Attenborough’s Life in Colour Producer Hires Icon’s Stephen McQuillan

“Attenborough’s Life in Colour” producer Humble Bee Films has hired long-time Icon Films executive Stephen McQuillan as its creative director.

McQuillan will oversee the growth of Humble Bee Films’ factual arm, developing science, history and specialist factual programming, while also building on the company’s slate of blue-chip factual productions, which includes BBC One, Netflix and Channel Nine Australia natural history co-production “Attenborough’s Life in Colour.”

McQuillan previously served as creative director at Bristol-based Icon Films, producers of “Savage Kingdom” for Nat Geo and “Mysteries of the Deep” for Discovery. The company famously produced the Jeremy Wade-fronted “River Monsters” for Animal Planet across nine seasons.

During his eight years at Icon Films, McQuillan helped to expand the outfit’s business with projects such as “Unknown Amazon With Pedro Andrade” for Vice Media Group, “Malawi Wildlife Rescue” for Blue Ant Media, “Mysteries of the Deep” for Science Channel and the “Secrets of the Mega…” strand for Channel 5. Prior to Icon Films, Stephen worked in a number of senior producer roles, including at Twofour Group and the BBC.

Based in Bristol, Stephen reports to Humble Bee Films founder and managing director Stephen Dunleavy. He begins the role immediately.

“Humble Bee Films has an incredible reputation for producing brilliant high-end factual programs — and its fantastic company ethos is renowned across the U.K. television community. I’m really excited to join this ambitious and talented team and help broaden and grow their already stunning line-up of factual content,” said McQuillan.

Dunleavy added: “We are delighted that Stephen has joined the Humble Bee team as our creative director. I’ve long admired Stephen’s excellent work, and his exceptional knowledge of the international factual space will help us to grow our boundary-pushing slate of programming to new levels.”

Humble Bee Films, one of the U.K.’s leading independent premium factual TV outfits, specializes in high-end natural history, science and history programming for a range of international broadcasters.

The company’s slate includes “David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities” for UKTV, BBC Worldwide and BBC Two; “Attenborough and the Giant Elephant” for BBC One and CBC; “Amazing Pigs” for Terra Mater Factual Studios, Smithsonian Channel and Arte; “Tasmania: Weird and Wonderful” for Terra Mater Factual Studios and BBC Two; “Planet Parrot” and “The Real Dingo” for Terra Mater Factual Studios; as well as BBC Two and Animal Planet singles “Walrus: Two Tonne Tusker” and “Komodo: The Dragon’s Bite.”