LITVINENKO PRODUCTION.
TRUTH BE TOLD There was very little dramatic licence in the portrayal of Litvinenko’s story. Likely the biggest challenge writer George Kay faced was filleting the 18 hours of police interview transcripts. “All the creative choices, in terms of how we made the show, were about elevating the truth, providing a platform for the truth,” Field Smith says. “We shot in an ‘available light’ sort of way, almost entirely handheld. We wanted it to feel like we were travelling with characters as they were arriving in scenes – such as the detectives investigating the case – and finding out information ‘live’ just as they would have been. That motivated almost all of the technical and creative choices on the show.” The series was shot entirely on two Arri Alexa Mini cameras, which Field Smith chose in part due to the small form factor: “Because we knew we were going to be shooting handheld.” Zeiss Supreme Radiance lenses were picked since they “All the creative choices of how we made the show were about elevating the truth”
PUT TO REST Director Jim Field Smith says the script for the show was based on first-hand testimonies and police interview transcripts – with the main intention being to get the truth out there
had a ‘lovely, natural, honest quality to them’, while also softening the digital image. “We had originally planned to use vintage lenses to shoot all the Russian sequences, but in the end we went with Tiffen Smoque filtration to provide that misty, veiled look we were searching for,” he continues. Field Smith also explains why he is hesitant to use VFX in his shows unless it’s a tactical necessity. “There’s a little bit of VFX because we couldn’t travel to Russia for shooting in episode three, to illustrate the Metropolitan Police contingent travelling to Moscow and interviewing the two prime suspects,” he explains. “We weren’t even able to go and shoot it anywhere that approximated Russia because of the pandemic. So we
had to achieve that in the UK, which created a few challenges. We solved it with some very careful location scouting and clever work from our art department. The final piece of the puzzle was a little bit of VFX that’s incredibly subtle, just to help certain locations feel like they are in Moscow.” Still, as Field Smith points out, it’s cheaper and more authentic to go on location and film with a camera when you can. “VFX generally lends itself to bigger budgets – and you obviously need it when shooting a film set in space or can’t hire a dragon. But for the likes of Litvinenko , with a comparatively small budget, it wouldn’t add anything.” Litvinenko is available on ITVX
67. FEBRUARY 2023
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