Paul Watson’s The Family was the first TV documentary series to give a real voice to the working classes. It has been referred to as the first reality documentary series on television.
Paul Watson was a painter before he started to make films. He studied at the Royal College of Art in London and has a picture in the National Art collection. He worked at the BBC and Granada before setting up his production company, Priory Pictures in 2002. Paul Watson is credited with perfecting the Fly on the Wall style of observational filmmaking with his series The Family, which focused on the lives of a working class family in the 1970’s.
A five-part daily serial about a Welsh amateur drama group as they put on a production of Wilde's The importance of being Ernest. Daily private lives, hopes and the rest of a mostly elderly group are interwoven with their attempts to learn and stage the show.
For Channel 4, about 6 couples resolving who they are as they trek across the Namibian deserts. 60’ x 3
A group of gay drag queens work in a bar in Canal Street, Manchester. Two of the men in the group fall in love and marry each other.
12 women bored with life and their controlling husbands set out to prove that they can survive in the jungle
A young middle class couple are getting married. The whole family get involved.
Winner of three RTS awards including Best Single Documentary 1999. Nom. Bafta
UK nominated for Grierson Award 99
Broadcasting Press Guild Award
BAFTA nomination, Press Critics Prize, Winner RTS
A five-part series, won RTS award, the Press Critics Prize and Best Documentary Series.
Documentary soap about an Australian family
A Street under Siege: 90 x 2’ films, shot and TX’d every day, BBC2
One Day- Portraits of models, rock managers, surgeons etcPresent Imperfect – Editor, 20 x 60’ Britain through a year. BAFTA nomination – directed, Loveless in LetchworthIn Solidarity – 4 x 50’ total access to members of the Polish democratic movement as they created the new GovernmentWimps to Warriors – 6 x 45’ frank look at male sexuality – Press Critics Prize.States of Mind – Lifestyles across the USA co-production with PBS, winner Emmy Award
Single documentaries including:House of Hope – an alternative way to treat addictionThe Fishing Party (1985) – BAFTA nomination, Press Critics Prize, Nat ArchiveConvictions – Three brothers ‘duck and dive’ in criminal West London
Vox Pop- weekly documentary serial about the public and private concerns of the people of Darwen, a small Lancashire town
Runaway Girls – 4 x 50’ drama docs – writer and directorNothing Doing – Youth unemploymentNobody Asked Us – (1980) – a working class family during the Corby steel strikeDiary of a search- archaeologists search for treasure in EgyptThe Rothko Conspiracy – Directed for ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ USA
The Family – 12 x 30’ – First ‘fly on the wall’ documentary serialPress Critics Prize – National Archive
The Block – BAFTA nomination, Press Critics PrizeLost in Space – Inside NASA during a missionWar in the Middle East – JordanRace of the Power bikes – The dangerous TT Isle of Man Race
A Fine and Private Place – Writer and Director
SFTA Best Documentary Series
4 x 50’ – SFTA nomination
