Tag Archives: Bodyguard

On guard

ON LOCATION, , ,

Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio mixes politics and action in Bodyguard, a six-part thriller starring Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes. The showrunner and executive producer Simon Heath invite DQ to the set.

With the long-awaited fifth season of crime drama Line of Duty not due to air on BBC1 until 2019, two years after the fourth run, fans of the series could be forgiven for getting slightly impatient over the return of what has become one of Britain’s biggest dramas. To whet their appetite, however, series creator and showrunner Jed Mercurio will be back on the same channel this Sunday with a brand new series.

A six-part political thriller set within the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as an officer of the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London’s Metropolitan Police.

When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful home secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?

Produced by Line of Duty’s World Productions and distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Bodyguard also stars Gina McKee, Vincent Franklin, Paul Ready, Sophie Rundle, Ash Tandon, Nicholas Gleaves, Nina Toussaint-White, Pippa Haywood and Stuart Bowman.

Bodyguard showrunner Jed Mercurio (in leather jacket) watches the action unfold on a monitor

Thomas Vincent directed block one of the production, while John Strickland took charge of block two, with Priscilla Parish producing.

It’s a gloomy January evening when DQ pitches up at an opulent apartment block overlooking Battersea Park in south-west London, in the shadow of the former power station currently undergoing an extensive redevelopment as it prepares to house Apple’s UK HQ. A luxury flat on the first floor is home to Hawes’ high-flying politician and, inside, Mercurio is sitting on a sofa in the living room, watching filming on a monitor while safely out of shot.

The cameras are focused on Madden as he climbs the staircase and lets himself into the pitch-black apartment, before making his way towards the bedrooms, clearly looking for someone or something. Owing to the fact this is a scene from episode five, DQ is left in the dark over any further plot details.

Tracing the origins of the series, Mercurio goes back to 2014, when Line of Duty aired its second season, then on BBC2. “We started having a conversation with the BBC about developing a thriller to work on BBC1,” he recalls. “That was the genesis of it, wanting to set something within the world of the police but within an area we hadn’t seen much of recently and possibly also combining it with a political thriller. So those were the initial thoughts. Then development took place on and off while Line of Duty continued. Then it was before season four of Line of Duty went out that this was greenlit into production – the plan was always to do this after season four.”

In the kitchen of the apartment are photos of Hawes’ character next to former British prime minister David Cameron. But with Cameron now out of office for more than two years, Mercurio notes that Bodyguard isn’t aiming to reflect contemporary headlines.

Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden plays protection officer David Budd

“I don’t think you can make something topical when you’re making a drama that’s not going to go out for six months after the last script is written,” he says. “There are certain things we know will be in place, like our system of government, so you can work around that. But it’s not meant to be topical about anything that’s happening on a week-by-week basis. Some of the themes in the show about a terrorist threat, our foreign policy and the relationship between politicians and how that threat is managed seem to have been present in our political system for a decade or more, so I think we’re on pretty safe ground in terms of it still feeling timely.”

Bodyguard, which packs each episode with stunts and action set pieces, reunites Mercurio with both Madden and Hawes, with whom he previously worked on Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Line of Duty respectively. Madden’s character David is an armed forces veteran turned police protection officer who is still struggling with the burden of his experiences, while Hawes’ Montague is a security-focused politician attempting to push through a bill to beef up security services’ powers to monitor communications.

“She’s a tough, kind of hawkish home secretary,” Mercurio explains. “The basic point of contention between them is he’s got experience of our foreign wars and she’s someone who has supported those ventures politically. His experience has been that those things have had a negative impact on our society.”

Hawes was one of the first names suggested to play the home secretary, according to executive producer Simon Heath, CEO and creative director of World Productions. “Richard I hadn’t worked with before, but Jed had, and I’d seen how good he was. It felt like a good thing to go for a younger actor in that role and create that interesting dynamic with Keeley. I think we’re fortunate to get them both.”

While Line of Duty now has continuing storylines to pick up, Bodyguard afforded Mercurio the chance to start a new story from scratch. “It involves more work in setting up the characters and the world, but it’s completely serial – six hours with a definite conclusion at the end of the six episodes.”

Director Thomas Vincent in discussion with Madden during a break from filming

Mercurio was also able to continue the showrunner role he has carved out for himself, a position still rarely seen in British television. “I’m very fortunate to be able to do that,” he admits.

Heath picks up: “I think it is still rare but Jed does it really well and really thoroughly. What it means is if you get locked into directing something you’ve written, it’s very hard to stand back and get an overview. But the position Jed takes is that he gets a fantastic overview of the whole thing taking the scripts to screen. That works brilliantly for Line of Duty and has worked brilliantly for this as well.”

Filming Bodyguard across London has posed the familiar challenges faced by dramas shooting in the English capital. Heath says it’s “not a particularly film-friendly city, in truth,” adding that Wales, Scotland, Birmingham and Belfast – where Line of Duty is made – offer an ease of production not available in London.

“It’s basic things like getting permissions to close roads to do stunts or trying to get access to locations or unit bases,” he explains. “For the general public, it’s dull stuff, but it’s absolutely essential in terms of servicing a production and it does make it incredibly challenging. We’ve been in the very centre of London and did big stunts round the back of Holborn. It looks fantastic on screen but it’s tough because we haven’t got unlimited resources. We haven’t got Hollywood budgets and we have to box clever to get this stuff in the can.”

Mercurio adds: “It’s easy to form the view that if a Hollywood production has got Tom Cruise running around then various London boroughs will roll over and give them the facilities they want, but if the national broadcaster is trying to make something here, it’s a bit harder.”

Keeley Hawes, who stars in ITV hit The Durrells, plays the home secretary

With the global trend for big-budget coproductions, Bodyguard stands out for using the traditional model of broadcaster, producer and distributor to build its budget. But as Heath admits, Bodyguard is at the “outer reaches” of that model in terms of financing a show with the scale of the BBC1 series.

“But it’s been a good thing because we haven’t had any other voices telling us what the show should be,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of support from the BBC but we’ve been allowed to get on with it. I like to think that model is still viable. Not everything has to be a huge coproduction.”

“We’ve just been really grateful for the BBC support on this,” Mercurio adds. “There’s no need to involve another broadcaster because they’ve backed us to the hilt. I’m not saying anything negative about other broadcasters, but if you’re in the position where you have one broadcaster, you’re delivering to one organisation, one channel, with one ambition in terms of what they want for their audience, it does make it a little bit easier editorially.”

If Bodyguard finds an audience, Mercurio says he would definitely like to return to the series. Until then, he is back in charge of Line of Duty, with season five set to begin production this autumn.

tagged in: , , ,

Special delivery

ON LOCATION, ,

From explosions and gunfights to a simple rain shower, special effects can be found in every scene of a television drama. DQ visits SFX experts Artem to discover some of the secrets of the trade.

The explosions are deafening. Three people are walking together across a small patch of grass, surrounded by a cacophony of booms, bangs and crashes as fire and smoke fill the air around them.

The ‘battlefield’ recreation is the climax of a stunning display of special effects created and performed by the team at Artem. The crowd that gathered for the 30-year-old company’s open-day demonstration also saw willing volunteers punch through ‘concrete’ walls, reproduced with a highly realistic material called Softcrete; have a ‘glass’ vase smashed over their head; and shot, leaving blood packs to empty their contents through puncture wounds in their clothes created by remote-controlled detonations.

UK viewers will already have seen some of Artem’s work on screen, with the company having contributed effects to shows such as Sky’s supernatural series The Enfield Haunting, BBC true crime drama Rillington Place and ITV’s domestic drama Him. The firm also created an exploding Christmas pudding for a festive episode of BBC period drama Call the Midwife.

Many examples of Artem’s work are also on display around its West London workshop, from a towering model of Master Chief from the Xbox Halo games to robotic versions of Brian the Robot and the Churchill dogs from some well-known insurance adverts.

A gunfire demonstration at Artem’s recent open evening

Particularly impressive are the items found in the sculpting and moulding department, where there are exquisitely detailed bricks made from foam, propane tanks that can be lifted with one hand and marmalade sandwiches that featured in recent big-screen hit Paddington 2.

On a nearby table are a prosthetic heart, brains and a piece of a lung. There is also a full-scale model of a corpse from Macbeth, the 2015 film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy starring Michael Fassbender.

Leading the demonstration is Artem CEO Mike Kelt, who puts himself in the firing line by accompanying two visitors through the battlefield experience.

Kelt and his fellow company founders Simon Taylor and Stan Mitchell formed the business after leaving the SFX department at the BBC, where they had learned their craft –everything from prosthetics to fire and explosions. Initially planning to focus on television, the company soon started working on commercials and has since moved into film, live events, music videos, games and visitor attractions.

Their recent work includes building a full-size replica of one of the panels of the Elgin Marbles for FX drama Trust, making a sculpture for a Google ad, and using its ‘rollover rig’ (pictured top) – which can turn a set upside down – to film the music video for Lily Allen’s recently released single Lost My Mind.

A member of the Artem team operates Churchill, star of an insurer’s ad campaign

Artem – whose motto is Ars est celare artem (Art is to conceal art) – was also involved in forthcoming BBC1 drama Bodyguard, which sees Richard Madden play protector to Keeley Hawes’s home secretary in a six-part action drama created by Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty).

“That was quite fun,” Kelt reveals. “We did various things. One of the more interesting and challenging things in the script was a bomb goes off in an auditorium, and they wanted to have people very close to it. We built a section of the stage that was breakable and we put all the pyrotechnics below that, so when it went off, the stage erupted. They wanted it to be quite realistic, so it’s not just a big fireball – it’s a more a high-explosive dust cloud. We set that off and it was great.

“There’s also a sequence where they’re in an armoured limousine with two-inch-thick glass. It’s very difficult to puncture that with a real bullet unless you keep hitting the very same spot, but they didn’t want to damage the glass. In fact, it wasn’t an armoured car at all. It was just an ordinary car, so we had to come up with the means of firing something at it that made it look like the glass had shattered. So that was quite interesting. It was all physical effects – making a little robot to run around defusing bombs and that sort of thing.”

Despite both the advancement of and demand for SFX in television today, Kelt notes that budgets haven’t improved greatly, though he adds there is interest from the US in making series in the UK and taking advantage of local effects houses.

“An awful lot of things you end up doing are things you wouldn’t realise are effects when you watch the show,” says Kelt. “You might make a rain effect but you don’t want the audience to know it’s a rain effect. You just want them to accept it’s rain. That’s actually quite a challenge because you can do it badly if you want to. However, you’re doing it, you always want a challenge. Rain is something most people would think isn’t fun, but I look at it and think, ‘What exactly do we want, how should it feel and look and how can we make that happen in a good way?’ That’s what I like to do.”

Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes in Bodyguard

Artem employs 33 people full-time, with more on standby throughout the year, while it also has a second workshop in Glasgow, Scotland. But with SFX increasingly advanced and in greater demand, Kelt highlights a lack of skilled people available to work on Artem’s projects.

“The industry has expanded and there’s more stuff being done, but people have retired and the BBC isn’t there training people as it used to,” he says. “There is an issue about training and experience, so very often you’ll be working on a production and they really don’t know what is required, or they’re not sure. So you have to be very flexible and help, but it’s nice to be involved in that and come up with solutions.”

Internally, Kelt and his partners are helping to ensure those coming up through the company will be able to take it forward when those who have been there from the start head into retirement. Before then, however, he is still looking at ways to expand Artem in the UK and internationally.

“It could grow a lot bigger than it is if people wanted it to,” he adds. “It would be nice to have branches in Manchester and Cardiff, and maybe even something abroad. It’s getting out of the small company mindset and into the big company mindset. It would also be quite nice to have a training arm because very few people do training in this industry and I think there’s a real need for it.”

tagged in: , ,

A busy August in Edinburgh

Greenlight, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aidan Turner of Poldark fame was among And Then There Were None's star-studded cast
Aidan Turner of Poldark fame was among And Then There Were None’s star-studded cast

It’s been a busy end to August in terms of commissions and acquisitions. In the UK, the BBC has been especially active, taking advantage of the Edinburgh International Television Festival (EITF) as a platform for announcing or discussing new developments.

One of its most high-profile announcements is a deal with Agatha Christie Productions that will see seven Agatha Christie novels adapted for TV over the next four years. This follows an earlier announcement that it would be making The Witness for the Prosecution, with a cast led by Toby Jones, Andrea Riseborough, Kim Cattrall, David Haig, Billy Howle and Monica Dolan.

The first of the novels to be adapted under the seven-book deal will be Ordeal by Innocence. Other titles so far confirmed include Death Comes as the End and The ABC Murders, which focuses a race against time to stop a serial killer who is on the loose in 1930s Britain.

Commenting on the deal, Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, said: “These new commissions continue BBC1’s special relationship as the home of Agatha Christie in the UK. Our combined creative ambition to reinvent Christie’s novels for a modern audience promises to bring event television of the highest quality to a new generation enjoyed by fans old and new.”

The decision to plan so far ahead came after the success of And Then There Were None for BBC1 in 2015. That adaptation was written by Sarah Phelps, who is also working on the next two Christie projects. Further writers will be announced in due course.

Agatha Christie Ltd boss Hilary Strong
Agatha Christie Ltd boss Hilary Strong

Hilary Strong, CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd, said: “And Then There Were None was a highlight of the 2015 BBC1 Christmas schedule, and we are truly delighted to be building on the success of that show, first with The Witness for the Prosecution, and then with adaptations of seven more iconic Agatha Christie titles. What Sarah Phelps brought to And Then There Were None was a new way of interpreting Christie for a modern audience, and Agatha Christie Ltd is thrilled to be bringing this psychologically rich, visceral and contemporary sensibility to more classic Christie titles for a new generation of fans.”

The Witness for the Prosecution is a Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Productions’ drama for BBC1, in association with A+E Networks and RLJ Entertainment’s development arm, Acorn Media Enterprises. RLJE’s streaming service, Acorn TV, is the US coproduction partner and will premiere the adaptation in the US. A+E Networks holds rest-of-world distribution rights to The Witness for the Prosecution, and will launch it at the Mipcom market in October.

Alongside the Christie announcement, the BBC’s Moore used the EITF to unveil a range of other dramas. These include an adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s acclaimed young-adult novel Noughts and Crosses and a new six-part drama from Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) entitled Bodyguard.

There is also an Edinburgh-set drama called Trust Me, written by Dan Sefton, and a new series from Abi Morgan called The Split. This one examines the fast-paced circuit of high-powered female divorce lawyers, through the lens of three sisters – Hannah, Nina and the youngest, Rose.

The Luminaries
The Luminaries is being adapted for BBC2

Moore’s announcements for BBC1 were built upon by BBC2 controller Patrick Holland, who also announced plans for new scripted series at the festival. “I want BBC2 to be the place where the best creative talents can make their most original and exciting work, where authorship flourishes,” he commented.

Holland’s headline drama announcement was MotherFatherSon, from author and screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (Child 44). This is an eight-part thriller that “sits at the intersections of police, politics and the press,” according to the BBC. “It is as much a family saga as it is a savage, unflinching study of power and how even the mightiest of empires can be in peril when a family turns on each other.”

Holland also greenlit The Luminaries, a six-part drama from Working Title Television based on the novel by Eleanor Catton. A 19th-century tale of adventure, set on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island in the boom years of the 1860s gold rush, The Luminaries is a story of love, murder and revenge, as men and women travelled the world to make their fortunes.

Catton, who will adapt her own novel for television, won the 2013 Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries. She said: “Learning to write for television has been a bit like learning a new musical instrument: the melody is more or less the same, but absolutely everything else is different. I’m having enormous fun, learning every day, and I’m just so excited to see the world of the novel created in the flesh.”

Filming on the six-parter will begin in 2017, taking place in and around New Zealand.

Anna Friel in Marcella
Anna Friel in Marcella

While the BBC dominated the drama announcements at the EITF, ITV also used the event to reveal that there will be a second season of crime drama Marcella, written by The Bridge creator Hans Rosenfeldt and starring Anna Friel. Produced by Buccaneer Media, the first season of the show was a top-rated drama on ITV, achieving an average of 6.8 million viewers across its run.

Commenting on the recommission, Rosenfeldt said: “I was delighted at the reaction to the first season and am thrilled to be revisiting Marcella for ITV. In the second season, the audience will get the opportunity to spend more time in her world, exploring some of the characters and getting to know them better.”

Other interesting stories as the industry gears up for autumn include the news that Amazon has acquired Australian drama The Kettering Incident from BBC Worldwide for its Prime Video service. The show was co-created by writer Victoria Madden and producer Vincent Sheehan was shot entirely in Tasmania. The eight-episode series tells the story of a doctor who returns to her hometown years after the disappearance of one of her friends.

The Kettering Incident
The Kettering Incident has been picked up by Amazon

In mainland Europe, Telecinco Spain has ordered a local version of hit Turkish series The End. Produced originally by Ay Yapim, the new version will be called El Accidente and will be the third local version of the show in Europe after remakes in Russia and the Netherlands.

The show, which was also piloted in the US, tells the story of a woman investigating her husband’s death in a plane crash, only to discover that he wasn’t on the flight. It is distributed by Eccho Rights, which has also sold the original to 50 countries.

In the US, premium pay TV channel Starz has renewed Survivor’s Remorse for a fourth season. The show has had a particularly strong third season having been paired in the schedule with Starz hit series Power. Across all platforms, it now draws around 2.9 million viewers per episode.

“We are thrilled to renew Survivor’s Remorse for a fourth season,” said Starz MD Carmi Zlotnik. “Critics have consistently called it one of the smartest and funniest comedies on TV, and we are delighted to see audiences embracing the characters and the storyline with that same enthusiasm. Mike O’Malley and his tremendously talented team of writers and actors boldly tackle today’s most pressing issues, from race, class, sex and politics to love and loss, but with such a deft touch that nothing ever feels heavy-handed.”

The End has sold across the world
The End has sold across the world

In other news, ProSiebenSat.1-owned Studio71 is producing a live-action series inspired by the Battlefield video game franchise that will launch on Verizon’s Go90 platform. Rush: Inspired by Battlefield will stream on the mobile service from September 20.

The Battlefield franchise, developed by EA Dice and published by Electronic Arts, has amassed more than 60 million players since launching in 2002. “Gaming is one of the most popular forms of entertainment today and there is a huge appetite for content inspired by video games,” said Studio 71 president Dan Weinstein.

tagged in: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,