MEET THE FOUNDER

A producer first.
A founder by choice.

Sophia Franklin spent a decade in broadcast before building Bear Lane. She brought the instincts with her: listen closely, find the story and make something people want to stay with.

Today, that means video podcasts and social content made with talent, brands and the people behind them. A small team, trusted specialists and Sophia close to the detail.

Talk to Sophia
Sophia Franklin holding a camera and microphone

01 / Before Bear Lane

Years spent listening.

Sophia’s background spans broadcast journalism and podcast production, with experience at the BBC, talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK and Times Radio.

Her own introduction to Producer Sophia describes years spent behind the scenes, learning from broadcasters and absorbing how good audio gets made. Bear Lane is where that experience meets a more personal way of producing: working directly with the people whose stories are being told.

Read Sophia’s introduction

Sophia’s broadcast-days photograph at BBC Radio, shared in her own introduction carousel
From the broadcast years · @producer_sophia

02 / Choosing her own path

Taking her own
idea seriously.

In a September reflection, Sophia describes Bear Lane’s early days: building the company while picking up barista shifts.

Then came a choice. Production work was building up, but a new café role would take time away from it. She turned the role down and gave her own business that time instead.

She has kept building since. In July, two years into running Bear Lane, she wrote about pausing to recognise how far the company had come.

Sophia on choosing Bear Lane · Her two-year reflection

A camera filming Hannah Lowther on a How Very Hannah shoot, with Sophia’s original Instagram caption
Behind the camera on How Very Hannah · @producer_sophia

03 / The work behind the work

Yes, she notices
the cables.

The finished episode is only one view of a production day. On Instagram, Sophia shares the other: light stands, camera positions, microphones and the slightly chaotic angle from the producer’s chair.

She says she loves that part as much as the finished episode. It is a useful glimpse of Bear Lane’s approach: a small team and brilliant freelancers, with someone who cares about how the whole thing comes together.

Her work includes Hannah Lowther’s How Very Hannah and Charlie Barker’s Dear Mum. Different voices and settings, with the conversation at the centre.

See the shoot from Sophia’s side

Dear Mum’s finished shot above the cameras and lights used to record it
The shot, and what sits behind it · @producer_sophia

04 / Looking beyond the episode

A show can be
a starting point.

Sophia’s writing looks beyond the next recording. In July, she wrote about podcasts growing into communities, live experiences and brands with a life outside the feed.

Her question is a good one to bring to a first conversation:

“what can my
podcast become?”

Start with the people a show is for, and make something worth coming back to.

Read Sophia’s thinking on podcasts and brands

A How Very Hannah recording shared in Sophia’s founder introduction, with original text intact
A little of life around the microphone · @producer_sophia

Now, what are
you thinking of making?

Bring the half-formed idea, the existing show or the question you cannot quite answer yet.

Talk to SophiaFind the shape of your show