Belstone Pictures Reasearch

Belstone Pictures Research

Belstone Pictures is an independently owned British film company founded by Finn Cardigan Bruce in 2012. It is inspired by his love of film, which he discovered when he was at Hurtwood House School, it was here where he was able to direct and produced various films and documentaries- these opportunities ignited his desire to make films, especially those that create tension and touched upon subjects often considered taboo, he wanted to make the audience ask questions whilst enlightening them of inspirational stories.

Finn worked on various film and tv sets including Top Gear and Downton Abbey before working for Blink TV, Mario Testino, MPC and Sky News. Finn then went on to work as an executive assistant in Los Angeles for Shaun Redick and Ray Mansfield, he then worked for film financier Nicola Horlick helping with the investment and development of her two film funds. By 2016 Finn had a strong range of experience that he soon used to focus on Belstone Pictures which he had started back in 2012. Belstone is based in South-West London, in Chelsea- near to where Finn lives. Finn’s family owns the festival ‘Boomtown’, which he in the past has briefly used to market his company, despite this Finn managed to get all of the funding to start up his institution by himself, with little help from family and friends and more financial partners. Belstone continually collaborates with various financial partners as well as smaller internal funds giving them the ability to create the projects they do. Cardigan-Bruce also co-founded the lifestyle magazine brand "the Gentleman's Journal" where for several years he was made the creative director, he did all of this whilst producing a number of short films and TV Pilots.

Belstones’ biggest successes are Tucked (2019), Tracks (2019) and Tank 432 (2015). Tucked is now available in the UK, US, and all over Europe. The budget for Tucked was around £50,000, which is next to nothing compared to the extortionate numbers Disney pay. Belstone doesn't tend to work with the same actors and directors on their movies, this is most probably to do with the diverse topics discussed and the niche audiences they would attract. Furthermore, Belstone is only a small institution with a limited budget, therefore breakout performances are a common pattern they use, as they have not yet established a name for themselves, therefore they’ll work for experience and far less money than pre-established actors who have a previous reputation, furthermore their debut is likely to boost their career. 
Currently, Belstone has 3 films, 1 TV show and 4 feature films, although they have 1 film in pre-production, they also have 1 film in post-production and over 10 films and tv projects in development. For the past few years, they have released one film per year, although from 2020/21 their aims are to release 2-3 titles per year. Belstone started out with corporate filming events, although it is now grown slightly and moved into motion pictures. They're only a small institution, an advantage of this is the genres they cover- rather than striving to become the biggest in the world and appealing to multiple audiences, they focus on “developing fascinating and inspirational stories” which generate awareness of often taboo subjects. Although, despite the size of Belstone- their films are distributed globally by Netflix, HBO, Fox, Film4, Cineworld, IFC Films and Showtime.