A ‘recreation’ of the RMS Titanic, staged in Belfast harbour through the use a ‘flotilla’ of almost 1,000 drones, marks the arrival of BBC’s Made Of Here campaign in Northern Ireland.
The drone display, which took place on Monday 30 March using 950 drones, will be broadcast to audiences as part of a Made Of Here film on BBC One Northern Ireland and BBC Two Northern Ireland on Thursday 2 April at 8pm, after EastEnders – the same time and date the Titanic set sail from Belfast in 1912.
Elements of the production will also feature across social media platforms and YouTube. The filming of the drone activation was produced by the BBC NI Creative team.
The display was inspired by the four-part BBC factual series Titanic Sinks Tonight, which was filmed and produced in Northern Ireland by Belfast-based independent production company Stellify Media.
Titanic Sinks Tonight, which originally aired in December 2025, has become the BBC’s biggest history documentary of 2025/26 so far, with an audience of more than two million viewers across the UK and almost half of viewers watching on BBC iPlayer. The docu-drama used personal testimony taken from letters, interviews, personal memoirs and the accounts of public enquiries to tell the story of the sinking of the Titanic, minute by minute, from the moment it hit the iceberg to the moment it disappeared below the surface of the ocean.
The BBC’s Made Of Here campaign is a tribute to the hometowns and cities across the UK which have inspired some of the BBC’s most iconic TV shows and characters. At the campaign’s heart is a short film that highlights the BBC’s unique ability to connect with people across the UK through outstanding homegrown storytelling, whether that’s in landmark dramas, laugh-out-loud comedies or memorable factual programmes.
Northern Ireland is the latest location to be spotlit by the campaign, following activity in Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow. The campaign highlights that homegrown creativity, from Cardiff to Belfast and Manchester to the Home Counties, sits at the very core of what the BBC does.
Simon Young, Head of History, BBC Factual Commissioning, said: “We are so proud to have brought the Titanic back to Belfast in the shape of this extraordinary TV series. The city took the production of Titanic Sinks Tonight to its heart, and the result is a gripping second-by-second examination of the ship’s final hours. There’s no better way to mark the construction of the most famous ship in history, and the creation of this epic series, than by bringing Titanic to life in lights on Belfast harbour.”
Keiran Doherty, co-CEO of Stellify Media who made the Titanic Sinks Tonight series, said: “Filming at home in Belfast gave us something special, a connection to the Titanic that goes beyond the visuals. We weren’t just imagining the story, we were standing in it.”
Throughout the month of April, further BBC programmes made in Northern Ireland will feature in the extensive multi-media campaign, which will run on billboards, in press and cinema across Northern Ireland. Titles set to feature in the campaign include the hit drama series Blue Lights, which is currently filming in Belfast, Line Of Duty, which will soon commence production in Northern Ireland, Hope Street and the award-winning comedy series Funboys.
Discover more from LoveBelfast
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
