Dan Grabiner’s Orchard Studios snaps up high-profile trio
Nat Lippiett, Clare Mottershead and Dani Carpanen join senior creative team at non-scripted indie
Orchard Studios, the production company founded by Dan Grabiner and Nicola Hill, has added Nat Lippiett, Clare Mottershead and Dani Carpanen to its ranks.
Grabiner described the trio as “best-in-class creative leaders”.
Award-winning ITN Productions executive producer Nat Lippiett joins as head of programmes, while BBC lead commissioner in factual entertainment Mottershead will become the label’s head of factual & formats.
Lippiett, whose credits include last year’s explosive Harry: The Interview, Prime Video documentary series The Confession and Queen’s Green Planet with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Sir David Attenborough, is a long-time ITN executive with a background in journalism and programme-making.
Mottershead joins Orchard after six years in the fact ent and events department at the corporation, where she oversaw titles including Interior Design Masters and Hugh’s War on Plastic, and recently ordered formats such as Amanda and Alan’s Italian Job, The Fast and the Farmer-ish and Designing the Hebrides.
Before joining the BBC in 2017 she was an executive producer across development and production at Dragonfly, where her credits included Kill It, Cook It, Eat It and One Born Every Minute.
Carpanen will join the business as senior producer. She cut her teeth on hit formats such as The Baby Borrowers and Hospital, before moving on to large-scale, global projects such as Disney+’s Save Our Squad with David Beckham (Twenty Twenty) and Nat Geo’s One Day in America (72 Films).
Grabiner said “Nat, Clare and Dani have knockout track records in developing, producing and launching bold, innovative unscripted programming.
“Together, we’re building a modern, global, world-class production company, creating must-watch factual-entertainment formats and impactful box-set documentaries.”