Peaky Blinders: The producer and director of photography

The Shelbys are back! The third series of the hit show, Peaky Blinders, has returned to our screens with a new director, Tim Mielants.

Tim is a huge “fan boy” of the show says series producer Simon Maloney, which is something that helped the pair bond easily and build an invaluable producer/director relationship.

In this week’s podcast the BBC Academy’s Roxy Ebrahim-Khan speaks to Simon as well as the show’s BAFTA award-winning director of photography Laurie Rose. Simon says he’s got “peaky blood”, meaning he’s worked on the previous series (as a first assistant director specifically); he tells us how he found producing the show for the first time and how he dealt with the head shift.

Simon says as a producer “you manage the shoot from a distance” so work closely with a lot of people, including all the heads of departments, secretaries, runners, but also people outside of the production team. So forging great working relationships and having excellent communication skills are paramount. Whereas as a first assistant director, you manage the shoot from the floor, constantly talking to a lot of the production crew, so some of the skills are transferrable and made his first time producing a bit easier.

What’s a DoP, you might ask? That’s the first thing Laurie explains in the second interview of the podcast, detailing exactly what his role is and how it fits into the production. It can be a challenge coming onto a show a few series down the line, especially one like Peaky when it already has an established and very distinctive look. Laurie discusses how he put his stamp on it.

We cover Laurie’s route to becoming a DoP and some of his other work, including London Spy (which won him a BAFTA), Friday Night Dinner, Him & Her and The Job Lot. And what if you fancy doing Laurie’s job yourself? Laurie dishes out some great advice and tips.