Our Sky Arts sponsorship

Our sponsorship films, known in the media industry as 'idents', book-end each programme and ad-break. These idents feature real people whose lives are infused with a passion for the arts. From aspiring painters to real life dance students, each person featured shares a passion and authentic expertise for their art form. Each ident presents an authentic human focus, reflecting the warmth and connection of a trusted adviser: something that's valued by both SJP and Sky Arts.

Across our suite of idents, we have selected artistic disciplines that echo the programming of Sky Arts. Our films demonstrate the relationship between an advising expert and their student: each spoken advice line was provided by the cast to ensure authenticity.

We have combined each ident into a minifilm to showcase and celebrate each story. Our channel sponsorship will be running until the end of the year. To kick things off, we'd like to take you ‘behind the curtain’ of the filming process and tell you more about our cast.

Referencing the incredibly popular Portrait Artist of the Year programme, our depiction of a portraiture workshop features Victoria honing her skills with charcoal under the careful guidance of Adrian. Adrian is a skilled artist who has exhibited in London, Europe and New York and has a wealth of knowledge in art education. He regularly teaches art, design, and life drawing, at well-known London establishments. By day, Victoria works in Accounting but pursues her passion for art in her spare time and aspires to devote more of her time to honing her skills.

Suzie shares her advice and support to a room full of aspiring designers in these idents, echoing reality where she is Head of Costume and a Lecturer at Trinity Laban. Eugene listens carefully to her instructions and mentorship, modifying a white bodice. At the time of filming, Suzie was preparing her current cohort for a midterm showcase event, so her studio was very busy with designs, materials and students.

This film captures a genuine teacher and student relationship and brings to life the real mentorship Lucy provides Reece as his dance teacher at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Lucy’s knowledge is grounded in formal training, professional work and choreographic commissions across many years and a variety of projects. Reece is a skilled dancer with a passion for contemporary dance and performance; the barrel leap featured is a skill he has practiced and refined over his second year of study at Trinity Laban.

The geometric form of the exterior structure created an interesting muse for our cast of artists in this ident. Our teacher, Mary, is an accomplished artist and has a varied portfolio of her own works and prints. She painted her demonstration piece and helped coach student Claire during the filming. Four student artists painted pieces in these short clips and enjoyed a bright spring morning which added dimension and challenge to their pieces.

Captured in the central entrance way of the Conservatoire, our idents show the interactions between three photographers, a coach and a model. Leslie shares his passion for photography and modelling with the group while Charlotte leads the instructions given to the model. This came naturally as she is used to taking direction from a photographer as a professional commercial model.

Over a few brief moments our idents capture a rehearsal of a solo string performance. Our teacher Phyllis provides advice and encouragement to performer Milly, who wrote the music featured in the film. Milly is an aspiring performer, currently working towards her Grade 6 exam.

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance hosted our cast and production team for a full day of filming in early March. Michael O’Kelly, an accomplished creative and film director, orchestrated each scene to build our story of ‘invaluable advice’ into each artistic form and captured realistic performances and authentic interactions from the cast.

It’s important to us that we thank all the staff and students at Trinity as well as our contributing artists and experts. Our gratitude extends to Recipe, the creative agency behind the concept, production and editing of the ident suite and our media agency, Mindshare, for sharing their valuable experience throughout the process.