The production
of A FAMILY AT WAR
After 30-odd years
my memories are a bit hazy and I never kept a diary, so this is based on a
very few documents, an understanding of the production method and some guesswork. The
easiest way is to work backwards
The 52 episodes
of the series were broadcast on the ITV network between April 1970 and
February 1972. Each segment of 6, 7 or 13 episodes was shown on a weekly basis and there
were intervals in the schedule while the production team drew breath and the ITV network
decided how best to place the next series. I believe the first 13 episodes were scheduled in
consecutive weeks but, because each episode took at least two weeks to make, we had to
have more than half of them in the can before transmission could begin.
This two week production
schedule for each episode was based on a method which has been
abandoned now but was, in the early decades of TV drama, a most economical pattern. On the
morning of day 1 (which was usually a Wednesday) the cast assembled for a read-through of
the script and there was then a discussion between the writer, the director and producer about
the length of the piece and any necessary changes. That afternoon we would rehearse the
scenes to be filmed on location in the following two days. Then everybody had a weekend off.
The second week
was devoted to rehearsals for the studio scenes which made up the major
portion of the show. These took place in a large room where the ground plan of the sets was
marked out in adhesive tape, a different colour for each set. The furniture was rudimentary, the
props were laughable but by Thursday of that week the director and the cast were ready to
show the lighting director, technical supervisor and senior cameraman what they would have to
shoot on the following Tuesday.
Rehearsals on the
Friday of week 2 were devoted to fine tuning the acting performances of the
cast and making any minor changes deemed necessary at the technical run-through on the
previous day. After that the director completed his camera script which was typed by his
production assistant. Our studio would have been used for another programme on that Friday –
those sets were struck on Friday night and our sets put in their place. These were lit over the
weekend and sometimes we had a walk-through on Sunday to familiarise ourselves with the
actual sets. Then, we were ready for camera rehearsal on Monday morning.
This was the first
time that the rest of the camera crew, the sound crew, the vision mixer and
most of the technical staff had seen the show. So we would progress slowly through it, scene
by scene, until everyone knew what they had to do when the time for recording arrived on the
following day. At that time we recorded on videotape the whole piece from opening titles to
closing captions, playing in the film inserts and stopping only for the advertising breaks.
Mistakes could be edited out at a later stage but this was not popular. The aim was to make a
recorded programme on the same basis as a live transmission.
This method which
equates to the “principal photography” of a film showed a great saving in
costs. The four cameras, two sound booms and a large technical crew – not to mention a big
studio – were tied up for only two days and they cost a lot of money. The days of outside
rehearsal were very cheap by comparison. But this method of programme making involves
considerable compromise and eventually gave way to the making of drama all on film. It’s
interesting that John Finch, the creator of A Family at War, was also a pioneer of all-film drama
for television at around the same time. This method of telling a story on location with a film unit
shooting every day for twelve or more days is now the accepted pattern – it offers high quality
pictures, flexibility and a wide-ranging style. For a serial like Family in which the same sets
were used over and over again, the studio offered a budget economy. It also offered the
possibility of shooting a whole 50 minute programme in two days. A film unit seldom delivers
more than three or four minutes a day.
So you could say
that the 52 episodes of A Family at War, each of which took two weeks to
rehearse and shoot, were spread over two years of continuous work. In fact the pressure of
transmission and the need to have more than half the episodes ‘in hand’ before starting
a run,
dictated another economy. In order to get ahead John often devised stories which could be
made side-by-side with the cast split between the home front and one of the theatres of conflict
The work of rehearsal
and recording is, of course, only the end of the production process.
Before that could begin the man who created the series had to write a substantial number of
scripts, plan the storylines for those to follow and a commission a handful of others writers who
shared the burden. The producer, the series planner and the designer needed all this knowledge
in advance to organise their work. The casting department needed to know which characters
would appear in each episode in order to arrive at a system of guarantees on which the actors’
contracts were based.
So we are now looking
at 1969 – the year before transmission began – a crucial year for the
planning of the series. It is important to remember that this was a completely original piece of
writing, not based on an existing book which would have provided the outline of what was to
come. This was primary work for the medium, the first of the television novels and one on a
Dickensian scale. In that year we had to cast the main characters for something which would
certainly run a year, possibly two. That’s quite a responsibility because, as one of the directors
said, “Two years is a hell of a long time to be wrong!” It was thought wise to make a pilot
episode so that the production team and the company executives could judge how successful
our efforts in casting had been. In the event we scored quite highly, deciding to replace only
two actors in a cast of a dozen.
Over the two year
run the cast became household names. A particular favourite was Colin
Douglas who crowned his career as Edwin Ashton. We should never forget that the title of the
series has a double meaning and Edwin’s battles with his brother-in-law, played by John
McKelvey, were at the heart of the story. Colin Campbell and Coral Atkins who played David
and Sheila Ashton were also particular favourites and Coral was later the subject of a television
biography on account of her work with deprived children. Many of the cast of Coronation
Street made early appearances in Family: Julie Goodyear, Bryan Mosley, Bill Waddington,
Geoffrey Hinsliff and Barbara Knox among them. Kathy Staff went on to appear regularly in
The Last of the Summer Wine, Diana Davies in Emmerdale and Trevor Bowen who played
Tony Briggs became T R Bowen a successful writer for television. Family also launched the
career of two very well known actors: Barbara Flynn and John Nettles.
The Budget. I wish
I could offer more help on this but I really cannot remember what the figure
was. I only know that the budget was very tight and the administration of it an endless agony
for the heroic producer, Richard Doubleday. If a figure emerges, however, it must be treated
with caution for two reasons. First and most obvious is the inflation of all figures over a thirty
year period. Second is the fact that television budget methods have changed considerably. In
those days the producer was accountable for only the direct costs of the programme – the cast,
the sets and props, travel and subsistence – all big items which provided headache enough. The
indirect costs of resources – the crew, the studio, the management overhead – were dealt
with
separately. Later a system of total costing was introduced which included all these factors so,
of course, budgets had to increase. This was a two-edged sword: the cost of resources could
erode the money available for what was actually seen on the screen but the producer could
sometimes juggle one area of cost against another. The best and most revealing comment about
the budget of Family was Denis Forman’s, “It was the most cost effective television series
ever
made.”
Locations. Although
the series was set in Liverpool most of the home front exteriors were shot
in Manchester where Granada Television was based. Location scenes for the Spanish Civil
War were shot in Derbyshire and a freak snowfall had to be written into the script. The
Western Desert was re-created on the beaches of the Fylde Coast near Formby. Manchester’s
Central station, long closed by the time the series was made, was brought to life again with set
decoration, smoke and sound effects – but no trains.
Michael Cox October
2003
1. Sam
