DEFINITION February 2019.pdf

SHOOT STORY | BANCROFT

The second series of the police drama Bancroft is being mostly shot at night. But how is DOP Mattias Nyberg coping with a new camera for the new series? EMBRACE THE NIGHT

WORDS PH I L RHODES / PICTURES ITV AND SONY

C reatives in the film and TV industry come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but Mattias Nyberg might well be the only ex-professional ice hockey player to have become a director of photography. “For various reasons,” Nyberg begins, “I decided to quit when I was 21 and moved to London. I was just intending to take a break then go back to Sweden and pick up ice hockey again. But I got stuck in London and I fell into a film course. This led to me shooting a graduation film that won – what was then – the Fujifilm scholarship.”

with the director, Lawrence Gough, and they offered me the job the day after.” THRILLING PROCEDURAL While Bancroft has elements of a police procedural, it is perhaps better described as a thriller, and a dark one. Nyberg describes the title character, played by Sarah Parish, as a “very strong policewoman”. He adds, “People took to that character. She’s very ruthless, a slightly psychopathic streak. Bancroft will do what she needs to do, but she has a very complex loving relationship with her son. Sarah is an extraordinary actor and she can really inhabit the role of quite a dark character.” Principal photography on the second series began on 3 December 2018. “Because it was a hugely successful first series, there’s a lot of pressure to make sure you don’t drop the ball,” explains Nyberg. “Both Lawrence and I wanted to crack on and take the things that we liked from the first series and make it our own – put our own style on it.” One key factor, Nyberg notes, is that “ Bancroft scripts are very night-based. That was the thing that really kept me up, because I was wondering how we could do all this night work within the realities of a strict TV schedule.”

Nyberg pursued the opportunity by “running, doing various assisting jobs and building up my reel by shooting stuff on the side. Then, ten-odd years ago, I went full- time DOP.” Nyberg’s credits include Pure , Catastrophe , Detectorists and additional photography on Doctor Foster and the acclaimed Peaky Blinders . His involvement with the second series of ITV miniseries Bancroft came conventionally: “I’d just wrapped on Catastrophe , which is airing now. It was very late July and I was called for an interview

LEFT DOP Mattias Nyberg is using the Sony Venice for the new series of Bancroft.

34 DEF I N I T ION | FEBRUARY 20 1 9

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