London's Burning, London's Burning

Since it's been a while since I reviewed something I enjoy watching I thought I'd choose a series that I find to be unique amongst British TV drama and provides some fast paced action, a believable sense of danger and characters who the audience can care for: London's Burning.

I am a fan of television shows about the fire brigade and portraying the dangerous job that they have to do, cope with and survive on a daily basis. Yet despite the potential for complex characters, showing how they cope with such a hard and dangerous job and action scenes that leave you guessing who will survive there haven't been many TV shows about the fire brigade, possibly because of the expense involved in creating fire scenes which are believable and TV networks seem to be wary of trying new ideas for fear they might fail.

London's Burning started life as a TV movie written by veteran British television and film writer Jack Rosenthal and airing in 1986. Set in the East end of London the movie focused on blue watch at the fictional Blackwall fire station and their exploits on and off duty. The movie was a hybrid of drama and black comedy, showing the real world issues that people faced at work during the 1980s, including racism between co-workers who in this case regularly need to trust one another with their lives, women being introduced into a previously male dominated environment (yes this was an issue at the time) and tensions on a council estate between gang members and men in uniforms. Through the film there are several emergencies, not just fires but other complicated and sometimes more bizarre circumstances, showing what the fire brigade have to deal with outside of leaping through fire making it seem like it could happen at any fire station in Britain, this along with some witty and funny (if not slightly racist) banter from the firemen further strengthen the realistic feel. The movie makes no attempt to soften the drama and lighten things up from reality; police are seen searching innocent people continuously, the racist banter between the token black fireman and the ladies man has no boundaries and the firemen don't always save everyone they set out to rescue. All this makes the film gritty and makes you think about all the people who do this daily, we take them for granted without realising all that they do. At the end of the film all the tension that has been building up on the council estate through the film rises to breaking point triggering a riot that puts blue watch in danger and *SPOILER ALERT* Claims one of their men, letting the film end on a sombre note yet showing that life continues whether people die or not.

However with all the pros come some cons. While the movie is still a good watch today it hasn't aged well at all and still feels VERY 1980s, with the racist comments made by some of the firemen, the now cliche plot line about a woman gaining respect amongst a world of burly men, the clothes worn and the fire engines are all outdated in this day and age, however it is hard for films to stand the test of time if they are trying to be realistic as the conventions and tropes associated with realism change with the times. The film also suffers from pacing problems, when the riot kicks off at the end of the film there is very little foreshadowing of what eventually happens outside of a few conflicts between residents and the police, making it almost come out of left field.
Despite the previously mentioned flaws the movie was successful enough for ITV to commission a spin off television series. This expanded on the characters introduced in the movie and inserted a few new ones, showing that some time had gone past between the the series and the movie (the first series aired two years after the movie in 1988). The emergencies were also back, looking just as realistic and dangerous as they did in the movie, the realism was still present as the firemen still don't save everyone they try to and the witty banter between the crew on station wasn't compromised.

As the series went on firefighters departed to be replaced with new ones, the show changed from VERY 80s to VERY 90s (still hasn't aged well when viewed today), the fires got bigger and more exciting and the characters became more developed. The only aspect of the show that I find a bit hard to believe (aside from the odd Backdraft style stunt) is the number of firefighters who end up dying on duty, over 14 years SEVEN firefighters from this ONE station died, this coupled with the amount of events that happen at Blackwall such as; bombs being found under the road outside, being given a helicopter, being considered for closure TWICE and a suspected NUCLEAR LEAK stretches ones suspension of disbelief to a degree.

The major cracks began to show during the later series from Series 10 onwards, budget cuts meant fewer fires and more personalised stories, while Series 12 was more of a throwback to the older series and introduced some enjoyable characters Series 14 was the one that killed it. Fewer emergencies than ever, the once very well done pyrotechnics were replaced with hideous CGI fire, predictable soap style storylines, unlikable characters and a disregard for realism which had been a core element of the series from the beginning meant this series was the last. Since 2002 there have been no new episodes.

This is a shame because handled with care and thought this series or one like it could once again find an audience and sucess. We can only hope.

Skills presented, project still to do

Yesterday we presented our Audio Skills project and I have to admit I don't think it went as well as it could have, for one the sound effects in retrospective didn't sound close to what they were supposed to sound like and although they sounded okay in the edit when heard through headphones, when heard through speakers they don't always sound as good. While I think the sounds could work in a film that was intentionally bad I don't think it is convincing enough to be taken seriously as what we aspired to, perhaps our ambitions were set unrealistically high for what was achievable with the available resources.

But as stated before I do think that the Sense of Space project is stronger than the skills exercise as in my opinion it is a unique take on the idea of a sense of space and will hopefully stand out from the other projects (just hope no one has done the same as us).

I think the recordings to say they were recorded very quickly are high quality and the mixing fits with the "interviews" and it captures the almost docudrama feel we were going for. There are problems however; the gun sound effect doesn't really sound like one (although this could leave it open to audience interpretation of what the event was, like it could have been someone being hit by a car) and I also wish that we could have interviewed more "people", although it may have put a strain on the time limit.

Audio Projects Update 12/12/2011

The sense of space project has changed from a simple background recording of a pub into a more narrative based project. Based on my original idea I posted about a while ago about people's response to an event in the same style as the audio documentary "Child of Arolyne".

In deciding what the "event" was going to be my partner (Bex Bell) and myself went through the usual BIG shockers when it comes to disaster-like events such as bomb attacks, fires, shootings and even off planet events (aliens). Before we settled on something that wasn't going to be too hard to achieve but was close enough to home and shocking enough to work: A shooting in a residential area, loosely basing it on a recent local news story (A man was shot dead in Pitsmoor)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-15511614

Splitting the recording of sounds we have compiled some "interviews" with "witnesses" to the shooting, the sounds of where they were and what they were doing at the time of the incident and how they reacted after it had happened, giving it a very faux-documentary feel and making it more interesting for the audience rather than just a random series of sound effects. I wish we had stuck with this idea from the start rather than going for the recently rejected idea as it would have given us more time to develop and refine it.

The other audio project (for Production Skills) I honestly don't feel is as strong as the Sense of Space. As I have to admit the recordings feel rushed and improvised at best and the atmosphere recordings aren't the best of quality, it doesn't help that whilst trying to edit we encountered exporting problems that don't render the applied effects (I'm sure we'll find a work around but it's just another frustration on the last leg).

One thing that I have learned from doing these projects is not to leave all the work to the last minute as it puts unecessary stress on those involved and makes the whole process less enjoyable.

Inspirations for Audio Project

Back when I was going to base my Sense of Space project on an off planet event one of my inspirations is the famous radio adaptation of 'War of the Worlds', during this controversial radio play which was considered so realistic at the time that many Americans actually believed they were under attack from martians there are several creative uses of sound effects to make an alien invasion sound convincing enough. The use of atmospheric sounds alongside the sound effects put in the context of a news broadcast create a feeling of realism that makes everything so much more believeable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egudvdwtDIg

Project Overhaul

Well, the Sense of Space project has had a HUGE change in the space of a couple of hours. Whilst trying to go with the idea of basing the recordings on a pub setting problems arose the second we stepped into the Student Union, although we tried to get some ambient sounds of a general pub location we encountered one fatal flaw: There was Lady GaGa music playing loudly in the background of everything we tried to record. For obvious reasons we can't uses this, after realising that every pub would have some sort of music playing we decided to scrap the idea.

Instead we have gone back to my original idea for the project: Having people's reaction to an event, after a quick discussion with Debbie we quickly planned the piece's structure and devised a script. We set out who would be recording what and now we're ready to get started (we won't be changing our idea again, hopefully)

Sense of Space: Update 4th December

Since I've had a recent meeting with Dom there will be some changes in how the project will end up.

Although we are sticking with our idea of setting the piece in a pub. But rather than having just the ambient noises for three minutes we have decided to add a narrative to it, still heard through the background and not in complete focus but still audible enough to register with the audience, this may only be a brief bit towards the end of the piece and may just involve someone entering the pub and in Clint Eastwood style, everyone goes quiet as the man walks up to the bar and gets a drink. This may be more developed in the final piece.

During the pub scenes we will also be adding people talking in the background; we will go into real pubs and ask certain people a couple of questions and put the most interesting answers into the piece as if you were evesdropping on someone else's conversation whilst sipping your pint.

We hope this will imply a sense of space without it feeling too narrative driven or documentary-esc.

Audio Exercise ideas sheet

Okay, so with another audio project on the horizon I've decided to make an ideas sheet for what the 'imaginary film's' plotline will consist of and some ideas for what sound effects we can try to make and where they belong in the film. I've yet to show this to my partner for this project, so again this may all change. This is actually an adaptation of the original idea I had for my Sense of Space project that we've got coming up, since I thought while the idea didn't fit the brief it did have potential and could be used elsewhere.