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Images: Sense8 © Netflix & Murray Close.
I was a producer on the series, working closely with the US with responsibility for all the international production territories outside the US, including the UK. This involved contracting the local service production companies around the world, from Reykjavik to Rio, Mexico City to Mumbai, along with the local cast, crew and everything else that the show required. And taking care of all filming across the UK, from the London scenes at the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge to the Scottish Highlands. glObal sCalE was EssENTial TO THE ambiTiON OF THE sHOw. EaCH EpisOdE FEaTuREs NOT jusT ONE COuNTRy lOCaTiON buT iNTERCuTs aCROss sEvERal.
The UK also provided UK HOD’s and their teams across departments including Costume (Lindsay Pugh), Hair & Make-up (Alessandro Bertolazzi), Set Dec/Production Design (Peter Walpole) SFX (Gareth Wingrove), Locations (Marco Giacalone) – and many more. From the outset, what was the aim of the series? The core idea in Sense8 is that each of the characters in each of the different cities is connected in a unique way that they – and we – will discover. Global scale was essential to the ambition of the show. The series needed locations and story worlds for each of the characters that were completely different from each other but that would become instantly recognisable. Each episode features not just one country location but intercuts across several, so you recognise immediately when you intercut from Seoul, in South Korea, to Nairobi in Kenya for example. Give us a sense of the scale of the production? Sense8 from its conception was a complicated undertaking – one that is not comparable to any show before. The production filmed 37 units in 17 different cities and countries that spanned five different continents. Production was based in LA, London and in our other home city, Berlin, where we had a major production base. The schedule crafted by our incredible AD team was structured by country, working across the globe and allowing for monsoon season in India, New Year’s Eve in Berlin, Pride parade in Sao Paolo… you get the picture!
Alex Boden of Pistachio Pictures.
How did you set about organising the logistics of a show with such scale and geographic diversity? It was all about collaboration with a capital ‘C’ . As you can imagine, many a schedule and spreadsheet was created over the five years. We shared producer duties across the show, with three of us on season one and then four on season two, together ensuring that the show kept on delivering at every location.
As producer, what were the key challenges of working on Sense8? There was a time on season one that I will never forget – when each time I answered the phone or opened an email, it was regarding a different country in a different time-zone. It is important to understand the differences between the film industry of each country and how each one operates. Even within Europe you have countries that have a completely different approach to filmmaking, different working hours, regulations, financing and legal structures from their neighbours. Our goal was to ensure that everything was prepared so that our team could arrive and start filming, often after just a few days on the ground. How important were tax incentives in the choice of locations? Tax credits play an incredibly important role in any production. We were able to access credits in the UK, France, Iceland, Illinois, Italy, Seoul, South Korea. Many of these were substantial. The UK tax credit application was not possible on season one so it was a great bonus on season two when the expenditure threshold was lowered to 10% of qualifying spend in the UK allowing us to qualify. Ours was certainly one of the most complex ever completed, as our UK filming covered several episodes, so it was great to see the application approved and our payment come through. What lessons have you learned working on such a global production? I really love working with people who think internationally. From Executive Producer Grant Hill, to Producers Roberto Malerba, Terry Needham, Marcus Loges and other colleagues in production including Toby Pease, Loranne Turgeon, as well as Giorgio Catalano the Financial Controller… all are incredibly talented and experienced individuals with brilliant teams, who are able to find solutions wherever they land. Advice? There is so much that we learned during the series. Choose your partners carefully. We had great partners around the world who each rose to the challenges provided by our particular schedule. Choose your crew carefully. You need to have crew who are comfortable with the pressure of being in a new country at least every two weeks, who can think ahead and who stay committed to the end. What are you working on now? I’m working with Netflix again, on a new series called Cursed. It’s a re-imagining of the Arthurian legend, created by Frank Miller and Tom Wheeler.
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