Experiencing Interruptions?

The Studio

Logline: A personal trainer looking for redemption.

The Studio a dark comedy series set in London and based on true events. The story brings together a group of colourful characters operating in the world of personal training and treatments and there’s an underlying connecting thread of love, loss and or abuse with a good helping of curiosity, passion and ambition.

C (Charlie) is creative, entrepreneurial, enterprising, personal trainer, martial artist, former fighter and wannabe actor, whose world turns upside down through a domino of very unfortunate and unexpected events... He losses his business via deception and naivety, his father passes away, his wife leaves him for her lesbian lover, and his dearest friend is diagnosed with cancer and died soon after... all in the same year!

We join the pilot at the moment when C is ousted from the luxury gym business he’d naively created and delivered without any legals locked down. We rejoin 4 years after the chain of events that sent him into depression and isolation. Now C is back looking for redemption with a plan, new found drive, focus and armed with no money, no assets, a pocket full of dreams and an added bonus of being a human magnet for extremely interesting, colourful characters.

Season 1 follows C against all the odds, attempt to source, secure, kit out, open and operate ‘The Studio’ and the trainers, therapists, clients, suppliers and neighbours we meet along the way give us many seasons worth of material.

  • Cengiz Dervis
    Creator
  • Cengiz Dervis
    Director
  • Cengiz Dervis
    Writer
  • Craig Busek
    Writer
  • Cengiz Dervis
    Producer
  • Silvia Busuioc
    Producer
  • Cengiz Dervis
    Key Cast
    "Charlie"
  • Marco Zingaro
    Key Cast
    "Carlo"
  • Silvia Busuioc
    Key Cast
    "Chloe"
  • Maddalena Ischiale
    Key Cast
    "Louisa"
  • Mark Holden
    Key Cast
    "Dave"
  • Naomi Willow
    Key Cast
    "Jenny"
  • Adam Bond
    Key Cast
    "Don"
  • Jordan Scowen
    Key Cast
    "Ronnie"
  • Wayne Gordon
    Key Cast
    "Derek"
  • Juilet Howland
    Key Cast
    "Susan"
  • Kevin Dixon
    Key Cast
    "Leon"
  • Luke Christian
    Key Cast
    "Wes"
  • Bevan Viljoen
    Key Cast
    "Army Commando"
  • William Meredith
    Key Cast
    "Steven"
  • Victor Ptak
    Key Cast
    "Francis"
  • Project Type:
    Television
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Drama
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes 21 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    75,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, Black Magic Ursa Pro 4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Cengiz Dervis

Cengiz Dervis - Operated for many years as a professional kickboxer, personal trainer and life coach whilst funding his goal and passion of becoming a full time actor and content creator. He fought, trained and taught all over the world and has privately coached, consulted to some of the worlds most influential, famous and powerful people. The journey thus far has gifted him a mountain of material to write about.

As a writer, The Studio is the first of three TV series ideas Cengiz has in development along with a number of award wining festival shorts, a multi-award winning feature film and a slate of feature film scripts at various stages.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Having spent years making short films whilst also working on original scripted content including a few feature films and three TV series ideas. I'm so very proud and excited to present my dark comedy series pilot 'The Studio' to the world.

I started writing 'The Studio' in 2013 originally as a 5min per episode web series. The story was influenced by true events and there's a ton of content to draw from so I quickly decided to focus on longer episodes and my good friend and writing partner Craig Busek came on board and we've spent the last 7+ years with pauses and reflection in between chipping away on the idea.

After 22 rewrites of the pilot whilst creating the series bible, as a filmmaker I decided to focus on making the pilot to best present the series idea along with all supporting material. It was by no means an easy task getting the pilot made especially during a pandemic and all the additional hurdles that presented. However, we managed to pull together a fantastic cast and crew from the UK, US, Italy, some great locations and get the job done.

Casting by the fabulous Sarah Trevis and post-production was handled mostly in London and our edit was done by the wonderful Emily Walder with original score created by Daniel Raijman over in Los Angeles.

An extremely challenging, fun adventure and I'm extremely proud and grateful to all involved.