I am delighted to recommend Milla Harrison-Hansley, an exceptional Series Producer and one of the strongest creative-operational partners I have worked with. Over five years, we collaborated on four major BBC Studios–PBS series totaling more than twenty hours of broadcast television. Her leadership, judgment, and professionalism were central to their success.

These series consistently ranked among PBS NOVA’s most popular and anticipated, and their success is due in large part to Milla’s ability to manage extraordinarily complex productions with calm and care. She is rigorously organized, clear and proactive in her communication, and unfailingly reliable—even as schedules shifted and editorial demands evolved.

Our BBC–PBS collaborations involved many stakeholders and competing priorities. Milla navigated these seamlessly, finding solutions that satisfied both partners without compromising editorial quality or vision. She brings steadiness, positivity, and a deeply collaborative spirit to every challenge.

Milla also mentored early-career producers, elevating their work through thoughtful guidance and, when needed, stepping in directly to ensure every deliverable met the highest standards. Most importantly, she is someone I trust completely. Nothing slipped through the cracks. Under her stewardship, our most complicated projects became our smoothest.

Milla would be an outstanding asset to any production team. I recommend her enthusiastically and without reservation.

Caitlin Saks

I’ve known and worked with the wonderful Milla Harrison for 12 years. But our cutting room relationship was put to the acid test in March, 2020, on the BBC/Rolex project “Deep Hope” when the coronavirus lockdown meant we had to up sticks and work together - 400 miles away from each other!

Milla has a fantastic eye for detail and she left no stone unturned in driving through the hundreds of hours of rushes, thousand of pages of transcripts created over 70 days of filming across locations all over the world. Daily phone calls, zoom meetings, play outs, downloads and brainstorms kept us always in close collaboration and resulted in a fantastic result for our multi million dolllar film. And through the days, weeks and months of remote working, MiIlla was calm and cool as a cucumber.

Millla is an amazing asset to any production and I love working with her.

Darren Jonusas ASE Film Editor

Darren Jonusas

Milla has produced and directed three episodes of Horizon since I have been Editor. The first was about the strange weather we¹ve been experiencing, the second about obesity and the third about the hair care industry. Three very different films with very different approaches and styles, all of the highest quality.

Milla has a strong journalistic instinct and able to easily determine the facts from the spin. She is brilliant with contributors and exceptional with presenters ­ in fact two of the films in particular (Obesity and Hair) had either very inexperienced presenters or presenters completely new to television. Milla was able to extract brilliant performances from these presenters and this is definitely one of her unique strengths.

Milla is a great director and very creative ­ with flair and a sense of fun and able to switch from the more serious Horizon style films to the more popular end - I know she has also worked across the BBC channels and so is able to understand the differences between what's needed for BBC1 and (for example) BBC2 or BBC4.

Milla has always worked well with teams and is a natural leader ­ though equally self motivated and able to get the work done without constant exec guidance­ her films for me came together without any issues and were some of the highest performing programmes of the 2015/16 Horizon run.

Steve Crabtree

I've had the great pleasure of working with Milla on two occasions, editing hour-long, prime-time documentaries for the BBC. She is a stand-out producer/director and this is for three key reasons:

Firstly, her rushes are thoughtfully planned with the edit in mind. She directs neat sequences and covers them well.

Secondly, she writes in a clear, concise manner and with her characteristic style and wit - ensuring her films maintain a lightness of touch - even when dealing with complicated thesis. She is readily capable of guiding her films through post-production.

Finally, and most crucially, Milla is wonderful company in the cutting room. She's easy going and funny as hell. She has professional acumen in bagfuls, though admirably, she doesn't take herself too seriously and remains collaborative throughout.

She is a pleasure to work with and I hope we find ourselves in an edit some time again. I further emphasise that while this is a personal testament, I know many other notable editors who concur.

Sam Billinge

Milla is a fantastic producer to have on a series or in development. She understands how to take content and turn it into great television and finds creative solutions to production problems. She's ambitious in her ideas, but also a great team member who collaborates with others to move ideas on. She's great at inspiring junior members of the team.

Nicola Cook, Line Manager

Milla is great at making her interviewees feel at ease, and doesn't waste time asking superfluous questions, but rather all the right ones in order to get all the perfect answers I need for an edit. She has a keen sense of story structure, and isn't afraid to make work for herself (and me, her editor!) in order to reshape a film into something that makes it easier for an audience to understand. Above all, she is great fun to be around in a darkened room for weeks on end, so I look forward to doing so again.

Dominic Staveacre