BIG PICTURE BLACK MIRROR And at some point, they have to make
many of their own decisions. “Obviously, we match the director to the episodes, and I will have discussed their early reactions to the script and, and often fed in their thoughts into another draft,” says Brooker. “But for a director coming in, there’s a lot more freedom in a way than there is if you’re stepping into an episode of an ongoing show. They are encouraged to branch out, toy around, experiment and make it as individual as possible.” And while Brooker is on hand
throughout the production, “by the time we’re shooting, it is their baby. Hopefully, you can see in the finished episodes that they feel idiosyncratic. I might have come up with a lot of the stories, but they’re absolutely indelibly stamped with the mark of each individual director.” Because those directors “are all different
personalities themselves. John Crowley (Beyond the Sea) is a very calming, very
thoughtful, quiet, very intellectual, warm, thoughtful presence. Then you’ve got somebody like, Toby Haynes (Demon 79) who is bubbly, enthusiastic and, he won’t mind me saying, like a boy with a
“WE DEFINITELY STRETCHED THE VARIETY
AS FAR AS IT CAN GO SHORT OF PUTTING IN ONE THAT’S CLAYMATION”
play set and then you’ve got somebody like Ally Pankiw (Joan Is Awful) who is also a comedy writer and she’s got really great funny bones.” And so “it’s fun how all of that feeds into the finished article.” But producing essentially five different
movies is no mean feat. “You never have the time to get a shorthand,” says
PRODUCTION
Rhoades. But at the same time “no one has the time to get bored. Everyone is coming to their episode with full passion, full intensity, full energy.” And on more traditional shows “they care every single day, but they have been working in the same set and under the same budgetary limitations so sometimes the shorthand and the ease of the economy of scale also comes with a fatigue. And here we don’t have that with our teams. We just have that with Charlie.” Because the Black Mirror format is not
an easy one to handle. “I’m constantly kicking myself,” says Brooker “Why don’t I just write a thing set in one room with four people who just chat. But part of the fun is that it’s never, ever boring. So you don’t have the economy of scale and you don’t have the continuity of character, you don’t have any of those things but also you are never bored because you’re constantly terrified.”
Summer 2023
televisual.com
85
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
