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BBC Taster Shorts - Making 'The Break'

2016-01-29T12:00:00+00:00

Still from Amber Hsu's The Match Girl

The Break is a collaboration between BBC Taster, BBC Writersroom and BBC Drama Production to make five original short monologues for online, written by up-and-coming BAME writing talent from across the UK. Each short consists of a standalone, contemporary individual monologue. Here, producer and editor Rachelle Constant explains the process.

Having already produced a successful short film through Film London and the BFI NET.WORK, I was eager to work with new writers at the BBC beyond script development. Many writers get stuck in ‘development hell’ pitching, writing, re-writing, and rarely get the opportunity to see a project through to production. You learn so much through the process, and so getting something into production whether a short film or theatre play, is a wonderful learning curve.

I've always wanted to produce short form content using new, emerging talent and help vocalise fresh voices. It seemed inevitable that the BBC Writersroom and BBC Drama Production would collaborate to make a series of short films spotlighting original talent and bringing diverse perspectives to our audiences.

It was a perfect storm. My brilliant colleague, Abigail Gonda, Development Producer for the Writersroom was a huge driving force in the project, fuelling the idea of creating a series of contemporary monologues similar to Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. We pitched the idea to BBC Taster (the new BBC online experimental platform) who loved it. They were keen to support and help bring this project to production, targeting 18-30-year-olds.

I was particularly interested in the increasingly growing trend (especially amongst young viewers) to watch content online and understand how we can capitalise on the increased consumption of short-form content. With BBC Three's unprecedented move to be completely online, I wanted to get experience in creating compelling online content.

Still from Rena Annobil's Tying the Knot

I particularly wanted to work with up-and-coming BAME talent new to the screen. I selected 12 writers, mainly from theatre, who were invited to a one-day workshop which included sessions and talks about short form content, storytelling and current Taster projects. I came up with the theme The Break to help bind these shorts together and give the writers a starting point. The 12 writers had to pitch their short monologue on this theme and eight were chosen to develop their ideas further.

Still from Sabrina Mahfouz's - Breaking the Code

We were really fortunate to have Holby City and EastEnders support this project, allowing us to use their studios, sets and props during production. We took the eight writers to Elstree to look at the sets available to them, it gave the writers the opportunity to visualize their characters and their individual monologues into a tangible reality. I, along with my exec producers, read all the pitches and after much deliberating, chose the five writers to take through to production. It was a difficult decision as many of the pitches would have been incredible monologues to develop further.

Still from Charlene James' System/Cycle

With any low-budget production, you experience your fair share of stress when managing. The week before production must have been one of the most challenging weeks of my career. I recall having a telephone conversation with one of my execs, telling her not to worry that we didn’t have a shooting schedule or cast list yet, despite being three days away from filming! I told myself everything would fall into place (it always does), but on that overcast day at Elstree, it was difficult to see the forest for the trees.

We hadn’t filled a few roles for key crew, cast were yet to be confirmed, we were scrambling to get last-minute props; making script changes to accommodate our budget and production constraints, the list was endless. I left Elstree Studios that day, like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, in absolute denial. The powers above must have heard my cries that night, because the next day couldn’t have gone any better. We started to get cast and crew confirmations through and even had a workable shooting schedule.

Still from Inua Ellams' Swipe Slow

I definitely couldn’t have managed without our wonderful production team. Everyone went above and beyond the ask. We had a fantastic casting department headed by Julia Crampsie. I was delighted with our cast, not only because they are a hugely talented bunch, but all genuinely lovely and brought something special to each piece. Rapper, Harley Sylvester (of Rizzle Kicks) was a brilliant addition, and it was exciting to see new acting talent in the spotlight.

The opportunity to produce The Break has been incredible. By showcasing diverse writers with a strong, unique voice who have yet to write for the screen, BBC Taster is proving the perfect platform for their creative work. This digital platform enables the work of these amazing writers to be seen and shared via Social Media with just a click. The Break allows the audience into intimate, humorous and vulnerable narratives and with BAFTA Breakthrough Brit director Zam Salim at the helm, the shorts have become authentic heart-felt vignettes of the ties that bind, and the ties that break.

Rachelle Constant is BBC TV Drama Development Editor and Producer for The Break

Read also The Break - five original short monologues
Visit BBC Taster to find out more and watch The Break (available from 29 January 2016)

Introducing the Home Front Story Explorer

2015-06-15T11:00:25+00:00

Jessica Dromgoole is Editor of Home Front, Radio 4's historical drama which spans the Great War. Here she explains how the programme is being used to launch the Home Front Story Explorer, an experimental online project on BBC Taster.

Home Front is a daily Radio 4 drama with a difference. It is a pithy and – I hope – delightful moment in a listener’s day. Each episode is set exactly one hundred years prior to broadcast, telling one fictional character’s story from that day with some genuine history thrown in too. Five characters’ stories are shared from Monday to Friday each week, with the collective played out each Friday evening as an omnibus.

Following the programme’s launch in August 2014, Paul Donovan of the Sunday Times wrote “Home Front is a poignant, quietly compulsive portrait of ordinary life a century ago, at once completely different and wholly recognisable”. We’re very proud of that, and what we’ve achieved with this programme so far, and hope to continue entertaining and educating our audience as the seasons pass.

Currently in Season 4, the project is planned to last 15 Seasons, a total of 600 episodes spanning the entire war, beginning on 4 August 1914 and ending on 9 November in 1918. We hope the sum of this work will be a partial account of ordinary people’s fortunes during the Great War.

Whilst the ambition is for the drama to feel organic; there are also strict timings to adhere to.

Each season is set in one place, and explores a different theme of the Great War. So far we have had the outbreak of war, the devastating slump in recruitment and the swathing industrial changes which followed. The current season touches upon profiteering and we’re currently working on Season 5, which charts the rise in spiritualism, and planning Season 6, looking at casualties and nursing.

I’ll forgive you if you haven’t quite kept up, but you can begin to get a sense of how big this project is.

Now consider staying on top of the family trees of EastEnders, or the last time there was a farming scandal in The Archers… Step forward BBC Research & Development (R&D).

Tracking information for programme makers has been an ongoing mission for the BBC Research and Development team. We were more than happy to be used as a guinea pig when they invited us to participate in an experimental online project which could not only go on to aid programme makers across the BBC, but also create something beautiful for Home Front listeners to delve in to.

Part of the Home Front Story Explorer homepage on BBC Taster

Via the Home Front Story Explorer our regular listeners, and we hope new listeners, can navigate their own way through the fortunes of characters, locations, storylines, and national, international and local history in multiple dimensions.

Whether you’re most interested in one character’s progress through the war, a location that you may know, or a particular narrative, now you can trace their stories like threads pulled from the fabric of the whole.

With illustrations by Ivan Allen, and text by journalist Nick Curtis, it’s easy to click through the progress of the Home Front narrative and listen only to the scenes that appeal. Links to small BBC features and blogs mean that the relevant historical research is also there at your fingertips.

The Home Front Story Explorer is an example of the work BBC R&D are doing to explore new experiences that become possible as programmes are increasingly delivered over the internet.

For us it’s an incredible resource for our writers. It’s more than just an easy reference to the story that’s gone before, with every detail easy to locate. It’s the mulch from which new stories can grow, and an inspiration to keep Home Front pithy and delightful. We hope our listeners enjoy using it as much as we do.

Jessica Dromgoole is Editor of Home Front

Home Front Story Explorer can be found on BBC Taster.
Home Front is broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 12.04pm Monday to Friday, and episodes are available to listen again on BBC iPlayer.

What's on the menu? BBC Taster explained

2015-01-30T09:48:40+00:00

As Creative Director in BBC TV Production, I take the lead on digital development projects as varied as establishing the new Digital Innovation Unit in Birmingham, to big campaigns and events like Comic Relief and, launched this week, BBC Taster. As BBC Taster is new, I wanted to use this to post to explain what it is, why we think it’s important, and to run through some of the things we’re experimenting with which you can test out for us. For those looking for more insight into how we made Taster happen technically, Adrian Woolard, the technical lead from BBC Future Media will be posting about the subject on the BBC Internet Blog.

You may have seen some articles this week describing the likes of Idris Elba, Lena Dunham & Simon Reeve as being ‘beta tested’ by the BBC – an opportunity for you to get early access to projects in order to help our developers sort issues with bugs, code and such like. Equating these A-listers with games like Minecraft might sound a little odd, but bear with me. The testing of new ideas is nothing new to the BBC: I’ve piloted a fair few radio and TV shows which never saw the light of day. On Monday though, we launched BBC Taster and for the first time put some of our prototyping into the public eye. BBC Taster is a place for us to try out new ways of telling stories, develop exciting new talent and put nascent technology through its paces.

We already have a mix of content specifically developed to explore new storytelling opportunities. One of our early areas of focus is around interactive video. Idris Elba’s Story of Now which we released today is a 20-part interactive series that explores some of the fundamental questions about the human condition. We've also developed interactive videos that let you decide what subjects Lena Dunham & Jennifer Saunders talk about in an intimate interview, take you backstage at the hottest hip hop gig of last year and give you your own private view of the Tate's Turner exhibition. We're also giving new talent like poet Hollie McNish, comedians The Noise Next Door and street chef John Quilter their first outing with the BBC. We are even unlocking our news archive and working how to make it relevant to you, all over again.

And we’re not just sharing these new ideas, with you, we want you to rate them and give us valuable feedback on experimental stuff we might previously have kept behind closed doors. People seem to have responded really well to this, and as they tell their friends and colleagues on social media I’ve seen it called anything from a ‘digital sandbox’ to a ‘conceptual beauty contest’. I’m not so sure that’s how I’d describe it, but Taster is exciting. It’s also unchartered territory for the BBC. It’s important too because in a world of Netflix, Buzzfeed, Instagram, Snapchat et al, there are now new technologies, new methods of distribution and newer ways to consume media that have caught the attention of our audiences. They are hopping from screen to screen and we need to keep up.

This is only the first release of Taster. Over the coming weeks BBC R&D, BBC Entertainment, Radio 1, The BBC Natural History Unit and the BBC Future Media Connected Studio team all have projects they are getting ready to test. There's interest in this project from right across the BBC because of the exciting opportunities it offers storytellers.

As a programme maker what excites me so much about Taster is the way we’re experimenting beyond the linear TV experience. It's about us having a more direct relationship with our audience and a changing relationship that lets us build communities of interest around what we make. If we get it right, Taster should be the place where we can be brave and develop everything from new TV formats, performers and writers, to apps and how we recommend content to you.

CBBC Controller Cheryl Taylor told me when we both used to work in Comedy together "you've got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince Charming", whatever you do in this organisation, hits are hard to come by. To know what to make and what our audiences want from us in fast changing world we need to kiss a lot more frogs. Welcome to our new pond.

Will Saunders is a Creative Director in BBC TV Production & the Editorial Lead for BBC Taster.

Take a look at the BBC Taster website.
Read a press release about Idris Elba's Story of Now.