We understand there was a high number of entries this year, so to be recognised alongside just three other UK film and TV studios, as well as an outstanding group of four global candidates, is a huge honour.
During the qualifying period, we worked incredibly hard to deliver a production-first, personal service to complex-build and major global productions across features, HETV, commercials, music videos and other formats.
The two flagship productions of the period were Alex Garland's Warfare (DNA Films/A24) and The Conjuring: Last Rites (New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.), both of which we are enormously proud of.
Warfare occupied the site for the first half of 2024. The historic wartime control tower was repurposed as part of the Ramadi set. A hill was moved to create a convincing street backdrop. Pyrotechnics and smoke required careful, sensitive management alongside a neighbouring Category B prison and local residents, with particular care taken around the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June 2024. The production's own team stated that Bovingdon was the only place in the UK capable of delivering it. Hosting Warfare also felt especially meaningful to us as a site with its own wartime history, as a former RAF base and US Air Station, and repurposing the control tower gave that history a new purpose.
During the second half of 2024, The Conjuring: Last Rites was another complex production that saw our backlot transformed into a complete American suburban neighbourhood. Full-scale houses, interlinking streets and adjoining homes were built from scratch on site, then extended seamlessly through VFX. Co-Producer Steven Harding described our team as proactive and warm, with a can-do attitude he called "genuinely rare". You can read his testimonial, alongside those from the Warfare production team and others, on our testimonials page.
We also welcomed Hostage S1 for Netflix, Mobland S1 for Paramount+, and commercial and music video work including KSI, Mike WiLL Made-It and an evian x Pharrell Williams x Humanrace campaign - all of which reflect the variety of our clients and the full range of what the site can offer.
One of the key things about Bovingdon is the number of clients who regularly return to the site. Warfare producer Matthew Penry-Davey filmed Masters of the Air here before coming back for Warfare, saying "it is now impossible to imagine that we would have been able to shoot Warfare anywhere else." Dancing on Ice called Bovingdon home for eight consecutive years, and many other clients have come back again and again. That pattern of return, across productions of every scale and format, is hugely important to us.
Over recent years, we've significantly expanded our premium filming and production facilities to work alongside our vast 60-acre backlot, creating a unique all-in-one site that filmmakers genuinely value and that reflects who we are as a different kind of UK studio - family-owned and independent. The studio runs on 100% renewable energy, holds an Energy Performance Certificate rating of A on all stages, has planted 1,500 trees as part of a biodiversity landscape plan and is actively pursuing the Albert Studio Sustainability Standard. We also remain deeply committed to the local community here in Bovingdon, something that runs alongside everything we do. Behind all of it is a small, hardworking, resourceful team that puts productions first and consistently delivers when it matters most.
To be included in this year's shortlist for Studio of the Year shows just how far we have come and what we have achieved, making this a very special moment for us.
Next stop, the awards ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where the winners will be announced. Wish us luck!
