When Jenny Montford went to England in March, it was for more than boiled meat and a family birthday party as originally planned. Bedlam’s executive producer also went fishing for British directors.

Apparently, it was Montford’s Bedlam colleague Evelyn Arthur who suggested casting a line into the cold, grey waters surrounding the isle.

‘Evelyn, when she heard I was going, said, ‘You know what? This is a great opportunity to go and see what we can find in the way of directors from the English market.’ And, very conveniently, she had a good friend who’s a DOP over there. She gave us a number of recommendations of companies to speak to.

‘We hooked up some meetings before I left and we ended up coming back with eight new directors and two production company signings,’ says Montford.

Montford crossed the Atlantic with a plan. She wished ‘to address specific holes in [Bedlam’s] roster and [to stay true] to the company’s focus toward comedy and really conceptually strong directors.’

In England, Montford met with managing directors (the U.K. equivalent of an owner or executive producer in the commercial production business). There, she was shown reels and presented options, although she ‘only met with one [spot] director while [she] was there.’

Meeting with managing directors gave Montford the opportunity to ‘get a feel for the fit between the managing director, Evelyn and [herself]. Because that always plays a role,’ she says.

The first company that caught Montford’s eye was Blink Productions (not to be confused with Canada’s Blink Pictures). ‘Blink is a real ‘A’ level company in London,’ Montford explains.

She came away with four Blink directors for exclusive representation in Canada: Doug Foster, ‘a very meticulous special effects guy’ (Guinness, Sony, BBC Digital); Trevor Melvin, whose ‘humor has a subtle, gentle perspective’ (Kit-Kat, British Meat, Whiskas, Michelob); Mark Denton, with his ‘specific, slightly more over-the-top humor’ (Twiglets, Elmlea, Clarks); and Harry Rankin, whose style Montford describes as ‘beauty with an edge.’

Montford also spiced up her trip with a little Mustard, a London spot shop with offices ‘actually in a parking garage.’ Bedlam garnered Canadian representation for Mustard directors Cris Mudge (Virgin Wines, Honda, Im-Bru Juice), Terence Stevens-Prior (Physio Sport, Danish Telecom, Edinburgh Zoo) and Sam Miller (Honda). Miller recently directed the feature film Elephant Juice from the writer of The Full Monty.

In particular, Montford expects ex-agency creative director Stevens-Prior to add a new dimension to Bedlam.

‘Stevens-Prior has a big picture, which is what I was looking for. We sort of had a hole there. We needed a big-picture type of look that the Americans really specialize in. And we didn’t really have that on our roster prior to signing Stevens-Prior,’ she says.

One director Montford did meet in person on her U.K. excursion was James Haworth (Ovaltine, Handy Andies, Jammie Dodgers, VW Beetle). Haworth had just left Mustard for a smaller London shop, Malcolm Venville’s Therapy Films. Although Bedlam’s deal is with Haworth (for representation in the Canadian market) not Therapy, there was apparently ‘no issue with his relationship’ with the Canadian shop.

Montford also offered some of Bedlam’s local directors to the British companies, hoping for a similar representation deal for her directors in the U.K. Although ‘there was some interest,’ no deals were struck. However, the results of these efforts were, at the very least, thought-provoking.

‘The only problem was – the English market is really not conference-call-friendly. They want you in person to bid. And that’s tough. That’s really tough. Maybe that’s kudos to them. They’re much more supportive of their directors. Their British directors are busy,’ Montford says.

With a website in the works, Montford stresses that Bedlam ‘is being really particular about who [it] signs. [The new U.K. directors] are really conceptually strong and they are user-friendly.’ she says. *