C21October 2020 - Drama

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Drama Everything about content

HBO Max effort: Streamer looks further afield

Mipcom Online+ 2020

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Joerg Winger throws open Big Window

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The challenges of production in a pandemic

PLUS: Dominic Buchanan & Bennett McGhee’s start-up – 12 Ade Rawcliffe on making diversity ITV’s priority – 20

www.intermedya.tv

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NEWS ANALYSIS

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

2020: The summer when streaming took over 2

The television industry will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic and the production freeze, but they aren’t the only things that have made this year a landmark one.

The lockdown not only put production on hold but also drove audiences to SVoD in a big way, with not just more homes spending more time using such services but – perhaps more importantly – demographics that had hitherto resisted the lure of ondemand started embracing them.

An Ofcom report in August showed that UK viewers, for example, were spending twice as much time on streaming services, with older demographics – the so-called Silver Streamers – a big part of the trend.

Similarly, Statista data shows that Netflix’s US subscriber figures hovered around the 60 million mark during 2019 but by Q2 of 2020 had jumped to 72.9 million, while the streamer also announced 16 million new subs internationally for the first three months of 2020, double its projections for Q1.

The early success of Disney+, offering popular originals such as The Mandalorian (1), has also been well documented.

The Hollywood studios duly adapted to this, accelerating plans to put streaming at

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the centre of their operations. The massive shift in focus from selling programmes to third-party channels to going direct-to-consumer (D2C) with their own platforms and competing with their erstwhile clients was no surprise but nevertheless had a huge impact.

At WarnerMedia, the seismic summer shake-up led by CEO Jason Kilar brought down big-wigs Bob Greenblatt, Kevin Reilly (2), Ron Sanders, Kim Williams and even distribution president Jeff Schlesinger (3), who said on his exit: “It took a global pandemic and a complete reorganisation of the company for me to trip over the last hurdle.”

NBCUniversal also merged its broadcast, cable and streaming operations under one division, 1

underscoring the importance of its new D2C service Peacock. Similar stories were seen across Hollywood and beyond as the combined weight of Covid, the production freeze and the migration to on-demand saw traditional TV players give in to the inevitable.

To misquote Dickens, the past six months have certainly been the worst of times for some, but perhaps also the best of times for others. The situation has, after all, seen a major return to programme acquisitions for many channels that had for many years trumpeted their moves into original commissions. So for plenty in the distribution game, the withdrawal of US studio product from the market and the spike in demand for readymade shows to fill gaps in schedules have been a blessing, albeit wearing a rather unpleasant disguise.

Even the US networks weren’t above some major moves into licensed content as productions froze, with stateside broadcasters in September launching band-aid schedules filled with delayed summer product like Filthy Rich on Fox, re-runs from SVoD siblings like Star Trek: Discovery on CBS and content licensed from third-party US networks like Spectrum drama LA’s Finest (4) going to Fox. Interestingly for the international community, meanwhile, networks like The CW and NBC picked up Canadian and European series like Transplant, Coroner and Devils.

So instead of the rest of the

world (RoW) lining up to license US programming, as in previous years, this year has seen the US lining up to license RoW product.

Add to this another dimension to 2020: the Black Lives Matter movement and its impact on the US market for cop shows. The supply of traditional cop procedurals, once a Hollywood stock-in-trade, was already being challenged by studios’ moves into darker, more serialised SVoD fodder, prompting some European nets like TF1 and RTL to start coproducing their own US-style procedurals.

But now, with the reaction to George Floyd’s killing at the hands of the police redefining US demand for cop shows, from audiences, networks and platforms alike, the number of traditional cop procedurals being made and distributed will be reduced.

And the ones that do get made will be very much geared towards US social issues and perhaps might not travel as well internationally.

Given the enduring popularity of cop procedurals the world over, there is now a real opportunity for producers and distributors outside the US studio system to get a share in this market, and companies are already jockeying for position, whether they’re pushing Eurocop dramas, Moscow noir or K-drama series from Seoul.

This year’s pandemic seems to have been creating as many opportunities as it has challenges.

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SCHEDULE WATCH: HBO Max

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

Take it to the Max F

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If there’s anything we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that American audiences are clamouring for more content that speaks to a bigger, more diverse audience.

Jeniffer Kim HBO Max

ledgling US streamer HBO Max offers a range of pitching opportunities and international partnerships, according to Jeniffer Kim, the service’s senior VP of international originals.

Speaking during the online Edinburgh Television Festival (ETF), Kim, who overseas the streamer’s scripted and unscripted international originals, said: “We’re looking for programming that comes from outside of the US, whether it’s Englishlanguage or foreign-language, and looking for programmes that travel well back into the US for a domestic audience.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that American audiences are clamouring for more content that speaks to a bigger, more diverse audience.”

Referencing the recent success of foreign-language movies and shows among US viewers, such as Netflix’s Oscar-winning movie Roma from Mexico and South Korea’s Parasite, and the boldness of other platforms to introduce international programming, she said: “We feel excited to be able to be a part of a platform that encourages more international, content and programming because we believe that is the future.”

Parasite winning the Best Picture Oscar this year was a “big indication

Ridley Scott’s Raised by Wolves

HBO Max is flexing its international programming muscles as it hunts for original content whilst vacuuming up rights to finished shows for teens and young adults.

By Gün Akyuz of a domestic audience really being prepared for stories about people who don’t look like them and don’t sound like them, but there’s universal themes in the story tying people together,” Kim said.

“And that was such a huge indicator of how we are moving forward as a culture and how open we are to the different types of stories that are out there.”

HBO Max, which launched in the US on May 27 and costs US$14.99 per month, was reported to have more than four million US subscribers by late July. “We’re pleased with the growth and the reception from the US audience and we’re excited to continue to see it grow,” said Kim. “We sit in a world where we complement HBO and we try to figure out how to live alongside their programming. So, our programming does tend to skew a little bit younger and slightly more female. But it’s a platform that offers a whole range of content, from the youngest viewers from preschool all the way to the older audience.”

A major restructure under recently appointed WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar saw the departure of several key senior execs, among them HBO Max’s chief content officer Kevin Reilly. The streamer is also preparing for an international future with its first launch abroad, in Latin America in 2021, following the appointment of Johannes Larcher as head of HBO Max International.

Alongside a library of more than 10,000 hours mined from the WarnerMedia catalogue, the streamer has made originals a centrepiece of its strategy. It is set to premiere more than 30 originals during the course of 2020, rising to 50 in 2021, in genres ranging from comedy, kids, features and drama to factual and factual entertainment.

HBO Max’s originals, led by Ridley Scott’s recently renewed sci-fi drama Raised by Wolves, also include a growing slate of international copros and pre-buys, with openings for at least a couple of such originals a year, said Kim. The streamer is also making u

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SCHEDULE WATCH: HBO Max

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

HBO Max acquired BBCS content including BBC1 comedy Ghosts (above) and Channel 4’s Stath Lets Flats (left)

acquisitions, among them Beta Film’s Italian crime drama Gomorrah as an exclusive for the US. It also signed a sizeable licensing deal last year with BBC Studios for a host of content, ranging from iconic sci-fi series Doctor Who to Channel 4’s comedy drama Pure, sitcom Stath Lets Flats and BBC1 comedy Ghosts.

Kim, who reports to HBO Max head of originals Sarah Aubrey, said the streamer’s focus on international originals kicked off last year with between five and 10 projects. It is interested in coproductions and pre-buying existing content to launch as premieres in the US, as well as commissioning originals.

Kim is “very open to different models, but coproductions and original commissions are the two focuses right now.”

HBO Max has now started to develop directly with creators, which is an important development for Kim. “I want to really dig in and work creatively and closely with the talent,” she said.

Kim’s scripted slate includes a couple

of greenlit copros, among them 1980s-set AIDS comedy-drama Boys from Russell T Davis, produced by StudioCanal’s Red Production and exec produced by Nicola Shindler for Channel 4. HBO Max joined as a partner on the project last year after Edinburgh and the series is now in post-production.

Kim called the project “one of those things that just felt so right on my plane ride back that I reached out to Sarah, my boss, and said we need to get in on this. It is excellent, it’s so beautifully written, and also, who doesn’t want to work with Russell? He’s amazing and an incredible human being.”

Another is comedy Starstruck from Edinburgh Fringe Festival winner Rose Matafeo, produced by Avalon with BBC3. This is a project Kim said she first caught sight of in 2018 while still at TBS and it became one of the first series she greenlit at HBO Max. “We ordered it to series and could not be happier. The scripts are amazing. We’re going to go into production soon,” said Kim. “It fits perfectly with our audience.”

Kim said she was drawn to Matafeo as “the voice of a generation. She’s exactly in that Gen Z audience that we are catering for and a voice that isn’t represented enough in television.”

Expanding on what she looks for, Kim said both projects were from a very “authored” place. “They’re passion projects; [the writers] speak to their own experiences and people that

they knew. I gravitate towards stories like that,” she said. “So, if there is something out there that speaks to an underrepresented audience, diverse voices or interesting subcultures, those are the things I gravitate towards.”

A comedy pilot with another as-yetundisclosed UK comedian coming out of the Edinburgh Fringe is now in the pipeline, Kim revealed.

“On the flip side, we also want to make sure we’re broadening out our content and looking at things that also feel accessible and a little bit bigger in scope,” Kim said.

Another project currently under wraps is an action-mystery thriller that HBO Max is partnering on with a UK broadcaster and is due to be unveiled soon, Kim said. “It’s a six-part, strong series but it’s broader and bigger and taps into many more of the universal themes I talked about earlier that speak to something that can travel back into the US,” she said.

“It’s a balance between finding these beautiful authored stories and these slightly bigger commercial stories that I think would hit a broader audience.”

Kim said genres such as actiondrama tend to skew more international than comedy. “Comedy is a little bit harder, as people all agree, but the comedies that we gravitate towards tend to come from the UK because they translate well to an American audience.”

Given her own background in US comedy during her time at TBS prior to joining HBO Max, Kim said she was drawn to scripted comedy. “I like to look at dramedies. Those are some of my favourites,” she said.

She cites as examples HBO dramedy pre-buy Frayed, from Merman Production for Sky in the UK and ABC in Australia, starring Sarah Kendall, and Channel 4 drama Pure, starring Charly Clive, which launched on HBO Max on August 27. “But we lean more towards drama and the bigger genres, like horror, thriller, mystery – things that feel a little bit more accessible.”

When it comes to pre-buys, Kim’s team works with the HBO Max’s acquisitions execs. Depending on audience results, HBO is a potential copro partner for subsequent seasons.

“If there is a pre-buy opportunity for an existing show that hasn’t premiered in the US, we look at it alongside our acquisitions team and ask ourselves if this is something we would like to brand an original. If you brand a show as an original there’s just u

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SCHEDULE WATCH: HBO Max

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

a little bit more opportunity with that show and there’s an audience growth opportunity,” said Kim, pointing to the recent launch of Frayed.

“We had ordered it and I’d seen it early on. That’s an example of something where, in success, we talk about a potential season two where we can come in as a coproduction partner.

“It varies from show to show but there’s always an opportunity, when we’re looking at some of these territory premieres, to have that kind of thinking cap on.”

When it comes to sharing rights on projects, Kim said that although the focus right now is on the US, this could change. “We are a very domestic service and are focused on our US rights. But we are launching in Latin America next year, which is very exciting, so it is obviously part of the remit for us to take those rights as well,” she said.

Kim said pitching to her four-strong team is an easy process and can be done “any which way,” through email, referrals or agents. The team comprises Emily Smith and Andrea Puig, who both joined in March, and international originals programming exec Kaela Barnes. Smith looks after the UK in particular, while Puig covers European territories including Spain, Italy and France.

However, Kim stressed that due to the small size of the department, “everybody is across everything, because I want everyone’s opinion on things, especially for our first few shows out of the gate.”

For now, there are no plans for commissioning execs based in local territories outside the US. “Everything is changing all the time, but right now it’s all out of the States and our focus is the US audience,” said Kim. The streaming service has picked up five series from ViacomCBS-owned Comedy Central as part of its strategy to attract teens and young adults.

Speaking during the Natpe Streaming Plus virtual conference in September, Michael Quigley, exec VP of content acquisitions for TNT, TBS, truTV, HBO and HBO Max at WarnerMedia, revealed comedies Inside Amy Schumer, Chappelle’s Show, Key & Peele, Reno 911! and Nathan for You would land on HBO Max in the fourth quarter of this year.

This comes after HBO Max announced in August that the second seasons of Comedy Central’s The Other Two and South Side would move to the streamer when they

Above: Acquired comedy-drama Pure.

Left: HBO Max pre-bought Frayed, made

by Merman Productions for Sky

launch next year, while the platform has also become the streaming home to the comedy channel’s Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.

Quigley highlighted that the platform is currently focusing on programming for teenagers and young adults, pointing to its recent acquisitions of South Park and Friends.

“Teens and young adults – that generation is really a sweet spot that we’re aiming at,” he said. “That’s an area that we’ve been focused on, and from early results, we’ve seen that bearing some fruit. South Park, Rick & Morty from the Adult Swim library and The Boondocks have been some of the most watched shows on the platform these first few months.”

Of particular significance is female-

skewing teen and young-adult content, according to Quigley, who highlighted Pretty Little Liars and The OC as key shows for the platform, which is also working on a reboot of Gossip Girl.

“We see that there’s opportunity for there to be shows that aren’t necessarily broad but which drive a lot of deep consumer engagement. That’s what we want to be able to tap into, those kinds of shows. We think the teen, young-adult, female pocket is one that we can really explore.”

For years, “deep consumer engagement” have been the kinds of words only the first wave of US streamers, like Netflix, have been able to use. Now the time has come for the legacy players like HBO to benefit from a direct link to their audience.

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Home Team

On the Home Team

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The End of the F***king World

Award-winning producers Dominic Buchanan and Bennett McGhee are looking to move the needle when it comes to inclusive film and TV with their new prodco.

By Nico Franks

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We’d sown the seeds of these plans for a while and it’s incredibly exciting to now see them come to fruition, and champion projects from talent we believe in.

Bennett McGhee Home Team

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t’s fair to say The End of the F***king World co-creator and executive producer Dominic Buchanan has been in the headlines recently. As well as co-founding UK-based prodco Home Team with Bennett McGhee, Buchanan was in the news when he called out Bafta for not allowing him to receive a physical award after the Channel 4/Netflix show he co-created won best drama at this year’s online-only ceremony.

The open letter Buchanan penned and shared online in August detailed how he felt filmmakers and creatives of colour will never truly feel supported nor included until institutions such as Bafta change rapidly.

A month later and Buchanan, together with Silvertown Films founder McGhee, was back in the news after receiving an undisclosed investment in their Londonbased venture from Calculus Creative Content EIS Fund.

The fund was launched in June 2019 in association with the British Film Institute (BFI), which awarded the fund to Calculus Capital and film and TV finance specialist Stargrove Pictures. The aim is to help generate a new wave of investors in the UK creative content industry and to support the growth of dynamic and ambitious UK production companies such as Home Team.

Buchanan and McGhee want Home Team to focus on the development and production of high-end, wholly inclusive feature films and television series and aim to bring under-represented talent into the mainstream.

The pair look to identify and develop under-represented creatives and nurture exciting voices, primarily, but not exclusively, filmmakers of colour and women filmmakers of all ethnicities through interactive as well as traditional film and TV platforms.

Prior to Home Team, Buchanan has been independently producing and building his slate of projects, which last year saw him secure a one-year first-look TV deal with production house Eleven.

Previously, Buchanan was VP of production and development at Bold Films, where he coproduced the

Keira Knightley movie Colette. Buchanan also produced director Hong Khaou’s film Lilting, starring Ben Whishaw.

In 2015, McGhee established Silvertown Films, which was the recipient of the BFI’s Vision Award in its first year. Silvertown’s credits include Ron Scarpello’s feature documentary Bobby, Ed Lilly’s rap-battle drama VS and Mogul Mowgli, directed by Bassam Tariq and starring Riz Ahmed.

Projects on Home Team’s slate include a collaboration with BBC Films on Shola Amoo’s follow-up to feature The Last Tree; a BFI-backed film directed by Destiny Ekaragha (The End of the F***ing World) and comedian and writer Danielle Ward (In the Long Run); and Nadia Latif and Omar El-Khairy’s (White Girl) horror film Welcome, currently being developed with Film4 and the BFI. Also on the slate are Rohan Blair Mangat’s docuseries The Boombox Project, adapted from Lyle Owerko’s book of the same name, and a television series directed by Kate Herron (Sex Education), which she is co-writing alongside Briony Redman (Angry Quiz Guy) and will be coproduced with Douglas Cox (Host).

Founding partner McGhee says: “I’m blessed to be partnering with Dominic and starting this new venture together, and thankful for the incredible support from the team at Calculus, Stargrove and the wider industry. We’d sown the seeds of these plans for a while and it’s incredibly exciting to now see them come to fruition, and champion projects from talent we believe in.”

John Glencross, chief executive of Calculus, says: “Dominic and Bennett are two of the most exciting producers to emerge in the UK in recent years and have already shown their ability to develop groundbreaking productions that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.”

Stephen Fuss, chief executive at Stargrove Pictures, adds: “Dominic and Bennett are impressive individuals who have an original style and authentic voices. We are looking forward to working with them and supporting their growth plans.”

Summing up their goals, founding partner Buchanan says: “Home Team will be a genuine home for talent.

We are continuously driven to realise our wildest ambitions and want to move the needle with everything we do. Fortunately, Bennett and I are now truly empowered to do so.”

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DEVELOPMENT SLATE: Big Window Productions

Channel 21 International | Mipcom Online+ 2020

Opening Big Window You recently launched Big Window Productions as part of UFA Fiction. Is now a good time to launch a production company?

Well, it’s a good time to be in development, right? That’s the one thing you can really do well at the moment. And for me, this is a good time because it fits into my next stage of my life as a writer/producer, which is what I love most, with my own small unit that’s very focused with my own brand. I had a few offers from other players and those were also very tempting. But in the end, I have very longstanding and trusting relationships with the people at UFA and Fremantle, so it made sense. I like this feeling of being a start-up with a big player so the back office is taken care of.

What does being part of UFA and Fremantle mean on a global scale?

In terms of tradecraft, it’s good to have all those ears and eyes on the ground in all the territories and to have people like [Fremantle’s exec VP of global drama] Christian Vesper, so there’s a lot of exchange of information.

That’s one thing that is very useful because our business is all about timing. You could have a great show and you wouldn’t be able to sell it one year but you would be able to sell it the next year.

What is the production strategy at Big Window?

Even though the streamers are very attractive to work with, the other model I still find attractive is bi-national coproduction. French/German [with Ouija] or it could be British/German or American/German. For us, there’s always going to be a German angle. If you get two broadcasters that are aligned and share the same vision, that’s a really interesting model for us. In terms of content, it’s shows that are inspiring to my team Winger’s Deutschland 86 and myself, and that will usually have some kind of political element.

We’re not interested in pure entertainment.

I started out as a journalist so I have a bias towards stories that are based on real life, or inspired by real life.

Our development slate includes Ein Sachse [A Saxon], in cooperation with Panthertainment, based on the true story of the Afro-German police officer Samuel Meffire; a contemporary American thriller set in Berlin; a feminist horror series; Ouija, which I’m doing with Thomas Bourguignon at Kwai in Paris and France Télévisions; and Der Dschungel [The Jungle], with TNT Serie in Germany.

Der Dschungel is about a Covid-19 outbreak at a meat factory. How will you cover that subject?

Joerg Winger, co-creator of the Deutschland 83 trilogy, tells Michael Pickard about setting up his own company, Big Window Productions, in the middle of a pandemic.

You have to either stay clear of the subject or throw yourself into the middle of it. But this is not going to be a Covid show, it’s going to be a character-driven show about the meat industry. So, it’s going to be about people in a system.

Institutional insanity is one of my favourite topics, and when you look at the meat industry, you have a great example. It’s something that is basically built on the greed of the consumers, greed for cheap sausages. And people like to look away from what’s happening behind the scenes. But in this instance, the coronavirus shed light on something that people were not willing to look at.

In terms of the broader industry, how do you see the impact of the pandemic?

In Germany specifically, the situation is good. We have already resumed shooting a few months ago. And in some cases, we never stopped shooting. But it’s a learning curve. We have learned a lot about how to design a set and the processes to minimise the risks of any kind of outbreak. It’s a very steep learning curve. And, knock on wood, we hope we don’t get any major outbreak here.

We will get better and better at producing more and more complex shows within the world of Covid before we find the silver bullet. It’s probably going to take us another year, probably next summer we’ll be through with this.

But what do I know?

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We’re not interested in pure entertainment. I started out as a journalist so I have a bias towards stories that are based on real life, or inspired by real life.

Joerg Winger

Big Window Productions

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Producing in a pandemic

Back on set W

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On season three, we were airing while we were filming.

There’s no time to go, ‘Did I get this right?’ You just have to do your best and get it on air.

Noah Hawley

Fargo showrunner

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Chris Rock in Fargo S4

hen Covid-19 shut down television productions As drama production slowly ramps around the world earlier this year it wasn’t a up after Covid-19-enforced question of if but when and how they would shutdowns around the world, resume with all the health and safety precautions required showrunners and directors are to keep cast and crew safe amid a global pandemic. rising to the global challenges One of the most eagerly anticipated series of the year is the fourth season of FX anthology crime drama Fargo, but presented by the pandemic. its launch was delayed from April to September as filming

By Michael Pickard was put on hold, with shooting on the final two episodes only wrapping a fortnight before the show’s premiere.

Produced by MGM Television and FX Productions and could be tightened or trimmed, so it was a lot clearer to me distributed by MGM, the latest iteration of the series with the distance than it would have been.”

Restarting production, he says, was “fairly smooth,” stars Chris Rock as the leader of an African American crime family going head-to-head with the Italian mafia although one of the downsides of losing six months of production time was that children grow up. in 1950s Kansas City.

“We had at least one child actor who is very prominent But while the focus was on getting the production back up and running, showrunner Noah Hawley in the story and I was like, ‘Send me a picture of him.

Does he have a moustache now?’ says he used the hiatus to Then, of course, especially with spend more time with very in-demand actors, you end the material than he up competing with a lot of projects would normally have for them. been able to.

“Jessie Buckley [who plays nurse “Just from a Oraetta Mayflower] has multiple creative standpoint, offers to do movies that they’re it was nice to have trying to get going at the same time the extra time we’re trying to finish up. I want because you’re her to have every opportunity but usually racing,” he says. “On season three, BBC/Amazon period drama The Pursuit of Love somehow I’ve got to get my thing finished. You get into a lot of things we were airing while we were filming. There’s no time to go, ‘Did I like that, some logistical issues, not to mention the fact get this right?’ You just have to do your best and that when we sent our Italian actors home in March, we didn’t know when we could possibly get them back. get it on air.

“We had pencilled in an August return, just hoping that “I went back and watched the first two episodes one more time and I cut about five we could be done by fall. And it ended up timing out pretty minutes out of each hour. I thought it needs precisely to our guesstimate, which, I have to say, was very to move faster and there were things I felt fortuitous.” u

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Currently filming in Nova Scotia on Canada’s eastern seaboard is CBC drama Feudal, described as an epic tale of lust, legacy and lobster. It is set against the backdrop of financial hardship, small-town intrigue and a long-buried secret that threatens a family-run summer resort as a group of siblings battle for control of its future.

Produced by Six Eleven Media and Entertainment One, which is also distributing, the project was forced to shut down in March, when showrunner Sheri Elwood was eight weeks into the writers’ room. Discussions continued over Zoom, which she admits were more “exhausting” than she anticipated, but the series did not change its creative tack as a result of the pandemic.

Based on her own family’s summer resort business and filmed within its extensive grounds, the show has proven to be remarkably “Covid-friendly” owing to the remote waterside location.

“We’re shooting on the beach, we’re shooting outside and we’re shooting in tents. It’s really Covid-friendly and that is just pure accident,” Elwood says. “All our actors came from all over the country and across the US, they quarantined for two weeks and now we’re a little bubble.

It’s kind of a miracle.

“In terms of intimate scenes, we were in the fortunate position that I had already pinned Jonathan Silverman to play our lead actress Jennifer Finnigan’s soon-to-beex-husband, and he’s actually Jennifer’s real husband, so we were able to sort of sidestep that little ‘no kissing’ loophole.”

German showrunner Christian Ditter is back on set for season two of his Netflix techno-thriller Biohackers, about a student who enters the world of illegal genetics and is linked to her star professor by a dark secret. A remote writers’ room was assembled to get the scripts into shape, while strict regulations were hammered out to ensure everyone involved in the production remained safe.

“Everybody gets tested once a week,” he explains.

“Everybody has to wear masks at all times, except when they are in the office they share with two or three other people. Then, as soon as somebody enters from another department, they all have to wear masks.

“The only people allowed on set without masks are the actors. They get tested two times or three times a week, depending on what kind of scenes they will have and how close they are going to be to one another.”

The story also goes some way to looking after the health of the cast and crew. “When we started writing, we already knew we were in the middle of a pandemic so we avoided scenes with a lot of people,” Ditter says of the show, which is produced by Claussen+Putz Filmproduktion.

Emily Mortimer Christian Ditter

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Producing in a pandemic

“We don’t have scenes in huge auditoriums like in season one, or huge party scenes. It’s a more intimate story, which I find interesting creatively also, but which also helps the production environment.”

Actor Emily Mortimer also believes the additional layer of health and safety guidelines added to the process of making television drama can be a creative stimulant for those in front of and behind the camera. Mortimer, best known for films such as Mary Poppins Returns and TV series including The Newsroom, writes and directs BBC and Amazon period drama The Pursuit of Love, based on Nancy Mitford’s novel of the same name.

Produced by Open Book and Moonage Pictures and distributed by BBC Studios, the romantic comedy-drama is set in Europe between the world wars and follows the adventures and misadventures of the charismatic and fearless Linda Radlett (Lily James) and her best friend and cousin Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham).

“I don’t have enough experience of directing to know whether it is being compromised [by Covid restrictions], but I do know enough about production, making things and writing things to know the restrictions are the thing that end up making you the most creative,” she says of the three-parter, which was her first directing job.

“In this industry, we are used to scraping around to make things work. We weren’t allowed to go into any big cities. We have had to find inventive ways of shooting all the locations in these big country houses and find ways of making them look like London and the French border with Spain. It’s been cool in a way but it’s just the same as it always is. It’s magic tricks.”

A side effect of the limited number of people on set at one time means Mortimer has the feeling of being on a closed set, with few distractions to take the focus away from the scene in hand.

“All the extra people who tend to congregate around, changing things at the last minute and doing hair and make-up checks, aren’t really allowed to be there, so in a way it’s less complicated than it normally is,” she notes.

“Weirdly, there’s more time to just get on doing the takes and not having so much interference. I’ve also got such a good group of people, an amazing first AD, producers and DOP. I’ve just been incredibly lucky in it’s felt easy in a way that sometimes these things don’t feel. It’s been a nice vibe. Even when things go wrong, it doesn’t feel as traumatic as it could do.”

As if making TV drama were not complicated enough, Covid-19 has given the industry one more thing to think about. In a business where there is never enough time or money, it’s just another element that will set creativity flowing, with the results eagerly awaited by viewers around the world.

Production of Biohackers involved elaborate safety guidelines including frequent Covid testing for the actors.

Below: Sheri Elwood was showrunner on CBC drama Feudal when it was forced to shut down.

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PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: Ade Rawcliffe

ITV’s inclusive agenda

A

t ITV, we feel very strongly that everyone should see themselves reflected in our programming and everyone should feel like they can work here. As a commercial, mainstream public service broadcaster (PSB), diversity, inclusion and representation are things ITV should absolutely do. But clearly there’s a very important commercial and creative case for us to drive representation, on screen and off, as well.

In the old days, as a PSB, you had a monopoly over the audience. But we’re now in competition with Netflix, Amazon and Apple, all of which are doing this stuff very well. The competition has intensified and if we’re not representing people’s lives and experiences, the audience will go elsewhere.

At ITV, we’re trying to embed diversity and inclusivity into our existing processes. It is something we discuss at the beginning of the commissioning process because it needs to be something that everyone is responsible for. Meanwhile, all our commissioning editors have performance-related pay and a bonus linked to what they achieve, on screen and off, around diversity and inclusion.

Some of what we’ve done around diversity in the past has worked, but some of it hasn’t as effectively as we wanted it to. Everything that’s happened since the pandemic around the Black Lives Matter movement has created a new level of urgency and expectation.

What I’ve been struck by is the demand for change and the speed at which people want it to happen.

My husband is a school teacher and he’s been getting emails saying, “We want the curriculum changed by Monday, or else we’re not coming into school.” That’s the sort of pace of change people want.

I feel the pressure and the weight of expectation of that. But I’m also excited by the opportunity. It feels like a real reset moment.

The lockdown was traumatic for lots of people and it has highlighted the true levels of inequality in the UK, around things like race, income and geographical location. I have felt completely overwhelmed by it all, but it has come together to create a moment when people have said enough is enough. We need to talk about change now.

For example, a lot of the conversations that, as a black person in an organisation, you may have kept to yourself previously are starting to be had, right up to CEO level. It has led to an honesty that we haven’t seen before.

ITV’s group director of diversity and inclusion Ade Rawcliffe discusses the UK broadcaster’s efforts to put diversity and inclusion at the top of its agenda to create lasting change.

In future, I hope when those things happen – the microaggressions and the racism – they get called out in the moment, not only by the person experiencing them but by other people who see themselves as allies. It’s not just down to the black person, the Asian person or the disabled person to call out prejudice, we all have to call it out in order to bring about change.

Diversity and inclusion is not a zero-sum game, we all benefit from people investing in this space. But we have to work collaboratively, because not only are we trying to change an industry, we’re trying to change society, and no one can do that on their own.

At ITV, our Diversity Acceleration Plan is designed to create more opportunities for those from black, Asian, minority ethnic and other under-represented groups, from increasing diversity on our management board and senior leadership teams to commissioning to ensure ITV better represents contemporary British life on screen.

A lot of people haven’t felt included by our content in the past and we have to work harder on that.

We will also improve diversity and career progression in TV production and take positive action at entry level, as well as middle and senior leadership, to support underrepresented candidates, while educating and developing ourselves so everyone understands racism and their role in creating an inclusive culture.

I’ve been struck by how, as an industry, when people have to do things differently, we can adapt. We’ve had to do it with Covid-19 and working from home, and now is the moment to do it with diversity and inclusion.

The time for talking is over – we’ve got to get on with it.

Ade Rawcliffe was speaking to C21 as part of the Coming Up Next series, a coproduction with The University of York’s SIGN programme.

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