Best Video Production Companies in Bristol (2026)

Introduction

Bristol has 11 video production companies worth a close look in 2026, ranging from natural history producers making series for Netflix, Apple TV+ and National Geographic to studios that shoot TV commercials, brand films and B2B case studies for clients across the South West and beyond.

Natural history is what sets the city apart. Silverback Films, Plimsoll Studios and Offspring Films all make premium wildlife series from Bristol offices, and Silverback took the Golden Panda at the 2026 Wildscreen Panda Awards for A Gorilla Story. The sector has also lost names: Icon Films, the maker of River Monsters, wound down in 2023 after more than three decades. Alongside the factual producers sits a commercial scene of independents, several of them clustered around Clifton and the Old City, and a facilities base led by the employee-owned Films@59, which moved into new premises at Barley House in 2026.

Every company here has a working Bristol office or studio in 2026, checked against its own site or trade coverage. The list is unranked. It balances factual and wildlife producers with commercial and corporate makers, since the right choice depends on whether you are commissioning a broadcast series, a TV spot or a set of case study films. Animation studios have their own Bristol page.

The best video production companies in Bristol

1. Silverback Films

Part of All3Media · Harbourside · silverbackfilms.tv

Silverback Films was founded in 2012 by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey and is part of the All3Media group. It works from St Augustine’s Yard near the Harbourside, and its work has won BAFTA, Emmy, RTS and Grierson awards. In 2026 it won three Wildscreen Panda Awards, including the Golden Panda for A Gorilla Story, and Scholey received a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The slate is built around long-running relationships with streamers and broadcasters: Our Planet and Our Planet II for Netflix, Wild Isles for the BBC, seven Disneynature features, and Ocean with David Attenborough for National Geographic. Upcoming work includes Wolf for Disneynature and a natural history series made with Walt Disney Animation Studios for National Geographic, announced in November 2026.

2. Skylark Media

Independent, B Corp · Clifton · skylarkmedia.co.uk

Skylark Media is a full-service video production agency established in 2005, working from The Old Chapel on Oakfield Road in Clifton. It is a certified B Corp and holds Clearcast, AdSmart and AdGreen accreditations, which matters if your brief includes broadcast TV.

Recent work includes TV commercials for Sun Life, Yankee Candle and Lovehoney, a Christmas TV advert for Samaritans, a DRTV and paid social campaign for Quooker, and a flagship brand film for the West of England Combined Authority. It also works for renewables, construction and aerospace clients, which suits Bristol’s engineering base.

3. Plimsoll Studios

Owned by ITV · Clifton · plimsollstudios.com

Plimsoll Studios (the trading name of Plimsoll Productions) runs from Whiteladies Road, with further studios in London and Los Angeles. ITV acquired the company in 2022. Its Disney+ series A Real Bug’s Life has won six Emmys and was nominated at the BAFTA TV Awards in 2026.

The range runs wider than wildlife. Current and recent titles include Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston for National Geographic, Skyscraper Live for Netflix, Secret Garden for the BBC and Force of Nature for ITV.

4. Happy Hour Productions

Independent · Christmas Steps · happyhourproductions.co.uk

Happy Hour Productions works from The Picture House on Lower Park Row and keeps creative, strategy and production under one roof. Campaign’s Top 100 Creative Agencies for 2026 ranked it first outside London and 19th in the UK, and its “No More Red” work for Arsenal and adidas won a Cannes Dolphin.

Clients include the National Trust (Christmas campaigns in 2024 and 2025), WaterAid, HomeServe, Toolstation, NFU Mutual and Help for Heroes. It also makes DRTV and radio advertising, so it suits clients who want a TV spot and its audio cutdowns handled by one team.

5. Offspring Films

Independent · Old City · offspringfilms.co.uk

Offspring Films makes natural history series from the third floor of the Old Stock Exchange on St Nicholas Street. Its Apple TV+ series Earth at Night in Colour won five Royal Television Society awards, including Best Natural History Series, and received four BAFTA nominations.

Apple TV+ is a regular commissioner: The Wild Ones, Earthsounds and Born to Be Wild are all Offspring productions. It has also made Impossible Animals for Sky Nature. The company’s low-light and VFX work on Earth at Night is a useful reference if your project relies on specialist camera technique.

6. Blanket

Independent · Bristol · weareblanket.com

Blanket, established in 2011 and previously known as JonesMillbank and Nine Tree Studios, is a production company with more than 10,000 sq ft of studio space near the centre of Bristol. Studio 1 is blacked out and soundproofed with a 20ft build height; Studio 2 has an infinity cove. There are also podcast suites, production offices and parking for trailers and OB trucks.

It makes branded content and commercials for clients including Dyson, DHL, Vax, Vivobarefoot and The Royal Mint, for which it filmed “Making of a Coin”. The studios are also hired out to other producers, and the company has provided production support to ITV Studios.

7. Floating Harbour

Independent · Welsh Back · floatingharbour.co.uk

Floating Harbour has made films in Bristol since 2001, working from MB Tempora, a Dutch barge moored on Welsh Back. It covers brand films, documentaries, commercials and training video, along with live streaming, drone work and colour grading.

The client list leans towards energy, infrastructure and the public sector: the Cabinet Office’s “One Step Greener” campaign for COP26, ZeroAvia’s Dornier first flight film, a Bristol Heat Network film for Vattenfall, and work for Network Rail and the University of Bristol. On the broadcast side it made Circus Kids, a three-part series for Channel 5.

8. Films@59

Employee-owned · Clifton and Cotham · filmsat59.com

Films@59 is a Bristol kit hire and post production facility, founded in 1990 by Gina Fucci and Jeanne Thompson and owned by an Employee Benefit Trust since 2021. It provides camera and lens hire, editing, grading, and sound including a Dolby Atmos theatre, ADR and Foley. A drama rental branch has run at The Bottle Yard Studios since 2019.

Credits include equipment for A Life on Our Planet, Casualty and more than 1,000 episodes of Dickinson’s Real Deal. In 2026 it moved into new facilities at Barley House and opened a podcast studio. Most of the producers on this page use a facility like this one rather than owning every camera package themselves.

9. Odd Duck Films

Independent · Bristol · oddduckfilms.co.uk

Odd Duck Films is a Bristol studio co-founded by Jack Fisher and George Hopkins, making branded documentaries, corporate films, event coverage and timelapse. Its short Hughsey’s Tri-Nation Triathlon won festival awards and was picked for the “Best of Kendal” screenings at Kendal Mountain Film Festival.

Projects include JPMorgan Chase’s Vanderbilt Passage, Norman Foster: Sarasota Modern for Foster + Partners, AWS re:Invent coverage for Amazon, and event films for Live Nation and the NHL Stadium Series. It is a good fit for architecture and live event work that needs a documentary eye.

10. We Make Films

Independent · Clifton · wemakefilms.co.uk

We Make Films is based on Triangle South and specialises in B2B case study films for technology, manufacturing and engineering firms across the UK and Europe. It also makes brand films, testimonials, podcasts and 2D and 3D animation, and is a member of Bristol Creative Industries.

Recent films include “Inside the JCB Cab Factory” for JCB, “5G Farm of The Future” for Virgin Media O2, a microplastic filter film for Bosch, and work involving Tata Steel. Teams with a technical product and a sales cycle built on proof will find the case study focus useful.

11. Bristol Video Company

Independent · Clifton · bristolvideocompany.co.uk

Bristol Video Company was founded in 2021 and works from Berkeley Square. It makes promotional videos, corporate films, event coverage, training and onboarding content, and explainer animation, and offers video strategy alongside production.

Work includes “A Bath Rugby Story” for Bath Rugby, a promo for Kinisi Robotics and instructional films for a pharmaceutical client through Rebus Medical. Its client list also includes NatWest, Burges Salmon and North Somerset Council, which reflects the city’s mix of finance, law and public sector buyers.

What to look for in a Bristol video production company

Decide first whether you need a factual producer or a commercial one. Bristol’s natural history companies are set up for multi-year series with broadcasters and streamers, specialist camera crews and long post schedules. Brand and corporate studios work to shorter timelines and fixed project fees, and most will not take on broadcast documentary work at series scale.

For TV advertising, check accreditations and delivery experience. Clearcast clearance, AdGreen carbon reporting and familiarity with broadcast delivery specs save time late in a project. Ask to see two or three spots the company has delivered to air, not only social cutdowns.

Ask what the company owns and what it hires. Several Bristol producers rely on facilities such as Films@59 or studio space at Blanket and The Bottle Yard Studios for kit, grading and sound. That is normal, but it affects scheduling and cost, so get the post plan (edit, grade, mix, versioning) written into the quote.

Then look at how rushes, cuts and feedback will move between you and the production team. A two-minute brand film can generate hundreds of gigabytes of footage and half a dozen review rounds. Companies that agree in advance where footage lives, who signs off each cut and how notes are tracked tend to deliver on schedule.

How Fabric helps video production teams

Fabric gives a production company one workspace for footage, scripts, client feedback and project knowledge, with AI search across all of it. Rushes and project files sit in the cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and heavy video files open without a full download. There is more on this in how to edit video without filling your SSD.

Interviews and sync sound can be transcribed on upload, with clickable timestamps, so a producer looking for a line in a long interview can search by meaning and land on the right moment. For factual teams with years of archive, that makes it quicker to find a shot or a quote from an earlier shoot.

Client review runs through sharing. Share a cut with the client as a commenter, and they can open it without signing up, leave timestamped comments on the video, draw on a frame to point at a detail, and comment on stills and script PDFs through annotations. The team marks each comment completed as it is addressed, so feedback works like a checklist. The review and approval page covers the workflow in more detail.

Finished films and showreels can be published as a web page, which gives clients and commissioners a view-only link (with downloads if you allow them). Password protection keeps unreleased work private, and link analytics shows when each named recipient opened a link and for how long.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Bristol known for wildlife film-making?

The BBC Natural History Unit has been based in Bristol for decades, and many of the city’s independent producers were founded by people who worked there. Silverback Films, Plimsoll Studios and Offspring Films all make natural history series from Bristol, and the Wildscreen festival and Panda Awards have long roots in the city.

Which Bristol companies make TV commercials?

Skylark Media, Happy Hour Productions and Blanket all make TV commercials. Skylark holds Clearcast, AdSmart and AdGreen accreditations, and Happy Hour was ranked the top creative agency outside London in Campaign’s Top 100 for 2026.

Is Icon Films still operating?

No. Icon Films, the Bristol company behind River Monsters, Savage Kingdom and Primal Survivor, closed at the end of May 2023 after more than 30 years.

Where can I find animation studios in Bristol?

Bristol has a large animation sector, covered separately in the best animation studios in Bristol. Several production companies on this page also offer motion graphics or explainer animation as part of a wider brief.

How much does corporate video cost in Bristol?

Prices vary with crew size, shoot days, locations and the amount of editing and animation. Most Bristol studios quote per project, so a written brief with the number of deliverables, versions and review rounds is the best way to compare quotes.

Related lists

Video production in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Bristol: Creative agencies · Content studios · Animation · Photography studios · Advertising agencies · Social media agencies

Run your production company on Fabric: Fabric for video editors · Fabric for documentary teams · Fabric for commercial production