A seven month old self-funded series just got nominated alongside Disney and Amazon. Here is the week that was.
The World According to Zandland - Issue #19
It has been a good week.
We found out we got four nominations at the Broadcast Digital Awards. Our YouTube channel is up for Best Factual Channel alongside BBC4 and History Hit. Human is up for Best Documentary Series alongside shows from Disney+ and Prime Video. Uncovered, a Channel 4 strand we collaborated on, is also nominated for Best Documentary Series. And we are up for Multichannel Production Company of the Year.
The thing worth saying about Human specifically: it is seven months old, entirely self-funded, no broadcaster, no commissioner behind it. And it is in the same category as productions with the full weight of Disney and Amazon behind them.
It is also just a very different type of film. Human is not a celebrity doc or a glossy true crime series. It is gonzo, access-driven documentary made completely outside the traditional system. I think it is genuinely good that work like that is getting recognised in the same breath as much bigger budget productions.
The echo chamber film
Last weekend London hosted two major protests almost simultaneously. The Unite the Kingdom march on the right. The Nakba 78 rally on the left. Two crowds, two completely different worldviews, a few metres apart in central London, each absolutely convinced the other was wrong about everything.
We had been thinking about a format for a while. Not a debate show. Not a panel. Something more real than that. What actually happens when you take someone completely out of their own echo chamber and drop them into the other one? Not in a studio with a moderator and a timer. In the actual world, surrounded by people who believe everything they do not, for a full day with no escape.
So we took Tilly Middlehurst, a leftist influencer, to the Unite the Kingdom march. And we took Zion Zachary, a conservative influencer, to the Nakba 78 rally. Together. All day. Fully immersed. We filmed everything.
The clips started hitting before the film was even finished. Four million views across social media, the premise working in public before we had even released the thing. By the time the film dropped on YouTube it already had an audience waiting for it. Three days in, in the metrics that matter, it is tracking as our second best performing video at this stage of release.
We turned it around in five days from shoot to release. That is not something we have done before at this scale. And the reason it worked is the same reason all our best work works. We did not arrive with a verdict. We were not trying to catch anyone out or make anyone look stupid. We were genuinely curious about what would happen when two people who had spent years inside their own information ecosystems were forced to actually stand in the other one and look around.
The format is almost like a dating show in structure. The whole narrative is about the relationship between the two of them. The tension, the moments of surprise, the points where they moved closer or further apart. Clear format points, immersive filming, a genuine question at the centre of it rather than a conclusion looking for evidence.
It sounds simple. In a media environment built around confirmation and outrage, it is genuinely rare.
Why this format matters beyond one film
Every news cycle throws up new divisions. New flashpoints. New moments where two sides are absolutely convinced the other is incapable of basic human decency. That is not going anywhere. And for each one there is a version of this format waiting to be made.
That is what we are building at Zandland. Not just individual films but formats that are returnable. Ideas that can come back across different topics, different fault lines, different people. A pipeline of work that is recognisably and only Zandland, that builds a library over time, that gives audiences something to argue about without us being the ones arguing.
The goal has always been the same. To be the preeminent gonzo documentary studio of this generation. Brave enough to go to the places other people will not. Empathetic enough to actually listen when we get there. That is the brand. This format, done well, is exactly that.
SXSW London — June 4th
One more thing worth flagging.
On June 4th I am at SXSW London for a premiere and fireside chat at Protein Studios. I will be giving a first look at our latest documentary releasing next week, and talking about distribution, long form content, and what it actually means to build a studio in this media environment. The session is moderated by Alice Aedy, co-founder of Earthrise, and it is part of the Creator Economy track.
If you are going to be at SXSW London and want to come along, details are here. Would love to see some of you there.
Why the recognition matters
Human launched seven months ago. Entirely self-funded. No broadcaster. No commissioner. No safety net. Just a bet that there is an audience for original documentary that takes on difficult, complicated subjects in a way that does not really exist on television right now.
That bet has paid off. Millions of views across the series. A proper audience that keeps coming back. And now the industry recognising it alongside some of the biggest and best resourced media organisations in the world, after less than a year of existence.
I want to be honest about what that actually means to us. It is not just a nice thing to put in a press release. It is validation of a premise that a lot of people in the industry thought was optimistic when we started. That a small independent studio, building its own audience on YouTube, making work it believes in without waiting for permission, could compete at the highest level.
The fact that we have two nominations in the same category, one for self-funded work and one for a Channel 4 partnership, also says something about the model we are building. Both lanes working. Both being recognised. That is the whole point.
We are competing. And we are just getting started.
What all of this adds up to
Nominations, a new format, a premiere at SXSW London next week, and a studio that is still figuring it out in public, week by week, film by film, genuinely not sure what is going to work next and trying things anyway.
That is Zandland right now. Genuinely proud of the team and everyone who has worked across all of it.
Watch the echo chamber film here if you have not seen it yet.
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See you at SXSW.
— Ben