Tag Archives: Stephen Daly

RIPPER STREET 5 interview with Visual Effects Supervisor Ed Bruce

The VES Award-winner and BAFTA nominated Visual Effects Supervisor, Ed Bruce (above emerging from the smoke-filled set), has worked on everything from big-budget Hollywood movies such as A Good Day to Die Hard, The Last Days on Mars and Independence Day: Resurgence to some of our favourite TV shows that are a little closer to home including Game of Thrones, The Frankenstein Chronicles and, of course, Ripper Street that we’re here to discuss as well as share some rare and previously unseen images…

An exclusive RIPPER STREET interview

with Visual Effects Supervisor

~ ED BRUCE ~

Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017
Ripper Street images copyright © Ed Bruce/Screen Scene/Tiger Aspect Productions 2016

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Down these Ripper streets Ed must go

DAMIAN: Ed, little did I know, sitting in the cinema as an eleven-year-old kid watching Young Sherlock Holmes in the spring of 1986, that I was witnessing the first character to be entirely created by computer-generated imagery. And who knew that The Glass Knight, impressive though he may have been back then, was merely a forerunner to Terminator 2’s T-1000 or Jurassic Park’s terrifying T-Rex? Visual Effects (VFX) have obviously come along way and previously only dreamt of scenes and images can now be realized, not only at the movies, but also in the corner of our own living rooms. When did you first become aware of the power and potential of VFX?

ED: From a very early age I have been in love with film. Some love books or music, but for me my medium was film. When I was really young, what I now know as special or visual effects, was never really questioned, and merely intertwined into the films narrative only leaving me in awe of the spectacle. The skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts was a particular moment of wonderment. It was magnificent, glorious, beautifully executed and equally terrifying.

Jurassic Park of course is a benchmark of visual effects for me. It still to this day stands up. A beautiful balance of practical, special effects, animatronics and visual effects. It’s very difficult to re-emulate that feeling I had when the first dinosaur was revealed.

However, the film that really sparked my imagination and curiosity for how it was crafted was Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. The simple yet effective optical effects of overlaying Doc Brown and Marty against the vanishing, time travelling DeLorean. This mixed with the animated glowing electrical tubes, flashing pops, comets & contrails surrounding the car before it disappeared to 1955. I was mesmerised.

When I was an early teen my family inherited a vast collection of VHS’s, a couple of TVs and a Panasonic M10 VHS camera. It was the beginning of me spending many hours either watching films or creating them. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated good film making. Sometimes that has been with the support and use of visual trickery. From the simple act of floating walls within 12 Angry Men, allowing the director to reduce the size of the set and increase the claustrophobia and tension, to the bringing alive of creatures or characters, places and planets that don’t exist. I love a good illusion that supports the storytelling.

DAMIAN: This may get confusing but I understand that VFX can be categorized into the following: Simulation FX, Animation, Modelling, Matte painting and Compositing. I’m sure it would be useful for both myself and the reader if you could illustrate each of these techniques with examples from your work on Ripper Street.

ED: There are actually many more categories within the VFX dept. All tools to deliver a complete visual effect. Sometimes you end up using them all to do one shot, but most of the time it’s just a few. Ripper Street VFX has predominantly been about adding to the scale and embedding into the Victorian landscape. For the most part this means we’ve mainly concentrated on set extensions through digital matte paintings and CG buildings.

To give one example that contained multiple techniques and VFX departments would be the fully CG shot of the Kimberly Diamond mine. After a lot of research trying to really understand the scale of these massive mines we were able to plot and design this big high wide shot. We used a technique called 2 and a half D. That’s not 2D and not quite 3D, but somewhere in between where you build simple 3D geometry and project a digital matte painting onto it. We blocked out the camera move to know how far we could push this technique. We found that for the most part 2.5D worked well, however the foreground really required higher detailed 3D assets. These would be machinery, buildings, carts etc. It was also really clear that these mines were full of people. It took a lot of labour to run such large scale operations. CG crowds were created, animated and scattered through the shot. These little tiny visual specks helped to show scale whilst also demonstrate the bustling active mine.

We simulated FX for smoke and atmosphere. Created digital ropes and wires pulling carts and their contents. All of which finally end up within a compositors realm ready to assemble together into a realistic composition.

The VFX department often supports other departments directly, especially the SFX team. There is a great balance between the two departments. Ripper Street’s SFX team are amazing. There would be many examples of simple additions VFX would bring to help SFX complete a shot. Adding digital rain/snow or weather, adding smoke to chimneys, blood spurts and gore etc. We had great fun supporting Stunts & SFX with the scene where a detective is thrown from a two story window landing on a spiked fence. It was a wonderful example of multiple departments working collectively to create an exciting and thrilling Ripper Street moment.

[For clarification, SFX are practical/physical effects made during production such as props or animatronics. VFX are digitally created on computer in post-production] – D

Steven Hartley’s character, Detective Sergeant Maurice Linklater, from Pure as the Driven (Series 2, Episode 1)

DAMAN: Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into the business and the circumstances in which you first got hired to work on the show?

ED: In short, I met a girl.

Having completed my engineering based degree in product design, I followed an Irish girl back to Dublin leaving behind my ambitions to become an engineer or product designer.

The degree was enjoyable but I slowly fell out of love with most of the tasks a product designer did, bar the presentational side mocking up 3D renderings of my designs. So off I went to Dublin. I liked the idea of somehow continuing within 3D and very soon found an opportunity as a Runner within a small Post Production House. There I was surrounded by talented people creating visuals for Commercials, TV and Film. Spending all my extra time learning and offering up my 3D modelling abilities to support the team ended up with me being promoted from Runner to a 3D Generalist. It was in this capacity I learned my trade and over time and into another company as I shifted into Head of 3D before becoming a Visual Effects Supervisor.

When it was decided Ripper Street was going to be shot in Ireland it was inevitable that they would come and speak with Screen Scene, Ireland’s leading post production facility. We’ve been fortunate to build up a great catalogue of VFX work and have a reputation for quality. Also having then completed work on season one of Game of Thrones, it gave everyone confidence that we were the right guys for the show. I was delighted that Tiger Aspect awarded myself and SSVFX the project.

DAMIAN: So what’s your starting point – do you read the scripts and then annotate them with details regarding what kind of shots and effects are needed for each episode?

ED: Yes. Most shows start with a script in parallel with a vision. A director will know how they wish to tell their story visually. Doing the first read through of a script allows my brain and the directors to align. Through doing breakdowns and discussing relevant scenes both parties can be confident of singing from the same hymn sheet.

Of course one of the main reasons for doing a breakdown is to ascertain how VFX is needed and thus a cost. Through each iteration of script and talks about each shots approach a visual effects, a shot list will be created. We also might do some concept work or pre-visualization to help firm up the design and look.

This is all done before shoot giving the VFX department and any connecting department’s time to design and plan their execution. It is vital that we have a plan when it comes to visual effects.

DAMIAN: In general, do you work on each episode after it’s shot in chronological order or do you perhaps bunch together similar effects requirements?

ED: Episodic television is always a challenge. Mainly because of schedule. It’s generally fast and furious. Normally we do work in chronological order, however when some episodes have challenging or large scale visual effects within them, we will start earlier to build assets and prep for when an episode editorially locks and we are green lit to complete the work.

With Ripper Street the edit begins in anger as soon as that ep’s shoot is wrapped. Within maybe three weeks we’d have a cut and VFX will get turnover. At the same time this is happening the next episode is shooting. As you can imagine planning is key.

DAMIAN: How many VFX shots would an average episode of Ripper Street need?

ED: There is never really an average episode. Ripper Street is story telling heavy. This means some episodes, like Whitechapel Terminus, require a vast amount of visual effects to tell the story. Others may not.

If I had to say an average it would probably be in the thirty – fifty shots then plenty of small clean-ups.

DAMIAN: How long might each episode take to complete and how long would you typically spend working on an entire series?

ED: From an episode’s edit lock to VFX being finished, it was often four to six weeks. Sometimes quicker.

In terms of a whole series, from the first contact to the last episode’s VFX shot completing would be around seven to eight months. Of course I and a few other key VFX people would be on the show from the start until the end, through pre-production, shoot and post.

DAMIAN: I’m wondering how you go about your research given the intricate historic details. So, for example, when we see VFX shots of Tower Bridge or St. Paul’s Cathedral, are there certain books or websites that you’ll consult in order to get the right look from a particular angle or distance from Whitechapel?

ED: I love the research stage. It often happens through multiple departments, particularly Art department, and key individuals like Mark Geraghty and Stephen Daly [Production Designers] as well as the VFX dept. Ripper Street has always had a great writing team headed by Richard Warlow. They really know their period and locations and always have provided us with a great starting point. On some episodes we’ve consulted an historian. For the most part we do our own research after receiving any references from Mark or Stephen. It tends to be myself and my colleague Nicholas Murphy. We of course scour the internet, however I find for period visuals referencing old drawings and paintings extremely informative. Especially around the architecture. I’ve books of drawings from people like Falcon Hildred [below] which really do set a feeling and tone.

Of course many of the larger London landmarks are still here today. Which means we are capable of photographing and de-aging back to Victorian times. For many of our big wide establishing shots we would build our landmarks in 3D, thus allowing us to ensure we can use for the correct angle, lighting and time of day.

I believe that to hide a lie, you need to ground them in many truths. Getting your research right is the first major step in achieving our illusions.

I’m sure my internet search history looks pretty interesting if you didn’t know I was researching for Ripper Street.

DAMIAN: Indeed – mine too! Now, I frequently feel as though VFX are used too much in film and television and, in my humble opinion, this results in some productions becoming tiresome and often having the same look and feel to them. Again, it’s just my opinion, but Ripper Street is a good example of getting the right balance. So, for example it would be both expensive and impractical to employ hundreds of extras for crowd scenes and creating the Victorian backdrops and skylines that obviously no longer exist is entirely justifiable. Although it’s your bread and butter, to what extent would you agree that VFX can be used too much or inappropriately these days?

ED: Visual Effects is a film maker’s tool. In recent years VFX has got so good it’s often invisible. This means we all spot bad visual effects a mile away. Also we’ve seen a big shift in terms of the amount of studio films that are these huge visual spectaculars, often heavily relying on VFX, whether superhero or comic book. With these stories we are all aware that they are computer generated characters or environments and unless they’re flawless we feel cheated.

However, there are so many films and TV shows that are littered with invisible VFX work that the audience never notices and therefore never criticizes or complements. The story telling is merely supported perfectly by the use of VFX.

With shows like Ripper Street budget often helps us be savvier with the use of VFX. When you’ve a small budget you must be creative and careful not to leave yourself with a difficult task of creating complex visuals with not enough time or resources. I’ve always believed in the saying that you’re only remembered by your worst VFX shot. On Ripper Street our VFX team have gone into production firmly believing that if there’s a practical way to find the solution we must exhaust that before going digital. Also taking it further, if there is something we can shoot to help the VFX then it’s worth capturing.

On location in the streets of Dublin

Ed at the Natural History Museum, Dublin

Nicholas Murphy

Nicholas with colour chart ball

Dublin is a great place to shoot period Victorian London. There are many streets and locations that are less touched by modern influences which mean there is less for Art Dept, Construction and Visual Effects to do. We would often only add a landmark to a background. A Christchurch steeple or St Paul’s. Just the subtle suggestion of London.

Of course Visual Effects are often the best route to go. Crowd duplication is definitely one way VFX can deliver scale at a fraction of the time and cost Production would have. Hiring large crowds, putting them in costume and make-up, feeding and moving them has a tipping point. We’ve done quite a number of crowd duplications over the five seasons.

DAMIAN: I think another good example of this is the Phossy Jaw effects from series two which were done digitally and that made perfect sense. However, where applicable, Waldo Mason steps in with the prosthetic special effects providing various severed heads, dismembered bodies and corpses which benefit from the actors’ ability to physically interact with them. I mean it would have been the wrong creative decision to animate any of these or the Elephant Man makeup that he created wouldn’t it?

ED: I love Waldo. He is a super talent and has brought some wonderful contributions to the world of Ripper Street. Prosthetics play such an important role with characters like the Elephant Man or with brutal injuries etc. However there are times where prosthetics need a little support. Often that’s with negative effects. Prosthetics tend to be additive. The Phossy Jaw effect was clearly a negative effect. We wanted to see into the jaw and mouth cavity.

We had originally planned to use prosthetics to create the edge/seam of the cavity and then green within. Waldo and his team had begun creating a mould of the actor’s head and were planning the sculpture, then the shoot schedule changed. It was brought dramatically forward. This meant Waldo was unable to deliver in time and we discussed the best approach. I was extremely keen that Waldo continue to sculpt and design the desired look. His expertise is in anatomy and he really understood the desired look. We therefore agreed with production that Waldo would provide the VFX department with a sculpture of the face. This of course meant that we shot the scene using a more traditional route of facial tracking markers. Little black dots placed on key areas of her face which we would use to track and attach the digital face.

After Waldo supplied this beautiful model, we were able to digitally sculpt using it as a wonderful physical reference. Our team then added subtleties like tongue movement and spit dribble to really sell the horrific look and also the negative space through depth cues.

To answer your question though, it would have been wrong to go digital with the Elephant Man. Waldo’s work was fantastic. To replicate this full in Visual Effects is of course possible, but extremely time consuming, challenging and ultimately costly and when you look at the result we got through Prosthetics, why would you try?

DAMIAN: You mentioned Whitechapel Terminus earlier and the epic train crash from that episode from series three was obviously another highlight that stands out. What can you tell us about that?

ED: That episode and particularly the train sequence was by far the biggest visual effects contribution of the entire series. Initially it wasn’t planned that way, but to really do the narrative justice it ended up this way. Richard had written this very tense and dramatic sequence which at its core was a train robbery that left a train on a collision course through London. London of course is a bustling built up city. We shot our train sequence at a closed train track up in Loughborough. The track was surrounded in countryside. Richard’s writing had the train departing from St Katherine’s Dock and ending up derailing in Whitechapel.

As the edit developed the story telling became more and more clear. The tension and drama really needed the train shots to be surrounded by buildings and an ever growing sense of London. Most of the train shots had their entire environment replaced with only the train and bits of track remaining. It was a mammoth undertaking within the tight TV schedule. A lot of late nights and long weekends. It was worth it. It’s a great sequence and was the perfect start to season three.

DAMIAN: What single individual effect have you found most difficult to create?

ED: There has been a few challenging shots. Whether it be the Phossy Jaw or the complexity of fully digital shots like the Diamond Mine or Hyde Park. But to be honest the difficulty tends to come with the sum of all within the tight TV time frame. You rarely get time to ponder your designs or try multiple routes. It’s fast and furious and ultimately all about planning and execution. If it was an unplanned VFX shot then sometimes that became difficult.

Hyde Park

DAMIAN: And if you could pick just one effect that best exemplifies your work on the show over the past five years, what would it be?

ED: Such a difficult question. Five seasons of so many visual effects shots, with so many back stories to their creation and design. I think though the real success of our work has been the set extensions to establish the London period and location. Some as, I’ve said before, may be a small addition of a landmark or in many cases fully digital shots. I hope that most were invisible to our audience. I do like the St Katherine’s Dock shot of the train leaving at the start of season three. But again, so hard to choose.

I’d prefer to ask others what their favourites were.

DAMIAN: Perhaps fans will tell us and leave their comments below. Now then, you’ve been a little mischievous with some of your effects shots. Can you give us some examples?

ED: Oh yes. We’ve had a little fun.

When populating a world you need to have a lot of artwork and even names for shops and signs. We’ve always had a bit of fun giving homage to the Ripper crew and team. We’ve had ships named after post supervisors, shops named after the directors, book stores named after our writers. One of our follicly challenged 3rd ad’s had a barbers named after him.

There are plenty of hidden gems if you know where to look.

DAMIAN: What projects are you currently working on?

ED: I’m just finishing off season seven of Game of Thrones. This year is even more spectacular than the last. It’s an unbelievable show. We’re also about to go into post on The Favourite, starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman and Nicholas Hoult and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

I’m also about to begin the shoot for Lenny Abrahamason’s The Little Stranger, which I’m very excited about. I’ve worked with Lenny for years, from his early days in commercials and it will be my third feature with him after Frank and Room.

A few other things are in the melting pot. It’ll be an exciting year.

DAMIAN: Ed, thank you very much indeed.

ED: Thank you Damian.

It’s been an absolute privilege to work on Ripper Street and that has been because of the people involved across the board. We’ve had so many wonderful directors helming the 36 episodes carefully penned by Richard and his team of writers and performed by the awesome cast, especially Matthew, Jerome, Adam and MyAnna. This foundation has led to the ultimate success of the show and its appeal.

We must though remember all the amazing crew that it takes to make a show like Ripper Street. All departments have excelled and it’s always been a pleasure stepping on the set of Ripper Street because of the warm and generous support of so many people. It really is a testament to [executive producers] Will [Gould] and Frith [Tiplady] at Tiger Aspect for forming the band, so to speak. They’ve been such a great driving force and I’m very much looking forward to working with them again.

Of course I owe a huge applause to our visual effects team in Screen Scene VFX. They’ve really brought their craft, diligence and talent to the show. It is their hard work and ethos that has helped Screen Scene VFX amass an ever growing ten award nominations or wins including winning an Royal Television Society Award and being nominated for a BAFTA, Visual Effects Society Awards, two Hollywood Post Alliance Awards and two IFTAs.

It’s hard to believe there will be another show quite like Ripper Street.

Some of the Ripper Street cast and crew including Matthew Macfadyen (far right)

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All the interviews and articles on this website are original and exclusive and I would ask that the copyright be respected. Therefore, please do not use quotes or any other information contained here without permission. Thank you.
Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017
Ripper Street images copyright © Ed Bruce/Screen Scene/Tiger Aspect Productions 2016

http://Click here for more information about Ed Bruce and the VFX company Screen Scene

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RIPPER STREET 5 interview with production designer Stephen Daly

He began his film and television career working in the art department on productions such as David Copperfield, Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo and worked his way up to production designer on Ripper Street. Despite being busy working on the fourth series of Peaky Blinders, Stephen Daly kindly took the time to talk to me about his stay in Whitechapel and share some rare and previously unseen images…

An exclusive RIPPER STREET interview

with the production designer Stephen Daly

~~~

Copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017
All images Copyright © Stephen Daly/Tiger Aspect Productions 2016

~

DAMIAN: In preparing for this interview and coming up with some questions for you, I thought about the production designs that have had the greatest impact on me over the years and came up with the following: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920: Walter Reimann, Walter Rohrig and Hermann Warm), Metropolis (1927: Otto Hunte), Alien (1979: Michael Seymour), Blade Runner (1982: Lawrence G. Paull), Batman (1989: Anton Furst), Dick Tracy (1990: Richard Sylbert) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992: Thomas Sanders). These may be rather obvious choices and I apologize that they all seem to belong to either the horror, Sci-Fi or comic book genre. However, I wonder what productions have inspired you and when did you first become aware of the art of production design?

STEPHEN: Corny though it might sound (and quite a cliche for filmmakers of my generation), I first got interested when I saw Star Wars at the age of 5. I lived in the US in 1977 and although I was very young, I remember thinking “how the hell did they do that?” I had no idea what a Production Designer was or what an Art Department did, but I knew somebody made it, somehow the hyper-realistic look of the film was man-made. Over the years I’ve always collected “the art of” books and been interested in behind the scenes. I suppose I’ve always had a leaning toward Sci-Fi and Westerns in particular. I think the 70s designers like John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Dean Tavoularis, etc, brought in a new period of ‘beaten-up’ sets. Suddenly worlds became more lived-in. Theatricality was definitely out. I think the films of my childhood, the films that subconsciously affected me –Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, ET, all that 70s and 80s Hollywood stuff- had this great lived-in feel. As I got older and into Scorsese, Hitchcock and Coppola, I remember noticing more how the camera moved and how it affected the sets, how colours really mattered and how a film could have a combined visual design. I also became a huge fan of Japanese movies. I think compared to a lot of Hollywood cinema, the notion of design was more obvious in a lot of Japanese stuff; big swathes of colour, epic scale, great stuff.

A blank canvas

John Neligan (Set Decorator), Marion Picard (Props Buyer) and Briana Hegarty (Supervising Art Director)

DAMIAN: Can you tell me a little bit about your training and how you first came to work in the business?

STEPHEN: After I left film school, I spent a year in a place called Concorde in Galway in the middle of nowhere in the west of Ireland. Roger Corman had 3 studios at the time (mid-90s), one in the US, one in Russia and one in Ireland. I got a job with the art dept, doing anything and everything (standing by on set, designing sets, storyboarding, making props, set construction, set painting…), got paid bugger all and had a great time. It was amazing training for a young guy starting out. You really got to learn all aspects of the game and you had to think on your feet. I worked on SEVEN feature films in one year.

You can’t get better than that.

Then I became the Art trainee on a BBC TV production called Ballykissangel, which was fun. There wasn’t much to do so we would let all of the work pile up until Friday.

DAMIAN: Mark Geraghty did phenomenal work on the sixteen episodes from the first two series, was it a somewhat daunting experience for you to take over as production designer – especially on such an epic project as Ripper Street?

STEPHEN: Mark is great. I first met him on The Count of Monte Cristo, when he hired me as Assistant Art Director. I did the standby job and did the storyboards for the film. It was my first proper big job. We made the film in Ireland and Malta and I remember having a great time on the job and I think we in the art dept did some super work. Mark was amazing to work for and I learned a ton from watching him.

I don’t think I found the move to Ripper too daunting. I felt ready to move up in scale and budget. Until then I had been designing small, low-budget features and TV and really wanted to move on. Ripper came along at exactly the right time. Of course I was nervous, but I think any budding designer keen to get stuck in would relish the thought. I had seen the show and really liked it. I remember visiting the sets when they were under construction and being really impressed.

DAMIAN: Given the exquisite period detail, you must have conducted painstaking research in designing the sets with such authenticity. Were there any books or websites that you found particularly useful in helping you to visualize and then actually realize Victorian Whitechapel?

STEPHEN: The key to doing a good job, I think, is having the right crew and enough time. Thankfully, on Ripper, we had this. I had such a fantastic art dept – they really did an amazing job, all of them. I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘painstaking’, though – that makes it sound like slavery. It was very enjoyable because we had enough time (just) to do some good research and then design. It’s very important to immerse yourself in the world for a while and let it sink in. The two main sources that immediately come to mind are Gustav Dore’s drawings of Victorian London and a great book called ‘Lost London’ by Philip Davies. Obviously there were more influences, both conscious and not, but these two were a huge help. But they were both black and white. There’s not much colour reference from back then, which freed us up to choose our own palette. I like limiting the colours we will use at the start of the job (with a huge degree of flexibility) and keeping the palette simple. I think that way, the colours have a more direct impact on the viewer, whether it’s noticed or not, and therefore it underlines the mood of the story more.

DAMIAN: Presumably you see the script and then start making notes but can you take me through your pre-production process as a production designer using Ripper Street as an example?

STEPHEN: Actually, I started designing Ripper 4 and 5 before we had scripts. Richard [Warlow – series creator] and I talked about plots and so on and he told me the main beats for the series as a whole. Also, I knew it needed an old Victorian London street and a Police Station, etc, as we had done it before, so that was a help.

Normally, on a film you have a script but it’s quite common that for a TV series you might only have outlines or maybe just episode one or two. So working closely with the showrunner/writer is very important early on. The lion’s share of my work, as I see it, is in the early days, before most of the crew is on the job and way before shooting starts.

On Ripper Street series 5, I knew we needed a backstage area for the Alexandra Theatre. From talking to Richard et al, I knew we would spend a lot of time there, so it made sense to build a set. We also knew we were striking the interior of Abel Croker’s warehouse from series 4, so basically we set to work revamping Croker’s place and turning it into the theatre backstage.

So while Briana (supervising art director), John (set decorator) and the rest of the art department were getting on with the nitty-gritty of the theatre (furnishings, wallpapers, posters, you name it), I spent a lot of time with Gordon the Location Manager figuring out how to design the shoot and find locations. I say ‘design the shoot’ because that’s what it feels like. So much of my work with the Location Manager is piecing together the sets in areas that can facilitate the shooting of the show while not compromising the look. This takes weeks and weeks of visiting places, seeing if they work for certain characters’ houses, certain beats of the script, you name it, and trying to put the jigsaw together. So we will print out pictures, slap them all up on a big wall, stand back and have a look. Also, I have to keep my budget in mind at all times. There are other balls in the air… Maybe an actor isn’t available when we want to shoot at a certain place. Maybe there are sound issues. Maybe this, maybe that… The list is a long one.

Then when we think we have something to go on, other crew members get involved. Obviously, the director has to have his tuppence-worth. He might look at a location and think, oh God that’s not what I had in mind at all (this is when I feel like a salesman, trying to convince him/her of my genius idea…). The DP needs to light it. The gaffer needs to get his gear there. The crew need access. Basically, pre-production is a huge spinning-plates session, but always, always, I have to keep the design of the show in mind.

DAMIAN: And then when it’s actually production time and the cameras are ready to roll, can you describe a typical day on set – perhaps the very first day of a shoot would be a particularly illuminating example?

STEPHEN: The only difference between the first day and any other day is that a sort of collective panic starts to descend on the whole crew about a week before. The art dept has usually been chugging along, busy as you like, for a few months by this stage, but everyone else is twiddling their thumbs, anxious to get going. So there seems to be an subconscious notion that we are shooting the entire show next Monday!

But really it’s good to start shooting, get the ball rolling it’s why we’re all here after all.

I would usually get to set first thing in the morning, check in with the director, see if it’s all OK. Then buzz about checking on locations or sets, drawing a bit back at the office. In a nutshell, we need to be ahead of the camera, so we work backwards from when we think the set will be ready, always working to the shooting schedule. Schedule changes are hell for the art dept.

DAMIAN: How many different sets or locations might you need to prepare for an average day’s shoot?

STEPHEN: It really depends. Sometimes we are on the same set for days on end, sometimes we might do up to seven little things on a day. However, what the script might call ‘little’, as in screen-time, still requires a great deal of work from us… no matter if it’s on screen for twenty seconds or twenty minutes, it still has to look like 1897.

Paddy the plasterer

DAMIAN: I think the first three series were shot at Clancy Barracks and then you moved to a disused hotel complex in Kilternan. Why the move and to what extent were you able to recycle the previous sets?

STEPHEN: The lease on Clancy was up – the site is now being developed into swanky apartments. So, Ripper needed a new home.

We looked at various options in the UK and Ireland. My favourite two options were an old cigarette factory in Liverpool and the Kilternan hotel. The Liverpool place suddenly became unavailable, so we really only had the Kilternan hotel – not that that was second best by any means. It ended up being a dream of a location and base.

We recycled what we could from before. Scaffolding, doors, windows, but really it was a build from scratch.

We built the main street set (including interiors and Croker’s warehouse) in an area that was supposed to be for indoor tennis courts. This meant we had full control of light (night/day) and weather (rain/snow).

DAMIAN: So for series four and five there was the main set including a new police station and exteriors. Can you tell me some of the dimensions of these sets such as how high they were built and how long Leman and other streets actually were?

STEPHEN: The main ‘booking hall’ of the police station was about 40’ wide and 30’ deep. It was a big space – I always had a Wild West saloon in mind.

The main street outside was about 90’ long, and it snaked under a railway bridge at one end and ended in a t-junction at the other. One thing I was very keen on was allowing the camera/actors into the actual interior spaces. Previously, we had to cut from exterior to interior (i.e. they were two different spaces) but I really wanted it all to appear seamless. It might only have been in one or two shots, but it all added to the atmosphere of the show.

On the main street set, we built the set on two levels. You could walk around the whole thing on ground level or on the first floor. So we either used the upper level for sets (Mathilda’s window for example, or the opium den) or camera positions. We generally kept ceilings very high, about 11’ or so, so we could light from above and not worry about seeing the ceiling. If we needed it, we would add a lightweight canvas ceiling piece, called a windbag.

DAMIAN: How long did it take to first design the sets and then to actually build them?

STEPHEN: Once we had decided on the tennis court space, the design came quite quickly really. The ‘stage’ wasn’t a real stage as it had a pitched roof, unlike a proper stage with a high flat roof. I think it was 33’ tall which isn’t massive – and only in the middle. So the main run of Leman Street ran along this pitch, allowing us the full height to light it. But it meant the edges of the stage became quite cramped, where the stage ceiling was only about 16’. Along the edges we had alleyways and side-streets.

I think I had about six weeks to design and draw the main street set. Obviously I didn’t do this alone. Briana and the other art directors were busy scribbling away to have it ready for Nicky (construction manager) and his (excellent) crew. Nicky had 99% of the set done in eleven or twelve weeks, which is astonishingly quick considering the scale of the job. Eamonn (props master) and his guys started dressing it with about five weeks to go. It was all hands on deck.

DAMIAN: Were there any particular advantages that the new sets had over the previous ones in terms of the how the directors could shoot scenes?

STEPHEN: As I said before, being indoors meant full control of the lighting (time of day). We were shooting in the middle of summer, but it could be night-time at the flick of a switch. So, the writers had the freedom to write night where previously we would have been limited to interior work only. I think this gave Ripper a nice grim outdoor feel.

Also, we had the freedom to shoot about five different street set-ups on the one set. With some notice, my department could prep a street for different areas of London (as long as grimy was your thing) and the crew could move around easily. It meant staying in one place, with the ease of being on a stage, without going hither and yon from location to location. We really shot a heck of a lot of stuff on the stage. Once we added computer generated skies, you’d never know it was a stage.

Kieron Hawkes (Director) with Si Bell (Director of Photography)

DAMIAN: I think most of the first two series were shot mainly on set and then you started to film on exterior locations for the last three. Do you prefer or is it easier to shoot on set rather than location work?

STEPHEN: I refer to my last answer. Actually I think it was the other way around. Not that we didn’t go on location. Of course we did. But we made a big effort to shoot on our big street set as much as possible after we had spent so much money on it!

Also elsewhere in Kilternan we had an old (early 1800s) house, which was Drake’s office, detective rooms and staircase from the police station (upstairs) and Dove’s house interiors (downstairs). We also converted the men’s changing rooms in the hotel spa into Jackson’s police lab. We even used the swimming pool there for the Thames at night. There was so much stuff. Not to mention the hundred-odd acres of golf course. It was an excellent base.

It’s hard to say which I prefer. If you haven’t got the money, then location is the way to go. But when given the time and money (and the backing from the producers, as in this case) then building sets makes life much easier for all involved. Film-making is like hanging around with a circus 24-7, so if the circus doesn’t have to move so much, then happy days. From my point of view, if I know I have the workshop and props store right beside the stage, then last-minute ideas are actually possible, whereas if you’re off on location your planning has to be bang on.

DAMIAN: To what extent does production design necessitate a creative collaboration with other departments such as the art director, set decoration or location manager?

STEPHEN: Film-making in general is one huge collaboration – for everyone. So many departments and jobs feed off one another, you simply can’t be too precious and firm in your ideas. It’s a strange mix of knowing what you want and yet oddly being willing to bend here and there to suit whatever.

My department feeds off my ideas, but having said that, I’m by no means ‘The Boss’. I really like the idea that we are all in it together. I can’t expect people to come to work to get told what to do. I remember working like that when I was an assistant or an art director and I absolutely hated it, so I wouldn’t do it to my crew. We should enjoy it otherwise we will do bad work.

I like getting lots and lots of references, doing some key concept drawings and making sure my guys understand the world that our characters live in. That’s my job, really; I am the link from the rest of the production to the design of the film. I have to pitch my ideas to the director/producers and also listen to what they want.

Same goes for locations. The Location Manager might have an idea from reading the script that is different from mine, but that’s not to say it’s a bad idea. Just different.

Really it all goes back to prep time. If I have enough time to get lots of period reference in advance, in order to feed through to Art, Props and Locations, then we can all get on board for the ‘world’ we want to create.

Although I want to allow my crew the freedom to do their own thing, I still think the Designer’s decision should be final. If you don’t have one single vision, then it’ll look too uncoordinated, too scatty.

DAMIAN: And did you liaise with Ed Bruce and the visual effects team in order to provide a consistent vision that marries together the physical and virtual depictions of Whitechapel?

STEPHEN: Yes. absolutely. We had lots of meetings in the beginning and we would bring them in to meet us regularly or we would go to their offices. VFX is just as important as anything else for me. Ed and his guys are great. When you’re dealing with people as good as them you’re in good hands.

DAMIAN: The first series of Ripper Street was set in 1889 and the fourth in 1897 with the fifth picking up events straight afterwards. How does your production design reflect the changes in technology during this period of Victorian history?

STEPHEN: Richard is always great for adding gizmos and gimmicks in the script – a way of showing progress in the story. That’s a big help when you pick up the script in the first instance. So, like with all good scripts, you’re already thinking of what was ‘new’ back then.

I talked a lot with Leonie (costume designer). We were very conscious of the mixture of the old and the new. London was such a dump back then, so many warrens of slums and sh*t (quite literally). We wanted to show that the people in our world would add a layer of modernity, whether it’s nice clothes or fabrics in their houses, on top of the old decay that had been around for years.

I think if you show modern trends (and that’s down to research and references) on top of very old stuff, then you’re not shoving it down the audience’s throat, instead you’re bedding it into the world more realistically. I liked finding much older (sometimes Georgian) locations, or references, then dress a thin layer of Victorian lace or some patterned fabric on top. It’s really just like the world we live in today. We live with the past as much as the now.

One way I was very fixed on was showing progress in the street art, i.e. posters. As printing became cheaper (for full colour) and trends changed, we could reflect this change over the years on the streets in the background.

DAMIAN: Fans of the show will undoubtedly remember the epic train crash that opened series three. Can you take us through the sheer logistics of designing for something that ambitious?

STEPHEN: That was shot over several locations…

Carriage interior – set build on a stage in Dublin.

Train station platform – at Loughborough in England.

Trains travelling – Loughborough and surrounding area (about three locations I think).

Train crash site – at the big Whitechapel set at Clancy Barracks, Dublin.

Signal Box – Loughborough again.

Train traveling over Whitechapel – CG addition to the Clancy set.

The key to a big thing like this is to storyboard. That way everyone has a visual story in their heads first. Then we can break down each of the elements and design the shoot around each element, knowing already what has to be shot. Then the editor can reassemble the jigsaw puzzle, again working to the storyboard.

Andy (director), Jonathan (storyboard artist) and myself worked out the story of the shoot, but it meant a few weeks of Andy and I looking at various train options in the UK and seeing what would fit.

I think it probably took the bones of a week to shoot the whole thing, including the aftermath.

It was a long time ago…. I can’t really remember.

DAMIAN: What has been the most challenging set or scene to design?

STEPHEN: Er, um… Wow. That’s a good question. Can I come back to you?

You’d be surprised really. Sometimes it’s the smallest thing.

DAMIAN: Is there a sense of sadness once the shoot has wrapped and the sets start to be dismantled?

STEPHEN: Yes and no. I’m not remotely precious about the sets. The job is to get them on camera and make a film after all.

What I really worry about is not getting ‘that shot’ on the day of the shoot. I always have a key wide angle in my head and will usually draw a concept piece showing this angle. I’ll try to harp on about it ad nauseam so the director will be shamed into doing it. If I look at the rushes and it’s not there, then that’s when I feel sadness. Usually by the end of the shoot, I’m the first guy in line with a sledgehammer.

DAMIAN: What happens to these sets – surely they don’t just get thrown away?

STEPHEN: Yes, they do.

DAMIAN: And finally, you’re currently working on another epic period drama, also made by Tiger Aspect, what have been the main challenges in the production design for series four of Peaky Blinders?

STEPHEN: Peaky is a great show. I’ve always been a fan and it’s great to work on.

I’m the third designer on the show, so the main challenge is keeping the right feel that has been established, and also doing what I want to do.

Peaky, to use a silly cliche, boxes way above its weight. Ripper did too, so I knew what I was letting myself in for. I shouldn’t talk budget too much really, but Peaky is very well thought of internationally and sits right up there with other TV shows with far bigger budgets. We shoot a lot on big locations. I think Peaky needs scope and scale. Whereas Ripper was about a small, claustrophobic world of the warrens of Whitechapel, Peaky is about big money, big gangs and a much more broad, open story. So it’s big. So I think of big locations, with lots of depth in the frame. I hope you’ll like it when it comes out. I think the stuff we are shooting this year looks amazing and I’m very very happy with it… Stay tuned.

DAMIAN: Stephen, thank you very much indeed.

STEPHEN: No problem. Thank you!

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All the interviews and articles on this website are original and exclusive and I would ask that the copyright be respected. Therefore, please do not use quotes or any other information contained here without permission. Thank you.

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Copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017
All images Copyright © Stephen Daly/Tiger Aspect Productions 2016

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RIPPER STREET 5 interview with Eddie Jackson

A TALE OF TWO CITIES:

FROM VOLANTIS TO WHITECHAPEL

An exclusive Ripper Street interview with Eddie Jackson

Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017

Portraits of Eddie Jackson copyright © Rob Benson 2017

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DAMIAN: They say it’s a small world Eddie. Well, Ireland must be tiny because it seems as though the moment an actor finishes their work on Game of Thrones, they quickly change costumes and then wander over to the set of Ripper Street – or vise versa! What’s going on Eddie?

EDDIE: Well, Ireland is a small place and you always know someone who knows someone. On the production side of things it’s great that our country attracts so many projects to both the south and the north. Hopefully that won’t change anytime soon. It wasn’t that quick of a turn over, I filmed my first scene for Game of Thrones in September in Belfast, my second scene in Almeria, Spain in October, and I didn’t film Ripper Street till February the following year. I did however audition for them both in the same week. Though I didn’t audition for the part of Mr. Sparks that I ended up playing in Ripper street.

DAMIAN: You’ve got some exciting projects coming up including a new TV series and a horror film. What can you tell me about them?

EDDIE: Yes, I am looking forward to seeing them both. The TV series is Acceptable Risk which will be aired here in autumn. I was delighted when I got the part because it was the first time on a big production that I was playing a character that helps drive the narrative. It was great to work on because it’s really a crime drama driven by female leads and I had such a fun time working with them all. Working with actors like Elaine Cassidy, Lisa Dwyer Hogg and Angeline Ball was a great learning experience. I also got on very well with the director, Kenny Glenaan, which made the step up easier.

The horror film is Red Room, directed by Stephen Gaffney, along the lines of Saw or Hostel. It has a great ensemble cast, but too many to name them all without feeling bad if I left one out. But Brian Fortune was one name that made me more excited about the project. I had been a big admirer of Brian for a long time and got to work with him a few years back on a short film, since then we have become good mates, but never got another chance to work together. Not that we share much screen time in this. We are writing a feature together to make sure that happens soon though.

DAMIAN: And I’m particularly interested in The Man Who Invented Christmas. The film tells the story of how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol but doesn’t it also feature characters from the book?

EDDIE: Yes it does, from the scenes I have seen it looks great. It brings to life a few characters from the book itself. So I was playing one of those characters along with Marcus Lamb and Michael Judd, who are both also based here in Ireland. Most others were flown in, so it was great to get the part. Especially since it was just before Christmas, not much work goes on then unless you do Panto.

Fresh from his success as the Beast in Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast, Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens as Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas

DAMIAN: And it’s an impressive cast you’re performing alongside isn’t it? The great Christopher Plummer plays Scrooge, Dan Stevens as Dickens, fellow Game of Thrones alumni Jonathan Pryce (Dickens’ father) and Donald Sumpter (Jacob Marley), not too mention Dickens’ stalwarts Simon Callow and Miriam Margolyes. Can you describe what it was like working with such a prestigious cast?

EDDIE: Well I only got to work with Christopher and Dan but it was an amazing five days on set. I took it as a massive chance to learn from one of the greats, although most people know him from The Sound of Music, I knew him more from The Beginners which is one of my favourite films. I don’t know a lot of younger actors so I wasn’t sure who Dan was, though once I saw his face I remembered I had seen him in The Guest which was an amazing film. I am not really one to get star struck or whatever you might call it, I realized that when I got a chance to work with David Wilmot a few years ago, who is also in Ripper Street [as Artherton]. I’ve had huge respect for him as an actor for many years. I guess it depends on the person though and how they treat you, I’ve been very lucky so far. But yeah, on that film it was the same as any other set, actors sitting around chatting between takes.

Eddie as Belicho Paenymion in Game of Thrones

DAMIAN: Most readers will probably recognize you from Game of Thrones in which you played slave master Belicho Paenymion. I don’t know if you’re the sort of actor who still gets a little nervous as they start work on a new project but is there a kind of added pressure when working on such a celebrated and epic series such as this?

EDDIE: Well I was already a big fan of the show. I had an audition with Carla Stronge in Dublin on a Wednesday, found out I got the part on the Friday and was in Belfast on set on Monday, so to be honest I didn’t have much time to think. In terms of production, it was the biggest project I had worked on to date, but once again, everyone was so friendly it made me relax and be able to enjoy it more. I don’t get nervous about the project or the people in the project but more about the choices you make for the character, I guess. Even after you’re done you question that, but it’s not the same thing as nerves, I think every actor does that.

DAMIAN: So, let’s talk about Ripper Street. Can you tell me a little bit about the character in the second episode A Brittle Thread?

EDDIE: I play Mr. Sparks who is a bit of a hustler. He sells exotic animals that he has collected from his travels around the world. It’s kinda hard to talk much more about the character in case I give anything away. But he does seem like the kind of character I would love a chance to expand more.

DAMIAN: I interviewed production designer Stephen Daly and if the sheer spectacle of the stunning sets weren’t enough to impress on screen, his description of the work that he puts into making it all look so authentic is just mind boggling. Tell me about your first day on set.

EDDIE: I’d say I got there about six in the morning. I probably just ate a banana or something small, I usually try to eat before I leave for set. You don’t know if you will have enough time to sit down and eat when you get there. No point in getting hot food, as any minute you could get called to hair and makeup and I don’t think I could eat a cold fry-up after, plus I like to soak my porridge overnight!

I always like to run through my lines and do all the checks before I start. I was in a good mood. I had been cast in Thrones, Reign and then to be cast in Ripper Street on the back of them was exciting.

I got lucky because the set I was on was Mr. Sparks shop, so that can tell you a lot about the character. There were exotic animals like llamas, monkeys and parrots everywhere. I am a massive fan of David Attenborough so I loved the moments between takes to get a chance to look as these animals up close.

But the set was great, I got a chance to work with some great production designers over the last few years and this was right up there with them. The people like Stephen behind the scene don’t get enough credit for the passion and commitment they put into these sets. They are the first to arrive and last to leave. The attention to detail amazes me every time. Just hope I get to work on more of his sets in the future.

DAMIAN: What can you tell us about getting into the character of Mr. Sparks?

EDDIE: Well I think when you are playing a smaller character and only see the scenes you’re in, the costume and makeup department can give you a lot of ideas about how the character fits into the world, they tell you a lot about how the director wants the character visually portrayed. Which can give you more material to work with. Sometimes seeing the costume or makeup can change some ideas you had. But I was happy to be wearing trousers this time.

Killian Scott [Augustus Dove] who I’m in the scene with, I’d seen in LOVE/HATE and was a gent as he wouldn’t have known me at the time, but made sure I was comfortable and had enough room to move when the table had to be moved back for the camera, even though we didn’t spend much time together it told me a lot about the kind of person he is.

There’s always a lot of rushing about on productions like this and you get used to someone coming up and pulling at your hair, or brushing fibres off or touching up your make up. Also when you’re only on set for a day and show up in the morning and are introduced to thirty people, I get nervous I won’t remember all the names. But I am getting better.

DAMIAN: Describe working with the director Daniel Nettheim and the filming of your scenes.

EDDIE: Daniel was nice to work with, he just gave me an idea of who Sparks was. When you’re playing a character in just one or two scenes it is more important to me that you lend yourself to the overall theme or if your character interacts with one of the main characters that you lend yourself to their arch. In fact in these situations it’s nearly better if the director doesn’t have to say much to you at all, it means you’re already doing what they want. I would be more worried if he was talking to me at length but it was an exchange between myself and Killian and I can’t really say much about it without spoiling it, to be honest. We did have to record the dialogue again without some of the animals around as I think it was hard to shoot soundwise.

DAMIAN: Eddie, I look forward to seeing you in Monday’s episode and all your future projects – very best of luck with them. Cheers.

EDDIE: Nice one Damian. Thanks for the chat.

RIPPER STREET CONTINUES MONDAY AT 9PM ON BBC2

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In addition to Eddie, the following actors have all appeared in both Ripper Street and Game of Thrones: Philip Arditti, Dean-Charles Chapman, Ian Gelder, Iain Glen, Paul Kaye, Anton Lesser, Francis Magee, Michael McElhatton, Ian McElhinney, Joseph Mawle,  Kristian Nairn, Clive Russell, Owen Teale and of course Jerome Flynn.

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All the interviews and articles on this website are original and exclusive and I would please ask that the copyright be respected. Therefore, please do not use quotes or any other information contained here without permission. Thank you.

Copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2017

Portraits of Eddie Jackson copyright © Rob Benson 2017

See website link below:

Rob Benson Photography