Beyond Productions

As a graduate of the Australian Film and Television School, a career in TV was always on the cards for John. In his early career he worked as both a producer and director at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with credits covering children’s programming, documentaries, live outside broadcasts and a science magazine show. This latter experience led him to Beyond to produce the pioneering, award-winning science series Beyond 2000.  After executive producing a number of other successful series for the company, including Just for the Record and Invention, John was appointed head of production. As president of Beyond Productions since 2000, John has overseen the development, marketing and production of all Beyond Productions’ programming based in Sydney, Los Angeles and recently, the UK. His impressive range of credits cover over 1,500 hours of programming for cable and network broadcasters in Australia and the rest of the world and include the Primetime Emmy-nominated MythBusters (Discovery), MythBusters Junior (Science Channel), Taboo (NGC), Deadly Women (ID), My Lottery Dream Home (HGTV) White Rabbit Project (Netflix) and Curse of Akakor (Facebook Watch).

After graduating from Griffith University and AFTRS, the early part of Jenny’s career was spent working in Queensland as a producer of TV commercials and international and domestic co-production documentaries. She joined Beyond in 1995 and quickly rose through the ranks to oversee the business and operational aspects of domestic and international production for Beyond Productions, as well as for sister production businesses within the Beyond group. Sitting at the heart of the company, Jenny is the undisputed ‘go-to’ person for anything to do with the financial performance of the production divisions, negotiating rights with broadcasters and talent, structuring finance plans, business affairs, and international production operations. She also oversees production management, production accounting and compliance.

Anita has been part of the Beyond family for more than 20 years, working closely with John Luscombe on Beyond Production’s factual output in genres as diverse as science, lifestyle, travel, crime, medical and history. She also developed children’s factual series SteamPunks for ABC as well as Wow That’s Amazing! and History Hunters for Super RTL in Germany. Before specialising in development, Anita was a producer at Beyond, first as an associate producer on Beyond 2000 and then as the supervising producer for five Mardi Gras Parade telecasts for Network Ten. Before her career in TV took off, Anita worked for the Japanese Government in International Relations, lived in Italy as an art student’s wife, studied languages at Sydney University, contributed to publications about Australian history and crime, and was an Australian Senate research assistant.

A prime-time Emmy award winner, Martyn has been writing, producing  and directing factual and documentary programming for over 25 years. He joined Beyond in 2003, working across a range of hit shows including long running series MythBusters as well as one-off specials like How Beer Saved the World, before executive producing five seasons of National Geographic’s flagship series Taboo.

Since then he has, along with Geoff Fitzpatrick, overseen production of a raft of factual series for broadcast partners in Australia and the US, including Forbidden (DNI) and Deadly Intelligence (Science). He also develops and produces shark documentaries for Discovery’s Shark Week. Martyn’s production experience includes space/cosmos, history, science, natural history, comedy, crime and espionage. He has a PhD in history from Manchester University.

Geoff oversees many of Beyond’s factual productions for both Australian and international markets. He’s helmed several of the company’s long-running series including evergreen hits Selling Houses Australia and Deadly Women. Geoff’s career with Beyond spans a range of genres including science, lifestyle, auto, true crime, adventure and natural history.

Geoff started with Beyond filming science breakthroughs around the world for Beyond 2000 and Beyond Tomorrow; he continues that tradition working with international production teams in Australia, the US and the UK. Geoff’s worked with a broad range of networks including Discovery, Travel Channel, National Geographic, Investigation Discovery, HGTV, Science Channel, Foxtel and all Australian broadcasters.

Caroline graduated from UNSW with an Arts Degree and after extensive travel, began her career working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in many roles including studio directors assistant on live nightly news and current affairs programs.  She then travelled to London to work for FIFA TV for two years covering all major soccer tournaments including the France ’98 World Cup.

After returning to Sydney, Caroline was offered a role at Beyond and production managed many series including the first three seasons of MythBusters.  Caroline was promoted to a VP role overseeing Physical Production and Business Affairs and has since overseen the production management of countless hours of production for both the Australian and international networks across a wide range of genres with a focus on Beyond’s US operations.

Sonya Wilkes is an experienced and respected television executive, who has created and produced some of Australia’s biggest reality shows, including House Rules, Bride & Prejudice, My Restaurant Rules, Zumbo’s Just Desserts, Instant Hotel, World’s Strictest Parents, Conviction Kitchen, Hell’s Kitchen, Pooch Perfect, Farmer Wants a Wife, and The Real Full Monty.

Sonya’s recent focus has been on the US market, where she’s developing and producing original unscripted series for ABC US, TBS, Hulu, and Netflix.

Her previous role was Head of Unscripted at the Seven Network, where she also worked as Head of Development, an Executive Producer, and Network Executive collaborating with Australia’s biggest production companies.

Sonya started her career in television news, working in both Sydney and London as a news producer and a reporter.