Page 6 - Fujifilm Exposure_5 The Wings Of The Dove_ok

EXPOSURE • 6 & 7
MA a y T h e F o r May The For
drearily anonymous former bonded Wormwood Scrubs).
warehouse tucked deep into a South Mike Pontin, programme executive (opera- London industrial estate seems an tions), takes up the story: “That was a good venue. unlikely source of ITV’s longest run- It was quite urban and nitty-gritty round there. Of ning, and most regularly riveting, course, we still maintain the pretence that the drama series. It began in 1983 as a show is set in the East End and at reasonably reg- one-off play by Geoff McQueen called ular intervals try to do a story involving shots of
Woodent op. The following year, Thames the river and, say, Tower Bridge to confirm that. Television was commissioned to produce a series When Barlby Road came up for sale, we had to find
of 12 one-hour episodes starting with Funny Old Business - Cops And Robbers. In 1988 it became a half-hour show twice a week before going thrice weekly five years later. Now, The Bill provides an incredible 156 programmes a year to the network. That’s more than 60 hours of annual primetime drama.
Because of its admirable script consistency, top-notch production values, deceptively short running time and splendid cast of running charac- ters, it’s all too easy to take The Bill for granted. Dare suggest that it could be described as a “soap” and there’s righteous, not to say rightful, indigna- tion at the very notion. Watched by between eight and 11 million viewers, The Bill, now commis- sioned from the disenfranchised Thames TV by Carlton Television, is a “peg” - let’s instead call it a jewel - in ITV’s week-in, week-out schedule.
Meanwhile, back at Merton Park Industrial Estate ... it’s only when you actually venture inside Bosun House that you suddenly enter the often disturbingly accurate world of Sun Hill, grim police cells and all. This 90,000 square feet, once stacked with wine and spirits, is now crammed with administration, pre- and post-production facilities and purpose-built sets. Turn down a cor- ridor between ‘St Hugh’s Casualty’ and the local magistrates court and you’re quite likely to bump into one of three units shooting three different sto- rylines simultaneously. There are never less than 200 people on site at any one time.
Merton is the Bill’s third home in more than 14 years of production. The original base was Artichoke Hill on the north bank of Docklands. When that site was demolished and the produc- tion turned twice-weekly, it moved to the old Rootes Group car factory in Barlby Road, North Kensington (within spitting distance of
yet another base, preferably one not quite on the main flightpath from Heathrow.
“This place was perfect. It was an empty shell when we took over. Naturally we had to stockpile programmes before the move, making three rather than two shows a week for a good few months because we knew we’d have to be out of produc- tion for quite a while during the changeover.”
Pontin and many of his fellow Bill personnel are dotted around a big administration area in glass-fronted offices. “It’s a bit like the village green here,” he explains. “Communication’s good. Everyone keeps their door open. If anything’s hap- pening or needs to be untangled you know within minutes. Roughly half the building is admin, ser- vicing, wardrobe, make-up and so on. The other half is Sun Hill as well as bits of the hospital.
“We call them sets but they’re unlike any sets you’ve ever seen in a studio. They are as near to the real thing as we can make them and they make no concession to the camera or equipment. There are no facility points, no camera plug-in points nor overhead lighting grid. The technique we use inside here is exactly the same as we’d use on a real location: that’s a single camera with a cable running back to a control trolley.”
Yes, but what about that free-wheeling pro- duction technique which, when you think about it, pre-dates the likes of E.R. and such like by years? It’s difficult to remember just how startlingly inno- vative The Bill was when it started regular pro- duction way back in 1984.
Pontin reminds us: “Hand-held cameras gave it the kind of immediacy usually associated with instant news coverage. It also coincided with the new technology of much lighterweight recording equipment. It enabled us to go much more quickly in and out of locations. The implication of the sin-
HOW THE BILL SETS THE