Filming TV show remotely isn’t viable in long-term – Abrahamson
THE ‘Normal People’ sketch with ‘Fleabag’ priest Andrew Scott was one of the highlights of last Friday’s ‘RTÉ Does Comic Relief’, which raised more than €5m for charity.
Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, he revealed the entire skit was written to allow Paul Mescal, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Andrew to all film it remotely in London.
But the Oscar nominee believes the same method just won’t work for longer productions.
“I did it from my office at home, remotely working with the artists in the UK who were all socially distanced and the whole thing was written to allow each person to be filmed separately. It was really interesting and it worked. But it’s not a viable way of shooting, say, a television series or a feature,” he told the Irish Independent.
He believes stringent testing for Covid-19 is the key to getting the TV and film industry back to work post-lockdown as he goes into pre-production with his next project.
“The next thing for us is ‘Conversations With Friends’, Sally Rooney’s other book. That wasn’t due to start until the end of the year anyway so we’re working away on the script and that can all be done in the current situation,” he said.
“We haven’t had to postpone anything but we just don’t know what things will look like in a few weeks or months.
“I think the big question will be testing. If you can reliably test people, then you can put structures in place that will potentially allow people to work closely in tight groups.
“So we’re all looking at that right now. There are some productions that are due to start in late summer and that will teach us a lot about what’s possible and what’s not.”
The new series is expected to be another mini-series for BBC Three with Abrahamson’s Element Picture’s colleague Ed Guiney co-producing it and Alice Burke returning to the hit team as lead writer for the project.