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AFFAIRSOFTHEHEART
BRINGING TWO ERAS TO LIFE FOR KAY MELLOR’S NEW BBC TWO-PART DRAMA A PASSIONATE WOMAN
TV IN FOCUS
f emotions ran high during the Imaking of A Passionate Woman that would be understandable,
excusable even, as the tale was
inspired by events in the history of writer Kay Mellor’s family.
The author of Band of Gold, Playing The Field and Fat Friends tackles her most personal story yet with this BBC two-parter (and perhaps a theatrical release too) which is split between preparations for a wedding during the 1980s and the love affair 30 years earlier that casts a shadow over this otherwise happy event for the groom’s mother Betty (Sue Johnston).
Billie Piper plays Betty in the earlier period, as she embarks on a fleeting affair with her handsome Polish neighbour Alex (Theo James), a powerful relationship that reaches through time to affect her peace of mind decades later.
Cinematographer Tony Coldwell was charged with lighting these two distinct halves of the one story on location as well as in the studio in Leeds, with Mellor directing the 1980s portion and the all important
earlier chapter being helmed by Antonia Bird.
“We wanted the 1950s’ sequence to be more glamorous,” he explains, “to be more saturated in colour, to use more backlight and work with dark a lot more in the frame, so we used the 16mm ETERNA Vivid stocks for that. We used the ETERNA 250D and 400T stocks, which are more medium and low contrast, for the look of the 1980s.”
All this after extensive camera tests proved to all concerned that the 16mm stocks offered more latitude in the lighting conditions than their digital rivals.
Coldwell gives due credit to Sumners post-production in Manchester, notably Director of Technology Brian Hardman and colourist Jamie Parry for the results on screen, helping to create a texture and mood inspired by such
diverse influences as British social realist cinema and Wong Kar Wei’s In The Mood For Love, (which was also shot on Fujifilm stock).
“A lot of their interiors are in tenement corridors, in markets and narrow alleys,” Coldwell continues, “and our main location for the 1950s film was a tenement block in Leeds.
“Our production designer Grant Montgomery found this lovely staircase which we copied for the studio. We had lots of scenes where someone goes round a corner on the stairs and straight into the studio set and then back into the location. I could match the location to the studio exactly.”
To get a flavour of the period, Coldwell and his colleagues looked at films from the era, or just after.
“We watched things like A Taste of Honey, which was filmed in Salford. What was interesting was to see so much rubbish around. The streets are much cleaner now than they were then. You’d see rubble in the streets, there’d be newspapers floating around, and smoke.
“So we had Artem smoke machines going, and leaf fires burning in braziers so that all the time there was some kind of smoke going on in the middle or far distance. That was just a texture that enhanced the cinematic quality of it.”
Of course, key to the drama were the love scenes, the memory of which have to linger with the viewer as the whole story unfolds. It was here that the faster, high contrast ETERNA Vivid 500T stock came into its own.
“We had quite a few love scenes, using both interiors and exteriors, and they look very handsome indeed. It’s down to knowing the latitudes you’ve got with film; you can light those scenes very simply and delicately, so that the actors are comfortable and there aren’t a huge amount of lights everywhere. I shot one of the love scenes with all the lights outside the room; they were all coming through the windows on the set.”
Fast forward from the romance of this memory to the reality of the 1980s setting for the second half of the story. As matters come to a head at her son’s wedding, Betty is consumed by guilt and in desperation climbs on to the roof of her house. In order to ensure the drama was on screen, not off, this was recreated on the backlot of Studio 81 in Leeds.
“We had to shoot it all with green screen,” Coldwell explains. “We were obviously governed by the weather that we had on those days we shot on location. Then on the lot, I hung a 40 foot by 40 foot silk above the set that could be moved round to give us shade all day.
“We had a 50 by 50 green screen on the floor when we shot down from the top of the roof, and a 20 by 20 green screen on the side of the roof when we’re shooting sideways across the roof. Technically that was a big thing to do, to manage and get right for a British TV drama. That’s much more of a feature film technique, but we are thinking in those terms now in British television.” ANWAR BRETT
A Passionate Woman to be aired on BBC One was originated on 16mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 500T 8647, ETERNA 250D 8663, ETERNA 400T 8683 and ETERNA Vivid 160T 8643
“WE WANTED
THE FIFTIES SEQUENCE
TO BE MORE
GLAMOROUS, TO BE
MORE SATURATED IN
COLOUR, TO USE MORE
BACKLIGHT AND
WORK WITH DARK
A LOT MORE IN
THE FRAME.”
Photo top: Billy Piper (left) in A Passionate Woman and above; DP Tony Coldwell (photo Simon Mooney)
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