Warp speed
Warp Films CEO Mark Herbert reflects on the success of Netflix one-shot drama Adolescence, previews BBC revenge thriller Reunion and explains how the production company continues to push boundaries through storytelling.
At times like these, when television commissioners are tightening their belts, risk-taking in storytelling often takes a back seat as broadcasters seek sure-fire hits to bring audiences together.
But with a slate that includes filmmaker Shane Meadows’ This is England and The Virtues, non-linear series Southcliffe, European crime thriller The Last Panthers and hedonistic period drama Little Birds, Warp Films isn’t sticking to the script.
The Sheffield-based producer is now making waves – and headlines – with two new projects airing within weeks of each other: Netflix’s one-take drama Adolescence and Reunion, a bilingual BBC series that blends English with British Sign Language.
“We’re regional. We’re genuinely regional. Without being in the [London] bubble sometimes, you can just be a bit more creative,” Warp founder and CEO Mark Herbert tells DQ. “But pushing boundaries is a big value for us. From [features] Four Lions and This is England to Dead Man’s Shoes, which we shot in 18 days, we know when to cut our cloth. We’ve always had this ‘we can do it’ attitude and trusted ourselves as producers. The team I’ve got just know production inside out, so we’re confident we can get there with it because we’ve got that experience.”
When it comes to storytelling, every Warp project must have a keen sense of authenticity and place. It also has to feel honest and have integrity.
“That goes a long way in the world now,” continues Herbert, who notes that Adolescence, about a young teen accused of murdering a girl from his school, has been “going mad all over the world” since its release on Netflix last month. “It’s quite specific to where it’s set and that school and that community and that family. But like anything that’s good, it just travels well. And our things have got a lot of heart.
“Both Reunion and Adolescence have got huge hearts behind them. You care about this family, you want to care. In This is England, you care about those characters. You want to be in that gang.”
When it came to pitching Adolescence, Herbert says the Netflix UK team were “very trusting” of the show’s creatives – but also supportive and challenging where appropriate.
“We do push boundaries and some things have got great reviews but not had the connection that this [Adolescence] has had, but the fact that it’s got the bums on seats, eyes on screens, means I’m hoping now it will open the way to take a few more risks,” he says. “These things come along now every few years, and it doesn’t need masses of money, and it doesn’t need to be heightened, and there are still people who will be glued to a real story with fantastic performances. I’m hoping this will help.”
The number-one show in the world on Netflix right now – it holds the top spot in 80 countries and is in the top 10 in 93 overall, with 42 million views this week – Adolescence is the story of what happens when a 13-year-old boy is accused of the murder of a girl who goes to his school, leaving his family, a therapist and the detective leading the investigation to work out what really happened.
Notably, each episode of the series is shot in one take, capturing a different moment in the fallout from the murder – from the initial arrest of young Jamie (Owen Cooper) and the police visit to his school, to a meeting between Jamie and therapist (Erin Doherty) and a look at the consequences Jamie’s family face.
“Weirdly, there was one bit of me when we first did it where I’m thinking, ‘How the hell are we going to do this? Do we need some get-out-of-jail cards?’ Just as a producer, you think of the worst sometimes – and then I’m reading the scripts and they worked,” Herbert says of the one-take format. “They were riveting and emotional. You’re not reading it as a one-shot. You’re just reading the characters and the dialogue.”
That director Philip Barantini has a history with successful one-shot projects like 2021 feature film Boiling Point meant he was confident he could achieve the show’s ambitions. “But the technical thing on this was quite terrifying as a producer, when you’re in and out of cars and multiple locations,” Herbert says.
Yet it’s to the credit of the show’s powerful storytelling that the one-shot approach hasn’t overtaken its timely and topical discussion about boys and toxic masculinity, with the technical wizardry often relegated to the background as Adolescence has stirred up a national debate in the UK, even being mentioned in Parliament.
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“I’ve heard people who have gone, ‘Oh God, and they did it in one shot,’ as opposed to watching it for the one-shot element,” Herbert says. “The one-shot just adds to that immediacy. You can’t look away. You’re not getting those cheats and cuts, and somehow, even though it’s terrifying [to make], it really does add another level to it, which is mind-blowing. It was the craziest thing. I’ve worked in this industry for 30 years and produced for over 20. It was a learning curve for me as a producer because you’re editing as you’re going along.”
The lack of post-production on the series – there was no editing process – meant notes were given during the two weeks of rehearsals on each episode, before a third week was spent orchestrating 10 full takes, and sometimes more if mistakes happened early enough that the process could be reset.
What was important in post was the sound design, which “has blown my mind,” Herbert says. One example is that the “ethereal” voice playing in the series actually belongs to the actor who plays the murder victim, Katie, which amplifies the emotion of the piece. Music was also added to the moment in episode one when Jamie travels with DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) in the police van after his arrest to make the three-minute journey more dramatic.
Warp became the lead production partner behind Adolescence through Herbert’s long-standing relationship with the show’s star Stephen Graham and his wife and production partner Hannah Walters, who together run Matriarch Productions. He then met Barantini at the BAFTA Awards, where Boiling Point was nominated for a prize.
He also knew Jack Thorne, who wrote Adolescence alongside Graham, through projects such as The Last Panthers, This is England and The Virtues.
“So there was a bit of a family there. “We’d not worked with Phil before, but I just trust Stephen so much,” the producer says. “They’d been talking about doing something and we’ve got a development deal with their company, Matriarch, and Stephen was like, ‘Yeah, I want you guys to produce it. Will you help us get it off the ground?’ Then, like anything, once you’re committed, you’re out the traps and it’s just crazy trying to get it going.
“It was a massive team effort. It was probably one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional life.”
For Herbert, the biggest challenge of making the series was knowing he didn’t have an edit to “get out of jail” if the one-take format didn’t work. But one of the best decisions the production team made was having half the series set in a studio – where the police station and the secure facility in episode three were built – and starting production with episode three, an intense, extraordinary two-hander between Cooper’s Jamie and Doherty as therapist Briony.
Toughest to film was the school-set second episode, in part due to the sheer amount of choreography needed to orchestrate hundreds of school pupils across the set and, in particular, the now-iconic drone shot that lifts the camera over the town from the school and meets Graham in character as Jamie’s dad Eddie at the episode’s end.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It was the last take on the Friday and I was shitting myself,” Herbert says. “I knew we had to get out of the school [by the end of the day]. That [location] was gone. We had some good takes, but not brilliant takes, and it was the last day. Then we didn’t know if we had got the drone shot. So when Matt [Lewis, the DOP], the camera operators and the grip all came back, we were like, ‘Did we get it? Did we get it?” They were on the walkie like, ‘Yeah, we got it.’ It was like welcoming back somebody who just scored the winner in the FA Cup final. Everybody was cheering the camera team. It was amazing.”
Yet despite all the difficulties and doubts, there was never a moment where they considered doing away with the one-take format. “The year before we shot it, me and Phil went on a recce together,” Herbert recalls. “I just said to Phil, ‘Do we have a few little bits where if something goes wrong, we don’t have to start again?’ And he went, ‘No, it’s gotta be one take.’ I was like, ‘No, you’re right. Fuck it.’ So that was it. The year before we shot, that was the last it was ever mentioned.”
Taking a more traditional approach to production, BBC drama Reunion isn’t shot in one take. But the four-part revenge thriller is notable for the fact it combines spoken English and British Sign Language.
Filmed in and around Sheffield, it follows the journey of Daniel Brennan (Matthew Gurney), a deaf man determined to right his wrongs while unravelling the truth behind the events that led him to prison. A man caught between two worlds, Brennan is unable to fully integrate into the hearing world and shunned by his closest friends and the wider deaf community following his heinous crime. Meanwhile, Brennan’s only meaningful relationship is with his estranged daughter, Carly (Lara Peake), with whom he has not had any contact since his arrest over a decade ago.
Created and written by William Mager, the show’s cast also includes Anne-Marie Duff as Christine, who is desperate to learn the truth behind what Brennan did, plus Eddie Marsan as Christine’s protective boyfriend Stephen and Rose Ayling-Ellis as her daughter Miri. BBC Studios is the distributor.
Herbert describes Brennan as a complex lead character “like no other” he had ever seen from the deaf community. Like Adolescence, Reunion “is a thrill ride as well,” he notes. “In Reunion, there was a real thriller element to it, yet it’s telling a perspective of this character that I’ve not seen before. So that’s the sweet spot for us, when you can be glued to it because it’s a fast-paced thriller, yet it deals with communication, isolation, disability and accessibility and all these other things, but the story is entertaining. Ultimately, it’s just a riveting ride.”
He was initially hooked on the story when Mager, who is deaf, explained what it was like for a deaf person to go to prison without the necessary support structures in place. “They’ve no access to sign language. And the idea of a deaf man being in prison for 10 years, coming out and being so isolated and secluded… what made that man come out and want to do what he does in the story? Once Billy said that to me and told me about being deaf and the worry and lack of community, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ That Daniel character, it’s fascinating. And then Matty, I’m getting better with BSL but actually it’s all in his eyes. The intensity of having an actor who’s communicating everything with his eyes was just phenomenal.”
From working on set to enjoying an evening drink with the cast and crew, communication was paramount across every aspect of making Reunion. Translators and interpreters were employed to break down language barriers between deaf and hearing people, while Herbert and the Warp team also had to consider how commands would be issued on set, such as ‘cut’ at the end of a take.
“It was about making sure everybody felt that they could be ‘heard’ in that sense, and that nothing was rushed,” he says. “We made sure every element was respectful so you wouldn’t scrimp on the communication with any members of the crew just because it might be quicker to shout. There were rules we stuck with and everyone embraced it.”
Warp now has development projects in the works with Matriarch and Mager, and is ensuring it’s building a “mixed economy” of productions at a time when big budgets can be hard to find.
“What we’ve always tried to do is put the money on the screen so we’ve got a real mixed bag of both. But with us it’s all talent- and story-driven,” Herbert adds. “Jack and Stephen’s script on Adolescence and the Reunion script from Billy, I read them and I literally said, ‘I’ve got to make this.’ They blew me away. When it’s there on the page from the writing, you’ve got such a great foundation to start from. It makes my job easier to push the boundaries a bit with them.”
tagged in: Adolescence, BBC, Mark Herbert, Netflix, Reunion, Warp Films