DEFINITION January 2020

FEATURE | THE V I SUAL I SERS

LEFT Artists from The Third Floor, headed by Andrew Honacker, stepped into the moors for Disney sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Working under the direction of Joachim Ronning, the visualisation team created previs, tech- vis and post-vis shots which enabled the exploration of various story beats

What real-time technology allows us to do is not work faster but potentially create a better-looking product

NARRATIVE VISUALISATION FOR THE REST OF US

can evolve into subconscious shot selection the nearer the script gets to the final draft. We spoke to writer Kate Brooke who has written the Bancroft detective series – Series 2 has just aired on ITV. Brooke currently also has two new pilot scripts commissioned by US networks and her other UK TV credits include A Discovery of Witches , Mr Selfridge , Ice Cream Girls and The Making of a Lady amongst many others. WRITING FREEDOM We asked Brooke whether she visualises the production as she writes the script. “Because I’m a showrunner and I’ve EP’d a lot of stuff I’m very aware of production constraints. But I don’t think you want them to be in your head at the top, I think you want to give yourself a pretty broad

canvas and then gradually work inwards, really. I think if you start worrying too early about things like too many night shots, for instance, you end up somewhere that’s not where you want to be to start with. “There is a journey from that first draft into production and there are compromises to make and people to listen to. There are often solutions when you get into production that you don’t expect to be there. Really for me I enjoy the writing bit, because you can just have total freedom, which you should as much as possible. When you get into production that sort of changes a little bit and it’s all about listening. “I started off in theatre, I was a theatre director, so I have a quite clear sense of production. I like the production bit where quite a lot of writers don’t. I love it when you begin to see the locations and the costumes, but it’s about coming up with creative solutions with your heads of departments. I personally think that writers have to be part of that equation and in the UK we don’t let that happen enough. I’m very lucky that I have done a lot of shows, I did Mr Selfridge for three seasons and A Discovery of Witches . I was really embedded in those productions, and when you have those production constraints you’re much more likely to come up with good collaborative results when you have the writer in those discussions, and even better leading those discussions with the HoDs and director. “So many British productions don’t have the writer there which is totally

The experience of working with companies like The Third Floor is at the moment limited to big movies and their budgets but this type of virtual visualisation is slowly filtering down to episodic TV, commercials and video games. For the majority of network TV drama however, the reality of the ‘script to screen’ journey is less about technology and more to do with the personalities of the heads of departments, the showrunner and the writer – sometimes the last two being the same person. That collaboration should be able to raise the potential of the script to a much higher level and push it nearer to production. Visualisation of how the narrative plays out on screen is, however, fundamental in the writer’s room and

LEFT Bancroft season 2 has just aired on ITV Drama in the UK with Kate Brooke as showrunner

60 DEF I N I T ION | JANUARY 2020

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