FORMULA 1
Drive to Survive
250hours per hour on screen
Almost 1,500 hours for 8 episodes · 2026P1 Production Intelligence
Directors’ judgement.
Total recall.
P1 Production Intelligence is a story consultancy for sport, from the makers of Racing On The Edge. Our directors find the story in your season and draw it out of the people who carry it. Our method makes every word your production records searchable, so nothing they find is lost in the edit. We take on a limited number of engagements each season.
Request a first conversation ↗See how we work ↓
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The story is in there. Finding it is the hard part.
A modern sports production records more than anyone can watch: interviews, race comms, onboard cameras, team feeds and broadcast, every day of a season.
So most edits begin from memory: whatever someone remembers, or had time to log. The line that turns an episode is often in the third hour of comms, or the minute after an interview officially ended, and under deadline it's rarely found. The cost isn't only time. It's the better episode nobody knew was there.
Production intelligence closes that gap with two things that seldom sit together: the judgement of directors who know where stories hide, and recall of every word your production has recorded.
How much material sits behind every hour on screen?
Hundreds of hours. Drive to Survive's latest season was cut from almost 250 hours of material for every hour on screen. At that rate, one person would need more than four working weeks just to watch each episode's material once. We make every word of it searchable before the edit starts, so your decisions draw on all of it, not just the part someone remembered.
NFL
Hard Knocks
250hours per hour on screen
More than 250 hours a week for a one-hour show · 2012FOOTBALL
Welcome to Wrexham
60hours per hour on screen
About 30 hours behind each 30-minute episode · 2023More sports documentaries · hours per hour on screen
- Senna (2010)
- 2,800
- The Last Dance (2020)
- 1,200
- Free Solo (2018)
- 420
- Diego Maradona (2019)
- 230
- Hoop Dreams (1994)
- 88
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Four ways in
Each is scoped and priced before we start. Take one, or let them follow your series from first idea to final cut.
01 / Story & Format
Find the story
For when you have remarkable access and no series yet.
We spend time with your people, at work and, with their agreement, away from it, and interview each of them one to one. We're looking for what a series runs on: someone who wants something badly and might not get it, a relationship under strain, the gap between how people present themselves and how they act when it counts. Then we tell you, plainly, who can carry a series, what it's really about, and which format and audience will hold it.
You get
- A character map: who matters, what each of them wants, and where those wants collide
- The story at the heart of it, and what could stop it
- Format options, from short social chapters to a full series, and what each would ask of you
- If you go further: an episode-one treatment, a season arc and a plan for making it
Two to three weeks for the first stage; three to four more if you go further.
02 / Directed Interviews
Get it on camera
For when the story depends on what one person is willing to say.
The interview is the most valuable hour in a production, and the easiest to waste. Athletes are interviewed every week and know what they're expected to say; the story is in what comes after. Ours are conducted by our directors. Borja Cantera's interviews are known across SailGP for reaching what athletes rarely say on camera, and Marie-Cécile Embleton co-directed the Grierson Award-winning Mother Vera. We prepare from everything you've already recorded, so every question goes after something the story still lacks.
You get
- A named director, chosen for the contributor and the language: English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese
- A brief built from your own material: what the story still needs, and who can give it
- The interview itself, directed remotely with your crew on location, or in the room
- Every answer transcribed and searchable, with the director's selects marked
Book a single interview or a season of them. Our directors take on only a few each season.
03 / Production & Edit Design
Make it findable
For when you know what you're making and need a way to make it with a lean team.
A lean crew can't film everything, so it has to know what only it can capture. We plan coverage around your characters: what your crew must film, and what can come from broadcast, onboard and team feeds once it's clear who owns them. Then we design the edit so every interview and every line of comms is transcribed, labelled and searchable by what was said, and a first structure can be built from real dialogue.
You get
- A coverage and crew plan built around your characters
- A rights map: who owns each source, and what you're cleared to use
- A daily route for footage, from location to the edit
- An edit project your team can search by what people actually said
- Training for your team, and a check-in after the first episode
04 / Story Reviews
Keep it on course
For when you're making a series, yourselves or with a production company, and want a senior story eye at the moments that decide it.
There are three. Before the shoot, while you can still change what you'll film. During it, when the material shows whether the premise is holding. And in the edit, when the sync pool, paper edit or cut either finds the story or buries it. We come in at those points with clear notes and, where it helps, another way through. Your director and editor make the calls.
You get
- One review, or a set across a season
- Written notes and a live session each time
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Learned on Racing On The Edge
We make Racing On The Edge, SailGP's documentary series. Thirteen teams, a calendar of events around the world, and a small crew: a director who also conducts the interviews, one or two camera operators close to the athletes, and broadcast, onboard and team feeds for the racing itself.
A season like that teaches you things a single film can't. Five of them shape how we work:
The story belongs to whoever has the most to lose.
Fame doesn't carry a series. The athlete everyone knows can be the hardest to film honestly, while the one fighting for a place can carry a season.
Results take seconds.
Decisions take days. Everyone has already seen the result. The decisions around it take days to play out: who's dropped, who speaks up, who takes the blame. They need a camera in the right room.
The best line is often already recorded.
By mid-season a production has captured more than anyone can remember, and the moment that turns an episode is often one nobody logged: a line in the race comms, a half-sentence at the end of an interview. So we make every word searchable.
Every line should be traceable.
In our edits, each line carries one of three labels. Captured: said on camera and checked against the recording. Scripted: written for a presenter or commentator to approve and record. Gap: a story point we don't have yet, which becomes a topic for the next interview and never words for a contributor to say.
Who asks decides what you get.
Contributors answer a person, not a camera. The same question from a different interviewer draws a different answer, which is why our directors conduct the interviews themselves.
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How it works
A first conversation
An hour, free and in confidence, by video or in person. Tell us what you want to make and where it's stuck. We won't review material on this call, so there's nothing to prepare.
A proposal within a week
The problem in your words, one or two ways through it, a fixed fee and dates. If we're not the right people for it, we'll say so, and suggest who might be.
The work
A named member of our senior team leads it and stays your contact from start to finish.
Handover
The written work, a session to talk it through, and a call a month later to see how it's holding up.
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Human judgement, machine recall
Most productions have good people, and more and more have AI. Few have the two working as one. That's what our practice is built on.
Our directors bring what no model has: the instinct for who carries a story, and the trust that gets people to tell it. Our method brings what no person has: recall of every word your production has recorded, searchable by what was said. The method shows our directors what the story still lacks. Our directors decide what matters, and go and get it.
Every line the method proposes links back to the moment it was recorded, and an editor checks it before it goes near a cut. After each episode we compare what it proposed with what made the final cut, and carry the difference into the next.
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Who leads the work
Our senior team leads every engagement in person, from first conversation to handover.
Borja Cantera
Founder, executive producer and series director. A British-Spanish former BBC producer-director, Borja leads Racing On The Edge, which he joined in its second season, and across SailGP he has become the interviewer athletes open up to. He co-created and directed McLaren's World's Fastest Gamer and directed several series of GT Academy, whose wider campaign won Gold and Bronze at Cannes Lions, with further credits for the BBC, Amazon Prime, Discovery and Red Bull.
Marie-Cécile Embleton
Director. Marie-Cécile is a British-French documentary director. Her feature Mother Vera, co-directed with Alys Tomlinson, won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary at the BFI London Film Festival, and her debut, The Watchmaker, screened at Hot Docs, DOK Leipzig and SXSW. She also shoots and edits, and works in English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Tom Hughes
Head of post-production. Tom runs post-production and delivery at P1, from the first assembly to the final deliverables.
Around them is a wider team of directors, story producers, researchers and assistant editors, brought together for each engagement around the subject, the sport and the language.
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Questions
Do you also make the series?+
We can. P1 Entertainment is a production company, so if you'd like us to make what we've designed together, we'll quote for it separately. You're never obliged to. You own the work you pay for and can take it to any producer.
Who will actually do the work?+
The director who leads your engagement is named in the proposal and stays with it to the end. Researchers and assistant editors support our directors; they never replace them.
Who owns what you create?+
You do. We keep our own methods and templates. If we develop something that could work beyond your organisation, we agree who owns it before we start.
How much does it cost?+
Every engagement is priced as a fixed fee, agreed before we start, and Directed Interviews are booked by the session. After a first conversation, we'll send a proposal with a price.
Do you only work in sport?+
Mostly, because that's where our experience is. But the same questions apply wherever people are under pressure and someone has access to them.
Can you work with our production company?+
Yes. If you've hired a producer, we'll work alongside them on your behalf, usually through Story Reviews or Directed Interviews.
Can your directors interview our people remotely?+
Yes. Your crew films on location and our director joins live, so a contributor in Sydney and a director in Bristol can still have the conversation that matters. If you'd rather we were in the room, we'll travel.
What editing software do you use?+
Adobe Premiere. If your team cuts on something else, we'll tell you plainly what carries over.
Is our material safe with you?+
Everything starts with an NDA. We keep each client's material separate, only use AI tools on business terms that exclude training, and delete your material when we're done unless you ask us to keep it.
Where are you based?+
In Bristol. We travel to wherever your people are, and for Directed Interviews we often don't need to.
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Tell us what you're trying to make
Request a first conversation: an hour, in confidence, with nothing to prepare. If we can help, you'll have a proposal within a week.