| Seconds from Death
- Collision Behind the Scenes: Creating a modern epic with a cast of 73 and a feature film director was the easy part - locating our ‘collision’ was another story, says producer Jill Green. So when Anthony Horowitz conceived the highly complex Collision, ITV gave him free reign as to its eventual length; ultimately its five parts lent themselves perfectly to being stripped across a week. Hiring Marc Evans as director was a further turning point. For five years, he’d been dedicated to shooting feature films, but the strength of Anthony’s script lured him back to TV. The very close writer/director collaboration paid off in the final product. Marc also insisted he direct all five episodes. This hadn’t happened since David Yates directed State Of Play, but ITV and Greenlit eventually (and a bit nervously) gave the nod. So with a 73-person cast, 120 locations, and 10 weeks to shoot, the challenge was immense. Marc and I agreed the whole philosophy of the shoot should be different. I wrote a kind of ‘mission statement’ that became an invaluable template, and every member of cast and crew bought into it. For example, there were to be no ‘hierarchies’ in the whole ‘company’ (that applied to Greenlit too). We had to work extremely closely each day, to all be hands on and multi-skilled if necessary. At times, we even used another creative ‘second’ director. Rodrigo Gutierrez (ace camera operator of The Descent and Gladiator fame) rose to the challenge. On the days we needed more than one unit, every member of the cast agreed to shoot complicated driving and dialogue scenes with him. On one occasion, this unit and three cast members were in Holland; I was up on a windy bridge supervising some essential road driving scenes and Marc was with the rest of the main unit. The complexity of the schedule was ruthlessly managed by our highly experienced first, Dominic Fysh, (whose other job is on Harry Potter) and brilliant line producer Carolyn Parry-Jones, whose constant lateral thinking enabled us to keep our tight budget in check. As part of our ‘mission’, Dominic’s role mirrored the way French directors use their firsts. We stretched ourselves to hire him from day one of prep to truly be our director’s right hand, eyes, ears, everything. We only had eight weeks to prep all five episodes, which were shot ‘multi-episodically’ with no breaks (scary!), so Dominic’s planning and vision, attendance at car rehearsals, production meetings and recces, became vital in planning the shoot. Emergency access On top of all of this, we had the challenge of shooting the largest collision ever shot for UK TV to date. Every ‘emergency road’ or abandoned road within 50 miles of London said no to shutting down so we could shoot the collision, (ironically due to “too many accidents - and having to keep them open at all times for diversions”). When our last choice, a laboratory road-testing location, said no, we were beginning to despair (though in truth, it would have been too costly to change the varied road surfaces to create one smooth A12). Then stunt coordinator Derek Lea (of James Bond fame), saved the day. Imagine the scene: vertical rain, dark, sandwiched into a too-small recce bus driving around our production base, a site of tech company Qinetiq, searching for the ‘A12’. Morale mirrored weather as we circled the too-narrow roads. These could never carry our collision. Then Derek said: “I’m sure there’s somewhere among these woods where I once did a car stunt”. Even the Qinetiq bus driver couldn’t find it. But Derek persisted, and two loops later, there it was, completely hidden, literally just a broken up, overgrown strip with trees either end… hardly the A12, but what could we do? So began a month of rigorous tarmac resurfacing, hiring crash barriers, painting white lines, bringing in trees and vegetation banks, clever bits of CGI, and brilliant art department planning. It took a week to shoot and the decision to make the collision character-driven influenced everything we did - and gave us incredible, stomach-churning tension on the screen. My tricks of the trade: ? Respect everyone. The best productions ultimately come from a ‘company of cast and crew that fully integrates’. Everyone, whatever their department or position, has a key role to play ? Loyalty. We’re a small company that really crafts shows. We like nothing but the best - and when we find it, we stick with it. ? Good caterers ? I like doing prizes on wrap for unusual “gaffs” or “moments” on set. Always good fun (especially if we get everyone to vote in their nominations). DIRECTOR’S TAKE Marc Evans Director The biggest technical challenge was shooting the collision and its aftermath. As well as the five shooting scripts, I was handed a hand-drawn map by Anthony. It showed a dual carriageway with five vehicles colliding on the southbound side, with one crossing onto the northbound side colliding with another two. Ambitious, even by Hollywood standards. We couldn’t shoot a seven-vehicle crash on a real road in real time so the transition from the real road to the crash itself was crucial. We managed to send each actor out for a whole day with Rodrigo Gutierrez’s second unit shooting car to car, with great police co-ordination on a stretch of dual carriageway. We made full use of the second unit option. This meant very careful scheduling and required the actors to be willing to drive themselves on a public highway and take direction via a walkie talkie on the passenger seat. Each of the six “events” of the pile-up was shot separately, in story order, on our controlled dual carriageway set in Qinetiq, with five cameras over two days. We wanted to feel the impact from the characters’ point of view so stunt co-ordinator Derek suggested using cables on winches to pull some of the vehicles into each other at real speeds. This allowed us to show the real crushing of metal and smashing of glass without SFX. The editor and I cut the main crash footage together as one sequence and then returned to the crash site for a pick up day to fill in the gaps. For the aftermath scene, we shot in real time with DoP Chris Ross and Rodrigo acting as a kind of reportage cameramen. This required great production organisation and the co-operation of all our main actors, who would be in the background of each other’s shots. There was a sense of organised chaos to the whole thing, which hopefully increased the sense of reality of the piece. |
 |