PRODUCTION
SCRIPTED RETURNS
SET FOR ACTION
Scripted production has always been a logistical nightmare, and COVID restrictions have added whole new layers of complication. Over the following pages we find out how just some of the shows back on set are doing it. Jon Creamer reports
during the height of lockdown, scripted production has been a whole different beast. By July, the slow relaxation of
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lockdown meant many started to make their way back on to set. An announcement in late July from Chancellor Rishi Sunak and DCMS minister Oliver Dowden that the UK government would create a £500m insurance fund to help productions restart shooting gave many confidence to restart as one major stumbling block looked set to be removed. The soaps kicked off first,
Eastenders went back to Albert Square at the very tail end of June and used a variety of tricks including perspex screens on wheels to separate performers and the use of plate shots not normally
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televisual.com Autumn 2020
hereas some entertainment shows managed to get back into the studio even
seen on a soap production. Episodes were also cut to a more manageable 20 minutes to factor in the extra time shooting would now take. Holby City managed to restart on the 27th July, daytime drama Doctors got back on the ward in early August. Major movies also got back
into production in the UK with Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion one of the first to make it back as it kicked off at Pinewood with a 750 strong team and a £200m budget. The new Mission Impossible instalment followed soon after as did Warner’s The Batman, and in a very high profile example of what can go wrong, leading man Robert Pattison tested positive for COVID just days after the resumption of filming. In TV drama, shooting restarted
on Guadeloupe in July for Red Planet Pictures’ Death in Paradise for BBC One, making it one of the first British single camera dramas to start filming since lockdown. Red Planet also managed to resume its ITV show Sanditon at Bristol’s Bottleyard Studios in August. Filming also started at the end of
July in Bristol on Emily Mortimer’s adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love made by Open Book and Moonage Pictures. Another early starter back in
July was the second season of the French/British retelling of War of the Worlds shot in Newport by Urban Myth Films. BBC One thriller Vigil, made
by World Productions and starring Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie and Shaun Evans, went back at the end of August in Glasgow after an enforced break due to COVID-19. Filming began last month too on new Sky 90-minute Christmas film, Roald & Beatrix, produced by Hartswood Films for Sky Studios, with a blend of live action camera work, stop-frame animation and puppetry. September also saw the return to
production for The Forge’s Channel 4 series Ackley Bridge and Britbox original, The Beast Must Die, began production in and around the Isle of Wight on an eleven week shoot by New Regency Television International and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free. After a 16-week suspension
due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the second season of FX and Sky’s comedy Breeders produced by Avalon and FX Productions resumed production early September as did ITV’s Grace starring John Simm which Tall Story Pictures, Second Act Productions and Vaudeville began filming in Brighton.
Bad Wolf exec producer, Lachlan MacKinnon has just started production on season 3 of Sky One supernatural drama, A Discovery of Witches. The shoot, that was always scheduled for a September start, continues until January.
Have you had to change your plans for the show due to COVID? We’ve tried to avoid rewriting scenes and find ways around issues instead. I think back to the genesis of Bad Wolf and Jane [Tranter] and Julie [Gardner] had worked out of the States for years where they rely more on studios and build lots of sets. You can focus more on the performance and the text. You don’t have to worry about the constraints of location.
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