Tim Key (Series Producer, 'The Bill')
ITV police drama The Bill makes its highly-anticipated move to its new 9pm home on Thursday, July 23 following a complete channel overhaul. As part of the relaunch, producers have revamped the theme music and credits, introduced a specially-composed score for the episodes and have re-focused the show on character-driven stories. Last week, DS caught up with the show's series producer Tim Key to chat about the origins of the drama's facelift, the process its been through, what viewers can expect from the 9pm episodes and his thoughts on Graham Cole's departure.
How did the reinvention of The Bill come about?
"It came about partly because of the way the industry is at the moment. Everywhere is having to look at its schedule and budget so much more tightly. ITV in particular was looking at its schedule very carefully and because it had so many commitments - for example to the football - that meant that the show was being moved out of slot quite often. [ITV] felt that the show was at a particularly strong point where they wanted to be able to guarantee it a place in the schedule rather than having to move it around and we were constantly falling victim to event programming like I'm a Celebrity.... or awards shows or to the football, so that was the first part of it.
"Then, obviously, I think there's no secret that the financial world is very different now and therefore [all productions] were looking at their budgets and ITV's drama budget in particular was under a lot of review, so it was about getting the maximum impact for the available money. When we're in an environment where other shows haven't made it - there are some quite high profile shows that were cancelled - the fact that the channel felt confident that we had a show that was working so well at eight that they could see it working well at nine was very heartening for us and very exciting. So that was the initial thinking behind it, but then there was a creative aspect which enabled us to push further and tell more stories of the kind that were working best at eight o'clock."
What have you had to do to enable you to make the move?
"We've had to do a lot of things and some of the things have been exciting and positive and some of the things have been rather sad and less positive. Halving the output of the show from 96 episodes a year to 52 has meant looking at the salaries of the cast and saying goodbye to some people who we had enormous respect for and likewise to the crew and some of the personnel at our base in Merton, so that side of it has been very difficult.
"Then we've had to go on a creative journey to learn exactly what nine o'clock drama means and how the Bill needs to change to sit comfortably at that time. We've had to embrace a load of technical changes - we've gone to HD and we realised quite early in the process there isn't a single nine o'clock drama that doesn't have music. So we made the decision very early on that we were going to score the show.
"The biggest change really is to know how to respect the heritage of the show but also how to approach it as if it was a brand new show. The question we've always been asking is: 'If this was brand new and starting now in 2009, would we watch this show?' We can't rely on the fact that it's been around forever and people will watch it - that actually works against us as much as it works for us, so we respect our history and we respect the fans who have always watched the show. We're confident that there will be enough in the new show - we haven't changed what the show is about - it's still about the police, it's still about putting on a uniform and being a hero and an everyday person taking on those challenges - but at the same time, it will feel very different and hopefully our loyal fans will be excited by those changes and come with us on that journey. At the same time, we'll appeal to people who have either never watched the show or who used to watch it and have stopped watching it."
Who's composed the score?
"It's a composer called Samuel Sim who our company had worked with a few times before. He's a very young but very experienced composer. We needed to find somebody with a very modern sensibility but could respect the heritage of the show. Someone who understood nine o'clock drama but could also work to the deadlines we have. There's no other show doing what we're doing. There's nothing else on all year round, so he has to be able to turn stuff round very quickly. He was recommended to me and I met with him and knew immediately that I would get on well with him.
"Then the first time the music arrived - the first episode - I held back from listening to it until we'd got it cut to the pictures and we sat down and watched it in the dub suite and went 'this guy's amazing, this is going to be fine!' It's strange because when you hear that they're putting music on The Bill, you can't help but go 'I'm worried about that!' But I really believe that it doesn't seem at all out of place and it's a compliment to his music that you almost don't notice it - it almost seems completely normal and correct that it should be there."
What kind of storylines can we expect when the show moves to once a week in a 9pm timeslot?
"This is part of the process of working out what makes a nine o'clock drama. The answer in a lot of things is to go back to the core of what the show is about and the show is about police - normal people doing an extraordinary job. We don't believe that our show is about sensationalism, we don't believe it is about scandal - although there will be elements of our stories that might look at areas where the police cross a line. We decided very early on that the show at nine o'clock is about character, it's about intensity of emotion and it's about going on a journey with the police, exploring the reasons why crimes happen. We're not saying it's a completely new show - a lot of it is what The Bill did all along - we're just re-focusing on what it was.
"When you say nine o'clock, does that mean swearing? Violence? Sex? We're not going to do all of that. We're still a show that the family can watch. We may be able to go a little darker at times, we might be able to push the boundaries a little more but we would always do that when we felt it was justified. So we're not going to be swearing [all of the time] - there's not going to be a sudden change. The idea that we're sexing it up and doing all these things is not the case - it's about integrity and that's what we're really concentrating on."
There's a smattering of swearing at the end of the first episode...
"There's a tiny little bit - somebody says someone's "pissed". But then that comes down to a definition of what you believe - at what point is it swearing?"
Then afterwards he says "b**tard, b**tard..."
"The guy's very drunk and we felt like in that instance we've earned the right to do it. It feels real that a drunk angry man would swear a little bit but in that case, with that story, we earned it and it's explored again in the next episode - there's no swearing in that episode at all.
"There were certain words that we were allowed to say at eight o'clock but chose never to use. I think that by five to ten at night, people will accept swearing a little bit more but there's no plan to push the swearing side of it at all. I think that's more of a debate about what is bad language in society - is saying "he's pissed" the same as saying "why don't you go f**k yourself"? I think those are two very different things."
And there's a fresh new look to the titles, too?
"It's a huge thing but we have to make the statement very clearly that it's a new show... For us, to tune into a new show and then just be given the old theme tune doesn't tell you things have changed. We felt that the theme tune has been iconic for a very long time and has been through every possible incarnation and remix that it was time to do something new.
"But what I liked - I've got a bit of a musical background so I've worked very hard on this - the classic theme tune is hinted at in the new one. There are two little motifs from the theme tune that some people will pick up on, but a lot of people won't. It's a new piece of music, but if you know The Bill theme tune - especially in the end credits - you will hear a bit of the old Bill theme in there. It's very subtle and it's us saying we respect [where we've come from].
"Likewise with the walking feet credits, they were iconic titles and summed up what the show was about - it was about the police walking the streets of London. We live in a slightly different age now so what the credits have been designed to do is take the police on a journey through London. Instead of the walking feet you've got a lone police car driving through the streets of London. We hired a helicopter and we went out and shot footage with our police car. There's a beautiful shot at the end that just pulls back from the roof of our police car and slowly reveals London before you. By the time you get to the end of the end credits you've got this shot of what the show's all about which is our police patrolling London.
"It had to be something new and something different. The eight o'clock title sequence is very pacey and a bit urgent and we want to be a little more thought-provoking so there's a slightly mellower and intriguing feel to the new ones. "
Are there any topics you will be exploring that you think might shock people?
"We're not setting out to shock people, we're exploring topics that the show has always explored but we're just able to look at them in a slightly more detailed way. The first two episodes look at issues to do with race and knife crime. We want to explore those things that people can relate to - that people see in their real lives. So a discussion of race and the way that the police perceive race is interesting. We've got stories about child abuse which are fairly harrowing but there's a real integrity to them. Again not at all shocking and very tastefully done, but the show has always done those things."
Why did you decide to drop the serial format and instead change to a mix of standalone episodes and multi-part storylines?
"That's a journey we've been going backwards and forwards with at eight and we're looking at again at nine. The truth is that it's down to the way that people watch TV. For us, it's a really hard balance to get right between giving people an hour of drama that they can watch and not have to have seen the one before. We're not The Wire because if you miss episodes one to three of The Wire and tune in to episode four, you're not going to know what's going on. We're The Bill and therefore we want to make sure that if people didn't see the last week's episode, they can still come and watch it.
"We don't want to take it down a soapy route where it becomes more about people's private lives then it does about their work. At the same time, though, we do have serial stories in the mix. We have state of play stories, we have relationship stories - although they're more to do with friendships and work relationships than romantic ones. There's a little hint of that as well at one stage, though. There's still a serial element to what we do, but it's very hard to get that balance right."
Are there any more characters departing? And will we be seeing any new characters?
"The thing about saying goodbye to people is one - it's horrible and is taken very seriously - and two - in most cases, we looked at people's contracts that were up for renewal and saying, 'Do we renew these contracts or not?' It's not a case of axing people at all. The fact is, you simply cannot move forward to a one-a-week show with a cast the size we had. You have to choose your focus of the show and then what characters you need within that mix. At the moment, there are no plans to lose anyone else, other than the fact we have to continually look at the size of our cast. We made some decisions that have been fairly well publicised - and I think Digital Spy published one of them before anyone else! – and there's bound to be a reaction to some of them.
"You have to hold your nerve and make the decisions for the right reasons. We can't tell stories with everyone, so we need to make sure the cast is the right size to give the audience a strong group of characters every episode and to be able to play stories with those who are there. We will continue to look at it and we listen to what the audience has to say, but we also have to go with our belief about the direction that the show's moving in."
You mentioned that you listen to the audience's reaction - will Graham Cole be returning as Tony?
"The thing with Tony is that we knew it would be a very difficult move for a lot of people. We are hugely respectful of Graham and he's one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. We have every respect for his character, too. We felt that we'd taken the character as far as we could for the time being and therefore we're resting Tony Stamp. But we're not killing him and we're on very good terms with Graham and we're talking to him [at the moment]. He hasn't finished filming with us yet and he has some really nice material to take Tony out with.
"The door will be open and we'll continue to talk with him beyond his exit. He's been a great ambassador for the show, but that comes back to what I was saying at the start - you have to look at the bigger picture."
And also on the cards...
§ 'The Show of Force' is a really big episode. There's a huge uniform operation to shutdown an entire area of London, which is really cool.
§ There's a load of great stuff with Smithy and Stone, which spins.
§ We've already started taking Smithy in a slightly different direction by the end of the conviction story and we really push that, so Smithy's got a great arc coming up.
§ Neil's going to get challenged quite significantly, too...
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/a1...-the-bill.html
