Rupert Graves. Upcoming is a third British scripted series and two other projects in development with British broadcasters, Kissous tells us, without revealing any more info.
‘Bridgerton’ thrillers
‘Bridgerton’
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Like his Clappeboard counterpart Benson, who came up through the world of factual, Kissous takes a scrappy, unscripted-led approach to almost everything he does, moving at breakneck speed to secure cast and locations and spotting opportunities for financing (Missed Call is backed by distributor ITV Studios and co-produced for France’s TF1) wherever he goes.
“The common thread between all my shows is they have been engineered to work internationally,” says Kissous. “I am quite obsessed with casting. Coming from factual, maybe I don’t know the rules [of scripted], so you invent your own rules.”
He uses Missed Call’s French village setting and mixed French and English cast as an example of this engineering, a decision that he believes was crucial in bringing TF1, which “tends not to acquire British series very often,” on board. The show follows a British single mother (Scanlan) whose daughter disappears while on a school exchange trip, soon after attempting a late-night call to her mum. Despite indifference from local authorities and the host family, Sarah goes on a search for her daughter that spirals into a dangerous race against time.
Kissous wants to make what he terms “Bridgerton thrillers,” shows that feature “dark crimes and secrets but happen under beautiful sun and beautiful landscapes.” “I’m obsessed with adding light and color into the shows that we do,” he adds.
Kissous thinks some British drama companies haven’t moved with the times enough to understand that financing TV has become more akin to indie movies. “They don’t understand the full extent of the work that needs to be done to do this properly,” he adds. “It takes lots of time and resource. In order to budget properly you need a clear vision of the project but often at that stage you don’t even have a script. And you need to be open to filming in different countries.”
Kissous is therefore a leading proponent of an improved UK high-end TV tax credit, saying he “doesn’t understand why there is a threshold [of £1M per hour] before you can access” the rebate.
While a Frenchman working amid a sea of British drama producers may stick out, Kissous has had an international journey, working extensively in L.A. and London, as well as France, down the decades. He has been meeting more and more with London agents and writers over the past few months, looking for projects that “have an international bent.”
The “absolute” number one priority moving forwards is “expanding our British scripted slate,” he says. Above all else, Kissous will continue living by that one important rule.
