People
Patricia Llewellyn
Managing Director – Optomen Television
Pat joined the independent sector in 1990 working on a range of programmes including Channel 4’s The Media Show, Food File and Without Walls. She also developed various projects including Sophie Grigson’s first television series Eat Your Greens. In 1992 Pat produced her first directly commissioned series, Talking Liberties, for Channel 4. She joined Optomen in 1994 and produced the first series of ITV’s ratings–topping factual series Police, Camera, Action. She also created, directed and produced the award–winning Two Fat Ladies which became a worldwide hit. In 1999 Pat became Head of Features at Optomen and developed and produced the BAFTA and RTS award–winning series The Naked Chef, launching the television career of Jamie Oliver. She went on to executive produce Channel 4’s French Leave and BBC2’s Two Men In A Trench. Most recently she executive produced Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, The F***ing Fulfords and the F Word for Channel 4. Pat also executive produced Role Reversal for A&E and Tyler’s Ultimate for The Food Network. In July 2005, Pat became Managing Director of Optomen leading the company from strength to strength both creatively and commercially.
Beth Hoppe
President & CEO – Optomen Productions (USA)
Beth Hoppe joined Optomen Productions New York office in September 2004 as President and CEO after spending the majority of her career in Public Television. Ms. Hoppe is serving as executive producer for all of Optomen’s US output, including the second season of the hit series for Discovery channel, Most Evil. These groundbreaking documentaries journey into the minds of murderers and chronicle the scientific search to explain evil acts. Also for Discovery, Optomen has recently completed the special Green: The New Red, White, and Blue with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times about how the causes of global warming can be tackled by everyone, and the US version of Nazi Secrets: Evil on Trial, to be broadcast this spring. In addition, Ms. Hoppe has recently executive produced the reality series You’re Not the Man I Married airing on Lifetime Real Women, Giada in Paradise for Food Network, “Can Animals Predict Disasters?” for the Nature series and “Gangland Graveyard” for the Secrets of the Dead strand, both airing on PBS.
Before joining Optomen, Beth Hoppe was Director of Science Programs at Thirteen/ WNET New York. There she executive produced all of Thirteen’s popular "hands-on history" programs for PBS, including the Peabody Award-winning The 1900 House, and the highly rated Colonial House and Frontier House, which both received nominations for prime-time Emmy awards. Ms. Hoppe’s programs have won PBS the Emmy for Outstanding Science, Natural History and Technology Program twice for the specials DNA and The Secret Life of the Brain. Additional executive producer credits at Thirteen include SavageEarth, Savage Seas, Secrets of the Dead, Innovation, and Warship.
Prior to joining Thirteen, Hoppe was series producer for the award-winning science series NOVA at WGBH in Boston. She also produced and directed several programs for the series including Avalanche!, Great Moments From NOVA, hosted by Bill Cosby, and The Universe Within. Her career has also included directing The Ten O’clock News in Boston and editing the weekly newsmagazine New Hampshire Journal.
Nicola Moody
Director of Factual Programming
Nicola Moody joined Optomen Television in May 2005 as Director of Factual Programmes after a successful career at the BBC including the commissioning of “The Naked Chef”. Nicola became Controller of Factual Commissioning in 2000 and as part of the senior management team of the BBC Nicola commissioned documentary and feature programmes from in–house production and independents for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4. During this period she commissioned many award winning series including Sahara with Michael Palin, Great Britons, Double Take, Restoration and What Not To Wear. After this success, Nicola went on to become the Controller of the newly created BBC Four bringing hugely successful drama series and documentary projects to the channel. At Optomen she has been responsible for creating successful Factual programmes for the BBC, Channel Four, Discovery and Sky Television. Her slate of programmes range from the social science documentary series, Making Slough Happy; the ambitious science project Chain Reaction; the hugely successful format series Great British Menu and the new autobiographical documentary format My Way.
Ben Adler
Group Development Director
In 1993 Ben was appointed Editor of the young person’s section of The Guardian newspaper. In 1994 he joined Wall to Wall Television. In 1997 Ben became Head of Development at Optomen and won commissions for both UK and US networks, including the The Naked Chef. In 1999 Ben joined Endemol working on Pet Rescue and producing the first UK series of Big Brother. He then went to Two Four and series produced Channel 4’s Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show – five hours of live coverage with a production team of over one hundred. In 2001 he joined Channel 4 as a commissioning editor in the Daytime department, launching the flagship live daily talk show Richard & Judy and overseeing and commissioning daytime output. He devised and launched a new daytime schedule – the biggest change in daytime for twenty years. Ben oversaw new and ongoing primetime and daytime series including factual entertainment reality soap The Salon, foreign property show A Place in the Sun and makeover series The City Gardener (his last act at the Channel was to commission You Are What You Eat). At the end of 2003 Ben left Channel 4 and returned to Optomen to run the company’s US operation from their New York office as Senior Vice President, Programming & Development. In the spring of 2004 Ben returned to Optomen’s London office to become Director of Group Development. Ben is 6’ 7” and claims to be the tallest man in television.
Helen Manley
Director of Production
Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand, Helen started her television career over 10 years ago at Hat Trick Productions working as a Production Accountant on a broad spectrum of programming from Whose Line is It Anyway to Drop the Dead Donkey. After production accounting on the film Shakespeare in Love, Helen returned to Hat Trick as a Production Manager on programmes such as Have I Got News for You and Room 101. She moved from Hat Trick to manage the location and reality / factual entertainment programme Celebrity Big Brother 1 and Big Brother 2 at Endemol. Moving to 12 Yard as a Production Manager working on a variety of start ups for the new company such as the successful and long running lottery series for the BBC In It to Win It, Emmy Award Winning Without Prejudice for Channel 4 and winner of the Montreux Silver Rose Men Are Better Than Women? for Discovery, also gaining experience in Daytime programming with successful BBC daytime quiz show Eggheads. She moved to the BBC as a Unit Manager and set up the first of the prime time factual entertainment series of Strictly Dance Fever. Helen joined Optomen in 2005 as Unit Manager responsible for the first series of The F Word and was subsequently promoted to Head of Production in December 2005.
Maria Silver
Executive in Charge of Production - Optomen Productions (USA)
Maria Silver joined the New York office of Optomen in 2005 in the newly created role of Executive in Charge of Production. Before joining Optomen, Maria was the Production Executive at BBC Production USA overseeing the production of over 150 hours of programming a year including the long running series “What Not To Wear” and “While You Were Out” for TLC. Originally from the UK, Maria moved to New York in 1991 to production manage the Channel 4 series “Manhattan Cable” and has been based there ever since. With over 15 years of production experience in both the US and the UK markets, Maria has managed programs for HBO, DCI, Court TV, the BBC and Channel 4, including Louis Theroux’s “Weird Weekends” and the feature documentaries “Party Monster” and “The Big One”.
Becky Clarke
Executive Producer
Becky is Executive Producer on Optomen’s prime time factual output. Before coming to Optomen Becky was an established Series Producer working on popular factual series such as Take My Mother-in-Law (ITV) and on the first series of Disaster Masters (BBC1). At Mentorn, Becky was responsible for numerous documentary commissions including Cops and Robbers (BBC1) and Cutting Edge: The House Clearers (C4) and directed popular documentaries such as popular science hit 101 Things Removed From The Human Body (C4) and numerous ratings winning crime documentaries for BBC1.
Janice Gabriel
Executive Producer
Janice Gabriel joined Optomen in 2007 as Executive Producer setting up Market Kitchen, the ambitious daily flagship show for UKTV. Janice started producing youth programming on BBC’s Rough Guides, Channel 4’s Passengers with Rapido and MTV shows and she developed and piloted Ch 4’s Lonely Planet Guide.
She series produced TV Dinners at Ricochet then joined Kudos as Development Head in Factual and piloted and series produced the BBC2 award winning psychology series Confidence Lab. In 2000 she joined Endemol as Executive Producer Food and Lifestyle where she developed, piloted and exec produced the primetime food series The Best for BBC2 and was responsible for Endemol Midlands extensive BBC daytime output. Before joining Optomen, she co-exec produced food series Taste for Sky With Prospect and piloted a BBC series with Leopard.
Michael Pipkin
Post Production Manager
Michael joined Optomen in 2003 as an edit assistant during the first series of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. He moved on to edit various productions including the Times DVDs, International versions of Great British Menu and is now cutting the latest series of ITV’s Police Camera Action. He advised on the recent expansion of Optomen’s post production facilities, creates graphics and title sequences for various programmes and is also involved with the development of Optomen’s new media ventures.
Paul Ratcliffe
Series Producer & Director
Paul Ratcliffe is a Series Producer and Director with chief responsibility for advising on a range of food programming. Paul has been with Optomen for over 10 years and in that time has had made key creative contributions to almost all of the company’s hits. At the moment Paul is Series Producer on BBC2’s Kitchen Criminals, where he’s working with chefs Angela Hartnett and John Burton Race to train up some of the country’s worst cooks. Previously Paul produced and directed on C4’s BAFTA nominated Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and on the BAFTA nominated second series of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Before that he was Series Producer and Director on C4’s Return Of The Chef, and on archaeology series Two Men In A Trench and Series Director on the BAFTA winning The Naked Chef, both for BBC2. Prior to his career as a director, Paul won numerous awards as an editor - including several for his work on all four series of Two Fat Ladies and an RTS for documentary series Discovering Japan.
Caroline Stephenson
Head of Sales
Caroline is responsible for Optomen TV’s international sales division, handling all international finished program licensing, format rights and selected book rights. She has over twelve years’ experience in international distribution gained with companies such as Hearst Entertainment & Egmont Imagination. She founded and managed independent distributor Strawberry Entertainment which she sold to MEM plc. remaining as MD for a further three years until joining Optomen TV in 2007.
Jon Swain
Head Of Development
Jon is Head of Development at Optomen and was Executive Producer on series 3 of the BAFTA-nominated Gordon Ramsay’s F Word. He joined the Optomen development team in 2001 after three years working at Carlton and Thames on various factual and factual entertainment programmes. In 2003 he developed and Location Produced the RTS-nominated documentary Jump London (C4), which followed a group of Free Runners as they jumped across some of London’s biggest landmarks. He then moved back into development where he has created and helped to develop a wide range of Features, Documentary and Specialist Factual programmes and formats, including the highly popular food format Great British Menu (BBC2), the ambitious social science series Making Slough Happy (BBC2), fashion series Mary, Queen of Shops (BBC2), and the controversial documentary Fat Girls & Feeders (C4). His production credits range from Heroes of Comedy (C4) to Animal Passions (C4) to three series of Gordon Ramsay’s F Word (C4).
Norma Wisnevitz
Financial Controller
Norma has overall responsibility for Optomen Television’s Finance department where she oversees the accounting of both productions and international distribution. She started at Optomen in this role in 2005. Her previous accounting experience within the TV Industry was gained while working at Talkback Productions on many well known shows including The Apprentice (BBC2), Property Ladder (C4), How Clean Is your House (C4) and Escape to the Country (BBC2). Norma is a CIMA qualified accountant who emigrated from South Africa to the United Kingdom in 2000.