The Renegades

Alan Hayling

Editorial Director

Prior to forming Renegade Pictures Alan Hayling was Head of Documentaries at the BBC. At the BBC, he was responsible for a wide range of factual programmes shown across all the BBC’s television channels. Whilst there he and Jon Rowlands co-created Mischief a populist six part investigative series for BBC3 and Alan executive produced the multi-awarding winning documentary Children of Beslan. Previously Alan was Editorial Director at Mentorn, one of the UK’s largest producers of factual programmes. There he expanded its range of programming by launching a science department, a factual drama department and factual entertainment group. He initiated international formats including "Britain’s Worst Driver", the reality show "Paradise Hotel" for Fox, and drama-documentaries like "The Hamburg Cell" for Channel 4 and HBO. Prior to Mentorn Alan spent ten years as a Commissioning Editor for Documentaries at Channel 4. Whilst there he created and commissioned the strands "Secret History" and "Secret Lives", "Undercover Britain" and a range of documentary series and single films. He was the Channel 4 executive in charge of work by some of top filmmakers in the field including Errol Morris’s "Dr Death", Phil Agland’s "Shanghai Vice" and Molly Dineen’s film "Geri", Michael Moore’s series "The Awful Truth" and commissioned his hit film "Bowling for Columbine".

Jon Rowlands

Creative Director

Just prior to joining Renegade exec. produced his third "Sport Relief" for BBC One and consulted for Live 8. Up until 2005 he was Head of Development for BBC Factual, where he developed and sold "The Royal Photographer" (BBC 1), "Last Man Standing" (BBC 3 + Discovery US), "Perfection" (BBC 2), "Building The Dream" (BBC 2), "Holidays at Home" (BBC 1) and "Mischief" (BBC 3). Before that he was Head of Development for BBC Sport where in he co-devised "Sport Relief". Before getting serious Jon produced four "Comic Relief"s (BBC 1), "The 11 O’Clock Show" (C4), "Lenny Henry" (BBC 1), "The Cram" (BBC 2) and "Alexei Sayle" (BBC 2).

Alex Cooke

Director

Prior to setting up Renegade Pictures Alex Cooke directed "United Gates Of America" for the BBC, a one hour documentary about race and immigration inside one of California’s largest gated community. In 2005 she initiated and produced a ten part series for Discovery Times, "Only In America", immersing herself in subcultures across the US. Collaborating with NY Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Charlie LeDuff, she directed four of the shows including "Gay Rodeo" – a film about rural gay cowboys in the Bible Belt, (winner of the GLAD Award 2006) "Country Preachers" about independent Pentecostal pastors and serpent handlers in the Appalachia , "The Real 8 Mile" about young kids in Detroit and "Fight Club" about a bike gang who conduct fight clubs in Oakland California. In 2004 Alex Cooke’s made her debut feature documentary "How Arnold Won The West", a political satire following Arnold Schwarzenegger on the campaign trail to become Governor. The film was picked up for theatrical distribution in France, Italy, Austria, England, and DVD release in Japan, Australia and the United States. Before directing Alex was as an editor and producer, for Channel 4 and the BBC and she was the programmer of Sheffield International Documentary Festival from 1997 to 2001. From 1991 to 1993 she was a founder member and Managing Director of The Big Issue a newspaper an initiative for the homeless in London.

Maria Livesey

Head of Production

Maria has over 20 years experience in broadcast television the majority of which has been spent working on a wide-range of UK and international programming including documentary, factual, music and science as producer, line producer, production manager. She worked for 7 years directly with broadcasters both as Programme Finance Manager in Science & Education at Channel 4 and at Discovery Channel where she was Acting Director of Production Management based in London working across all the Discovery Networks in the US, UK, Europe and Asia before she headed off to take up the role as Director of Production at Parthenon Entertainment until April 2006 when she was offered the role of Head of Production for Renegade Pictures.

Fiona Herson

Deputy Head of Production

Fiona Herson is the Deputy Head of Production for Renegade Pictures, having joined the team in March 2007. Working across Renegade’s output, she is responsible for guiding her teams from pre-production through to delivery, in addition to budgeting, scheduling and working with broadcasters throughout the world.The range of Fiona’s portfolio extends from fast turnaround current affairs to factual entertainment series, from multi-million budget HD travel films to low budget human interest obs docs. Prior to joining the company, Fiona worked at Mentorn for eight years as a senior production manager.

Annabel New

Production Coordinator

After training as a dancer and glass artist, Annabel started work in television for Scarlet Television working as a Archive Researcher on numerous Factual/Entertainment based documentaries. In 2006 she joined the fledgling Renegade Pictures as a Production Coordinator. She has continued in this role, working on international projects such as "The Boys from Baghdad High" for BBC2 and "Vegas Comes to China" for National Geographic International.

Nuala McLaughlin

Production Accountant

Nuala McLaughlin was born in Ireland but has chosen London as her home. She has worked in television for 18 years as a production accountant and production manager favouring small Independent Production Companies.
Her interests include music and cinema, though not blockbusters, reading and good comedy. She is also a keen cook.

Mary Flanagan

Company Accountant

Originally from Dublin, Mary came to London in 1993 for 3 months and somehow London has kept her here. After 5 years with Talent & Entertainment Co IMG Mary began her production finance career with ITV as production accountant for ITV's factual entertainment department. After two years the Independent Sector beckoned and Mary has not looked back since spending three years with Mentorn before freelancing as management/production accountant for smaller independent production companies. A mother first, hopeless musician second and accountant third Mary is always on hand to help with any finance queries and take the fear out of accounting!