My stepdaughter, Ruth McCance, who has died of most cancers aged 53, was a author and government producer for movie and TV, primarily based for the final decade in Stockholm.
After graduating with a level in movie and media research at Glasgow College, within the early Nineties Ruth labored as a secretary to Andrea Calderwood, then head of drama at BBC Scotland. Her potential was rapidly noticed and she or he grew to become a script editor there earlier than shifting to grow to be a improvement producer at Ruby Movies, head of improvement at Pathé productions and a artistic government at Movie 4.
Her profession took her within the early 2000s to Copenhagen, then to London to work for Potboiler Productions as head of improvement, and in 2011 to Stockholm, the place she spent three years as an government with Eccho Rights, a global rights administration firm, specializing in the sale and administration of scripted codecs. She then grew to become an government producer for the manufacturing firm Warp Movies for 5 years, commuting from Stockholm to the UK for some time earlier than turning into a full-time author.
Movies she developed included Lynne Ramsay’s debut characteristic, Ratcatcher (1999), Simon Beaufoy and Bille Eltringham’s The Darkest Mild (1999), Thomas Vinterberg’s It’s All About Love (2003), Soren Kragh-Jacobsen’s Skagerrak (2003) and Garth Jennings’ Son of Rambow (2008). At Warp she was the manager producer and episode author for Sky Studios’ Little Birds (2020), the six-part Bafta-nominated adaptation of Anaïs Nin’s erotic brief tales set in Nineteen Fifties Tangier.
She had lately tailored Balzac’s Misplaced Illusions for TV, transposing early Nineteenth-century post-revolutionary France right into a metaphor for the pursuit of fame, wealth and energy in up to date western society, and was engaged on unique scripts for TV4 in Sweden.
Ruth’s good thoughts, sharp wit and creativity shone brightly. Her capability to grasp and perceive the craft of writing, improvement and manufacturing of movie and TV meant she was in demand, as she knew the realities and frustrations of the business and will empathise with each writers and executives.
Born in Belfast, to Hazel Gordon (nee Bell), a relationship counsellor, and Bert McCance, a carpet fitter, Ruth went to the Buddies’ faculty in Lisburn, County Antrim. She by no means forgot her working-class background in Northern Eire, as soon as complaining to her mom that, in her teenage years, “you gave me nothing to insurgent in opposition to”, and she or he retained her mom’s values and feminism. She additionally saved up her connection to residence by working for Cinemagic (the Belfast youngsters’s movie pageant) in 1993 and serving on the board of Northern Eire Display from 2007 till 2011.
Ruth is survived by her companion, the Swedish artist Lars Nilsson; by her two youngsters, Elsa and Emil, from her marriage, in 2005, to Kalle Torring, which led to divorce; and by her dad and mom and me, and her brother, Simon.
