An IFTA-hosted industry event looking behind the scenes of BBC’s Victorian thriller ‘Ripper Street’ - which is filmed in Dublin but set in 19th century London - took place at the Light House cinema this week, attended by several key members of the production team who praised Irish cast and crew members.
BAFTA-winning director Neasa Hardiman hosted the evening, which placed a special focus on the Irish creative talent who worked on the series, which has sold to over 130 territories worldwide & is filmed exclusively in Dublin at locations such as Clancy Barracks.
Among those who attended were series creator Richard Warlow; producers Stephen Smallwood and Will Gould of Tiger Aspect Productions; Ed Guiney of Element Pictures; editor Una Ní Dhonghaile, production designer Mark Geraghty, locations manager Edmund Sampson; and VFX designer Ed Bruce from ScreenScene.
A highlight of the panel discussion was the reasoning behind Ireland’s selection as the production base for the series - which was nominated for five BAFTA awards for its first season.
Mr Smallwood said: ‘After looking a little at places I knew just wouldn’t work such as Hungary or Prague I got hold of the redoubtable location manager Edmund Sampson and asked him to line up a whole bunch of redundant barracks and other suitable locations for us to look at, and ended up at Clancy. The combination of 19th century buildings, office buildings where you could place the production base, parking space for 440 trucks & the sort of outside L-shape of the street where you could also house the interiors of the street relatively cheaply in the existing buildings was where I made my decision with a fairly emphatic confidence based upon really no knowledge whatsoever.’
Mr Gould elaborated on the decision from Tiger Aspect’s point of view.
‘It was quite daunting to see if it would really work & it absolutely did. But it was such a key decision and something that every time I watch the show I’m thankful they made that choice. I have to say the crew has been absolutely fantastic, across the board and have been so brilliant. It’s always been a pleasure to come out, some sets can be a bit of chore to visit but this one is always so pleasurable & also because the work is so fantastic. The only reason it looks as good as it does isn’t because of the budgets, it’s because of the people who work on it so we’re so grateful to have lucked out with it.’
‘Ripper Street’ season two is currently airing on BBC One on Monday nights at 9pm.
The trailer for season two can be viewed below:
