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TINKER, T
TAILOR, SOLDIER,24, those shadowy figures who protect
one stock to another. You do keep a consistency of look throughout.
“I decided that if I used the Fuji stock it would actually make what colour there was more immediate, rather than trying to have each scene colour coded. I didn’t really want to do that, I wanted to keep it as real as possible.”
Coming onto the high-tech, high suspense Spooks after shooting sever- al episodes of The Forsyte Saga, Gibson relished the contrast in subject and setting, getting the chance to work in a genre where the visual style echoes throughout the wider plot.
There is also, in a six parter, a huge amount of information to impart to the audience about the central characters, placing a particular responsibility on Gibson’s shoulders to light quickly and efficiently.
“With the nature of the script there were probably twice as many scenes in episode one as there were in episode five,” she explains. “That meant there were also twice as many locations. We were constantly on the move, trying to keep up with where everything was.
“We also used a lot of split screen imagery, because although there is one main storyline there are several sub plots running throughout. So there’s that bit, trying to develop the characters but also trying to keep the storyline moving.”
With the individual episodes shot, as much as possible, in isolation,
us from God-knows-what always seem to make for compelling viewing.
Spooks is the latest in a long line, a home-grown six part drama airing on the BBC that seems likely to pull in the viewers but may also cause much con- troversy. References to September 11 and the terrorist threat posed by the Al Qaeda network are just an example of the ‘torn-from-the-headlines’ nature
SPOOK.of the contemporary material. Directors Bharat Nalluri, Rob
Behind the scenes on the shadowy new BBC drama series
Bailey and Andy Wilson shared out their duties behind the camera for two episodes each. Writers of the stature of David Wolstencraft, Simon Mirren and Howard Brenton contributed indi- vidual episodes, while DPs Sue Gibson and Sean Bobbitt shot the whole series on Fuji 250 tungsten and 500 tungsten as well as the 250 daylight.
Throughout it all, a great deal of care was taken to maintain continuity between episodes that told stand- alone stories and often had different creative hands putting them together.
“The good thing about the tung- sten stock,” says Gibson, “is that when you come to grade it, it’s more consis- tent because you’re not jumping from
he staple of television sched- ules the world over, espi- onage and suspense stories engage audiences in a way that few other genres can manage. And every genera- tion seems to have its own,
whether it’s The Avengers, The X-Files or
EXPOSURE • 14 & 15