DRAMA & COMEDY
Enter pandemic restrictions in March 2019. “Suddenly, there was only one option: to build a hospital,” says Pullinger. Production designer Dick Lunn created the like-for- like obs and gynae ward in a building in East London, complete with triage area, operating theatre and labour ward.
The clinical colour palette looked terrible on camera, so the windows were given a cinematic aspect ratio to give space, air and light. While the harsh colours of the scrubs were softened by repeated washing, as part of the plan to create an authentic and visceral representation of a tired NHS. DoP Benedict Spence, shooting on the Arri Alexa MiniLF camera, followed Whishaw around the wards, putting the audience in his shoes. Colourist Toby Tomkins worked on the grade. “We created our own colour palette, all within the hospital world,” says Pullinger.
Essential workers
The shoot finally took place mid 2021, in lock-down. Pullinger had to think on her feet. “It wasn’t a case of saying, ‘let’s pick up the pandemic handbook,’ I had to write the pandemic handbook.”
At the same time, the crew understood the significance of the show. “At the time we felt we were making something important; we were lucky to be allowed to come to work and did not squander it. Everyone worked really hard and they were respectful of the
As with other TV productions, the crew, while not front-line, were considered essential workers and the production could go ahead.
MOMENTS TO HIT THE PLANET. WHEN IT’S SO AWFUL,
YOU’VE GOT TO LAUGH AND THAT’S WHAT THIS IS GOING TO HURT IS ABOUT
WE WERE DOING THIS JOB IN ONE OF THE HARDEST
“The vital ingredient was a gang of people who trusted each other. Naomi de Pear, Jane Featherstone [executive producers] and Lucy Forbes [director]: creatively brilliant, determined and they believed in the project. And, one by one, you add more brilliant, clever, resilient people, HoDs…. And then they pick brilliant people. Everybody kept coming to work and giving it everything.”
The biggest set-back from the pandemic was the blow to morale. “It was intensely difficult working under Covid.
Everybody who works in TV and film knows you’re like a circus, suddenly there’s a hundred people working together. You learn quickly how to make relationships and there was an element of that which was entirely taken away. It’s very much part of what keeps you going every day, inspires you creatively.”
fact that we were doing something special in a special industry, at a special time.”
Miracle of life
As a drama about a maternity ward, the production had to go to incredible lengths to line up around 20 babies, many not yet born. Pullinger tells the story of when the first baby was brought onto the busy set. “Everybody put their backs to the side of the corridor and there was this line of crew all looking at this tiny baby in its mum’s arms walking all the way down the set to the labour room. There were a couple of people crying. It was an incredible moment where this new life was on our set, this brand new, living little thing which none of had seen for months, because of the pandemic and the Covid restrictions.”
At any given moment, the production had the assistance of one of three real obstetrics and gynaecology doctors on hand to advise, who came in their spare time to shepherd the production and help the production portray the truth, warts and all.
Despite the shadow of Covid, the team had to keep a sense of humour. “It was hard to keep going, but you had to laugh. It’s a very human thing, at the worst of times. We were doing this job in one of the hardest moments to hit the planet. When it’s so awful, you’ve got to laugh and that’s what This is Going to Hurt is about.”
televisual.com
07 BD
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