RTS Talk – The Crown from Script to Screen
On the 5th of March 2018 attended an evening talk held by the Royal Television Society in London. It was about the Netflix TV series, ‘The Crown’, and how the show is created. The talk was held by a host who asked a panel questions about the show. On the panel was: Ben Caron (Director), Martin Childs (Production Designer), Jane Petrie (Costume Designer), Pia Di Ciaula (Editor), and Ben Turner (VFX Supervisor). This range of jobs made the talk really interesting, as it also educated me about the different roles in TV and how they all work together to create one final piece.
Some of the statistics about ‘The Crown’ that really amazed me included that it has won 32 major awards, used 398 sets to film on, and each episode costs between 6 ½ million to 13 million. These staggered me, as the numbers reminded me more of a film than of a TV show, however, they explained this was because of the freedom that creating content for Netflix offers. The session began with explaining how they react when they first get the new scripts. The general consensus was that they all read it as a viewer, and become immersed and excited about the content before considering that they have to make it. They then go back through the script and break it all down. When asked if the creation of season two was easier than the first season, it seemed that they all felt much more prepared, and knew exactly what to do, but that did not mean that the creative process was easier. It was the same amount of hard work, but they prepared themselves for the six day weeks. Then scenes from the series were shown and each member of the panel explained how their role worked in that specific scene. This was amazing as every small detail had been considered, and the panel made it even more interesting as they shared funny stories about things that had happened and anecdotes about things that had gone wrong and how they managed to overcome them. One of the main issues that came up were the difficulties with continuity, especially when filming in different locations, all around the world, weeks apart, all for the same scene. This was not something I had considered before, and it really opened my eyes to the hard work that is put into the show. After the main talk an open floor question and answer session was held, which was very interesting as this is where we discovered the differences between working on any other TV show and working on a Netflix TV show.
Overall, the talk was extremely enjoyable and highly informative. As I am currently weighing up the possibility of becoming either a producer for radio or TV, talks like this really help me have a better understanding of the industry. As hearing from experts in the field is better than reading about job roles online. As a fan of the show my appreciation of it has massively grown after seeing all the hard work that goes into it. Having finished training in the live TV studio, I would be interested to see the set of a TV series, to be able to understand the differences better. This is an opportunity I will look out for, perhaps through being a Runner.
