Phone call to production company primary production research

Phone Call to Clerkenwell Films (Petra Fried, executive producer, Misfits)

OK firstly, when making your programmes, what specific measures to ensure that it appeals to the target audience?

•  We just try to make something that is good instead of something that just appeals to a certain audience. 
• When we first made the show we didn't consider a certain audience, we just aimed for people aged 16-34. E4 asked us to produce another drama for them that would go alongside Skins, but something that was different from Skins, something that dealt with issues that where different from relationships. 
• E4 asked for something more Working class. Whilst they wanted something different from Skins, they still wanted something that was funny, dramatic and real.

Secondly, what do you take into consideration when choosing your characters costumes, personalities etc?

•  Try to make the characters feel real. 
• Even though we give the characters superpowers, we give them a power that reflects their personality in some way.
•  Try to reflect the characters personality in their costume aswell, we try to make each characters outfit distinctive.

 What factors do you take into account when choosing the set for your programme?

• We aim for a location to be pre-synced. Because Misfits is a low budget, we have to make it affordable. That's why we use the community centre, because it's a pre-synced location so as such its a lot cheaper. 
• We shoot most of the programme on that one location, in the community centre. Sometimes we use other sets like flats. 
• We use a set for two effects, heightened and realistic. Ee obviously use realistic to make the show seem more real, and those kind of sets are the communtiy centre or someones flat. The heightened sets we use, are things like superhoodies lair, which are more over the top, usually used for dramatic effect.

How long do you spend  training your crew ?

• We sometimes offer work placements and some training, but we don't train our crew very often, rather we look for previous work that is impressive.
• We have used inexperienced directors on Misfits, but when using someone who has little experience  we often surround them with people who have a lot of experience