[SOUND] With five Emmy Awards and wide spread acclaim for The Killing and
Borgen, the drama series from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation,
DR, have enjoyed remarkable success in the 2000's.
Here you see the so called DR Byen the DR town.
The building houses the in-house
production unit DR Fiction, which has produced
all long-running series for DR in the 2000's.
This is where series like Borgen was shot, using the studio facilities as well as
the many news room locations, which were
needed to make that particular story come alive.
The specific spaces for writing and
production are rarely granted much, much attention.
But creating the right kind of framework for production has actually
been an important part of the
reorganization of DR since the late 1990's.
When film director Rumle Hammerich took on the job as the head of
drama in 1994, the series from DR where not very successful with audiences.
He argued that DR would need to create Flagship Productions that could become an
important brand for DR and justify the
making of expensive drama productions to politicians,
as well as to the license fee paying audiences.
Part of the strategy of creating these kind of series.
Was to focus on the long running series
which won the audience awareness week after week.
Another part of the deliberate strategy to change the mode of production was
to get studios for DR Fiction, which up until then was renting film studios.
DR Fiction got studios of their own first in the
so-called TV town outside of Copenhagen, and later in the DR town from 2006.
However the DR turned out to be too small to house all productions so some like the
killing and the current DR series Arvingerne
The Legacy are still shot in the old facilities.
>> [FOREIGN]
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>> [FOREIGN] Part of the intention
of building studios was
to create what Hammerich
calls production hotels.
He argues that film-making and television production is all about communication.
You need to have people together in the same space, so
that ideas can emerge and be discussed outside of formalized meetings.
The idea of production hotels is still prevalent within DR, where DR Fiction
tries to gather people working on the same production in the same space.
Rather than having people spread out in
different departments depending on their professional role.
Both the building of studios and the idea of having production
hotels is generally granted an important role in the creation of what turned
out to be an impressive streak of Sunday night drama series in the 2000's
The production of series from DR has been marked by a combination of family and
crime series. After writing the popular series,
Taxa, for DR, head writer, Steve Stig Thorsboe and his
writing collaborator, Hanna Lundblad. Created the highly popular historical
series Kroniken Better Times.
>> [FOREIGN] [FOREIGN]
>> [FOREIGN] >> Kroniken took over where the
legendary
television
chronicle Matador left it's portrayal of Danish society
by following four young characters for 25 years, starting in 1949.
Two years after the story of Matador ended.
Several episodes of the series are still
among the most watched programming on Danish television.
Torsboe and Lundblad went on to create the so-called
depression comedy, Lykke, Happy Life, about the hardships
of an ambitious career woman in a Prozac-prone Denmark.
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Other popular family series have been Soren Sveistrups
relationship drama Nikolaj & Julie, which won an
Emmy in 2003, and the series, Summer on the lif of a doctor and his family.
Family series like these have been highly popular with Danish audiences,
but they have rarely found many viewers outside the Nordic countries.
This is different from the crime series. Writers Peter Thorsboe and
Maja Brostrom have created the three crime series Rejsholdet Unit One, Oernen, The
Eagle, and Livvagterne, The Protectors which have not only have been popular
with a national audiences But have all won an Emmy Award for
Best International Drama series, and found
appreciative audiences in, for instance, Germany.
As will be discussed in the next part of this lecture, the
crime fair has a become a special brand for the Scandinavian countries.
However, as a new development,Adam Prices political series
Bone, about a female politician becoming the Prime Minister of Denmark has
now also proven to travel. Which might point to the possibility of
other genres maybe being
able to
cross more borders in the years to come. >> [FOREIGN]
[FOREIGN]. >> Danish television drama in the
2000's has been marked by DR having a remarkable
domestic success with the high profile Sunday
night series. Other Nordic broadcasters have discussed
how to maybe copy the strategies behind the making of the DR series.
And maybe, and many industry dirates have focused on whether
there is a certain Danish recipe for producing television drama.
While almost all writers and producers working within DR
challenge the idea of thinking that certain success recipes
for drama exist, what has marked the past ten
years in DR Are certain managerial ideas of how
to create the best framework for making, making scripted fiction.
In 2003, then head of drama Ingolf Gabold and his
staff put down 15 so-called dogmas to guide in-house productions.
Among these dogmas are concepts of one
vision, double story telling, and cross over which
seem to have been influential in terms
of creating a common language for production as
well as certain ideas of what and how to produce.
The first dogma defines the concept of one vision.
Stating that the author should be the center
of attention all the way through the production stages.
The intention is to base series of original ideas
of writers who should feel a sense of ownership.
The concept of one vision partly grew out of research trips to the U.S.
in the 1990's.
Studying the production of what was perceived
as quality television drama at the time.
The Scandinavian film culture is traditionally marked by having the
directors in charge, often based on ideas of directors as "autuers."
The research in the US pointed to strong head
writers being in charge in the world of television drama.
Television has often been discussed as the" producers'
medium" But the concept of one vision
singles out the writer in the DR framework.
This focus on the writers has been imprudent
for the development of Danish series throughout the 2000's.
Not only by insisting on creating series based on original
ideas for television, and by granting the writers great artistic freedom.
But also by clearing communicating to everyone
around production that the writers are in charge.
The idea of one vision has been
accompanied by new structure for production, where
head writers normally collaborate with episode writers
when writing during the making of new series.
The series are shot in blocks of
normally two episodes Directed by different episode directors.
And while directors does come and go, the writers and
the DR producers are the steady people in the production framework.
The structure mirrors the workways in
the U.S. television industry and the concept
of one vision shares many similarities with
our much discussed role of the show runner.
The concept of one vision is often singled out
as incredibly important to this series coming from DR in
the 2000's however, two other important concepts from the
darkness are the ideas of double storytelling and cross over.
Double storytelling refers to a public service ambition.
To always aim for stories that no, not only build
on an entertaining plot, but also contain ethical and social connotations.
This is regarded as important to justify the
in house production of public service television drama.
However, the in house production should be marked by what is called crossover.
Referring to a crossover between the worlds of film and television.
According DR has continuously worked with talent
from the film industry since the late 1990's.
A fact which is often highlighted as an important
reason for a more cinematic feeling of the series.
DR has also a close collaboration with the
National Film School of Denmark in the past years.
To actively participate in the education of new television writers and producers.
Current head of drama Piv Bernth has
highlighted the so-called TV term at the film
school where writers and producers spend half a year
developing a potential series for DR as part of
the secret behind the recent success of Danish series.
The structure of the term has been copied at the film schools in Norway and Sweden.
Whereas the DR mode of production is now generally hailed as
an example of best practice, the focus on the high profile
ten episode drama series Has been at
the expense of nearly all other shangra's informants.
Since Lars von Trier revitalized danish television drama with
The Kingdom in 1994, the production of
mini series has all but disappeared as
has more experimental and avant garde productions.
One of the notable exceptions is Per Flys
a six episode series Forestillinger, Performances, telling the
same story around the rehearsal of a play at
a Copenhagen theater, though the eyes of six different
characters. >> [FOREIGN] [FOREIGN]
[FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN]
>> [FOREIGN]
According to the current head of fiction Nadia Klovedahl Reich
DR now intends to not only produce high profile
content like the forthcoming historical series, 1864, directed
by Ole Bornedal and externally produced by Miso Film.
But, to also move into the realm of more
everyday drama.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of the writers' rooms,
production hotels, and studios of the DR town in the years to come.
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