Peter specialises in providing commercial legal advice to clients in the media and entertainment sectors, particularly relating to the financing, production and exploitation of filmed content for feature films and television. His clients include feature and documentary film producers, television producers and during his career he has represented all of the major studios and many of the banks involved in financing filmed content. From 1998 to 2009 he was head of the Film and Television team at Bird & Bird LLP where he is still a consultant. He is very involved in content production and current and recent projects involved include:
FILM
“Lies we Tell”, “Dancer”, “Interlude in Prague”, “The Banishing”, “Blinded by the Light”. “Angels in the Asylum”, “The Reckoning”, “The Loss Adjuster”, “We Too Together”, “Inspector Sun and the Curse of The Black Widow”, “Dali Land”, “Lapwing” and “Final Account”
TELEVISION
Peter acts for Buffalo Pictures and has been the principal lawyer on the “Doc Martin” series (currently in its 10th season) and has acted for the producers on each of the previous series, its precursors and spinoffs since 1994. Other TV work includes “Arthur & George”, “Manhunt” “Manhunt 2 Night Stalker” and the “Islands of” series (Britain, Australia and America, the Pacific). And “Close to Me”. He is currently working on the development of several other major TV series including an eight-part series produced by our Indian client for Netflix and several projects for our Mexican client Producciones Dopamina .
Peter has also acted for a number of prominent documentary film makers including Nick Broomfield, Vikram Jayanti, Sophie Fiennes and Ben Lewis and the late Luke Holland.
Content financiers that Peter has acted for include Natixis Cofciné, Crédit Lyonnais, Rarebird, Scotts Atlantic, Berliner Bank, Guinness Mahon, British & Commonwealth Merchant Bank, Invicta Capital, Magna Films, Premiere Picture, CP Medien and Producciones Dopamina.
He is currently involved in unwinding a number of major film sale and leaseback deals as well as acquiring library titles.
Throughout has professional career Peter has been very involved in training, principally of content producers but also of young people wanting to pursue other careers in the audio-visual industries. Beginning in 1991 he helped devise and deliver training programmes for would-be film producers in Eastern and Central Europe, following which he worked consistently with the Media Business School throughout its existence and helped to design and deliver many of its courses including Film Business School, Television Business School, Film Business School Latin American and the Masters in European Audio-visual Management (MEGA).
He has lectured at the National Film and Television School, and the Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris amongst other educational institutions. Peter helped structure and deliver New Media Law’s Diploma course in Media Law and Business Affairs at the University of Westminster and has recently been appointed to the Advisory Board of the new BA Filmmaking degree scheme at Aberystwyth University.
Peter has spoken at industry events and conferences across the world and is also an arbitrator to the WIPO film and media arbitration scheme.