Tuesday, December 01, 2015

A Conversation with Borgen Producer Camilla Hammerich

Omnimystery News: Author Interview with Camilla Hammerich

We are delighted to welcome television producer Camilla Hammerich to Omnimystery News today.

Camilla was the Executive Producer of the Danish political thriller Borgen over its three year series run, and has now written a book titled The Borgen Experience (Arrow Films; October 2015 trade paperback). She shares with us some of the background to the book and what life was like on the set of the series.

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Omnimystery News: Borgen ended its series run in early 2013. Why did you decide to write this book now?

Camilla Hammerich
Photo provided courtesy of
Camilla Hammerich; Photo credit Anne Mie Dreves.

Camilla Hammerich: There were two reasons. One was professional the other was personal. When we completed the last episode of Borgen I was close to a burnout. And yet I was of course thrilled that the series had gained so much attention in Denmark as well as abroad. It took six very intense years to create Borgen, during which we made 30 hours of fiction, which is the content of almost 20 feature films. Our task was to fulfil our promise of creating a series that would tackle a seemingly elitist topic such as coalition politics and at the same time gain as many viewers as a fifth of the population. Moreover, as always with Danish broadcaster DR's fiction we had to inspire debate, and yet avoid political favouritism. For six years I had been in charge of a team of almost 500 people. I needed to do something completely different with my time for a while. I needed to do something, which did not involve myriads of others.

At the time, Borgen had become internationally known, and journalists from all over the world visited us. They asked us about the secret behind the success of Danish TV drama. How could a country the size of Denmark with 6 million inhabitants produce series like The Killing and Borgen in a peculiar language — and travel to all the continents of the world? So I thought that if I wrote a book about the creation of Borgen from the series' beginning to its completion then maybe I could explain how we create TV fiction in Denmark and thereby hope to reveal part of this so-called secret behind its current success. For me personally, writing the book was a way to deal with the pressure of the process. It has served as a kind of therapy for me. My hope is that the book will inspire others who work with creative processes.

OMN: Will fans of the series be surprised by any particular revelations in the book?

CH: Readers may be surprised at the sheer magnitude of building a universe for an ambitious drama series like this from scratch. Would you believe that we spent more than a year identifying and distilling the premise, the DNA, of the series, which is the one sentence, we built everything else around? It sounded: "Is it possible to maintain power and stay true to yourself?" A simple task can take ages. We had one guy spend four weeks in visual effects putting leaves on naked trees at the estate, where Birgitte Nyborg and her family takes a summer vacation. This was for a pan of 20 seconds! Many difficult challenges present themselves constantly when creating a drama series! How does one navigate, when the studio-ceiling falls down during a shoot? Or when a star shows up on set with a broken leg, like Pilou Asbæk did, when playing Kasper in episode 18, because he had played football on AstroTurf in boxing shoes on the weekend? Also, I believe it may surprise readers how difficult it can be for a producer, when a series is nominated for major awards such as Prix Italia or the BAFTA. When the initial euphoria pass, the problems line up, because nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to miss an opportunity of this kind to promote their careers. In a situation like this the producer needs to make tough choices about who can attend and who cannot attend the event.

OMN: What was it like going from being a producer to writing a book? Are there any skills that transferred from one to the other?

CH: There is a big difference between the work of a producer and that of writer. At first, I didn't think it would be difficult to change into my new role. I just felt like the company of my computer and I enjoyed the silence of my office. I had had it with people and decision-making. I took pleasure in the fact that nobody expected anything from me. Three months later, it got kind of lonely. At the time, I actually felt that I had written my way through the experience, but of course I was far from. Now it became challenging. I missed having company and my colleagues to counterpart ideas and thoughts. I became well aware that I had a long way to go. Luckily, I allied myself with an editor with whom I could meet a couple of times a month and who could get me feedback. Otherwise I would have gone crazy. Oftentimes I was annoyed with the notes, I got, which always sounded "rewrite, rewrite, rewrite". Which is what I usually tell writers all the time. This was a taste of my own medicine, haha. The writing process has given me an enormous respect for both scriptwriters and novelists. I hope that it will make me a better producer in the future, because it gave me a deeper understanding about the writing process and what it demands in terms of equally support and constructive criticism.

OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process. And how did you go about researching some of the details?

CH: I gave myself a set of rules. At first, I just started writing. It quickly became clear that the book should have a chronology according to the natural phases, which the development of TV series goes through. I wanted to be loyal to the process and thought I had to write about every single day and every single person who set foot on the set of Borgen. But since it took six years to produce 30 episodes and almost 500 people were involved, I realised it would make it a very long, very boring book. I decided that every story, I told, should teach the reader something generic about creating TV fiction. I worked with inspiration from the storytelling of fiction in that I established a dramatic drive by posing a question in the prologue, which was to be answered in the conclusion. This question was: "How did a television series about Danish coalition politics manage to go global?" I disciplined myself to only include chapters and content, which aimed to answer that question. I made another rule for myself that I could criticise systems, not people. The hard part about writing a book of this kind where I name people involved in the process was the awareness that they should be able to read it and feel they were treated with respect. I often wished, I were writing fiction. It was never my intention to write a gossip book. It was my intention to write an entertaining book, which depicts the process behind a popular drama series. Borgen is just the case example.

When it comes to research I was lucky that I never delete my emails. That turned out to be an enormous help when writing the book. I used emails to recall specifics from the process and in order to reconstruct a sort of logbook. I didn't actually keep a diary when making Borgen. However, the book is written as a diary, which is also why I found it relevant to write it in the present tense. Borgen's researcher helped me to get the facts right because the book refers so many details. I was allowed to use original documents from the writer, director, composer and a variety of others. These are included in the book in their original form. The book features texts sent back and forth between the head writer and myself, where we argue about deadlines. It showcases deleted scenes from the script and details about the choice of the art works on the walls of the set. I wanted it to be a visual treat and have an abundance of photographs. Because I decided to write the book before wrapping the third season, I was able to hire a photographer to shoot behind the scene. I could show slices of life on set, you don't normally get to see.

OMN: What inspired you to begin working in television?

CH: When I was 15 I had a small part in a Danish TV drama classics Matador, where I played the sulking teenage daughter of a main character. I thought I wanted to be an actress. But I didn't like to be in front of the camera. I found it kind of embarrassing. On the other hand, I noticed how exciting jobs the people behind the cameras seemed to have. Intuitively, I knew I had to find a profession behind the camera and that I would probably want to be producer. I had no clue what a producer was, but had figured as much as the fact that they were the ones in charge! At 23 I got a trainee position as a producer's assistant at DR and I never left television again.

OMN: What advice would you give to anyone looking to follow in your footsteps?

CH: Find your own style. As a producer you need to put your own personality to good use. Don't imitate others. As for me, I'm not afraid of putting myself in the position of the audience and ask the so-called stupid questions. So, when you read scripts, listen to your intuition more than your intellect. If you cannot seem to focus on the content, it's probably not you. Probably, it's the script, which is boring.

OMN: What was the most memorable day you had on the set of Borgen?

CH: No doubt it's the day when we had to shoot a scene in an Afghan military camp. It was the opening of the first episode of season 2. Because we had spent way too much money on season one, we couldn't shoot it abroad. Instead we built a camp on an empty lot in Copenhagen ten minutes from the studio. We had spent months establishing a relation to the Danish army, which were to lend us equipment and military vehicles. The only thing was they could not completely guarantee us the vehicles on that particular day of shooting, because they might be needed for a drill. We had a huge number of actors and extras lined up. It was nerve-wracking. The director and the photographer had spent most of their preparation time planning this shoot in order for it to look like Afghanistan. Their only concern was the risk of rain. The evening before the shoot the army vehicles arrived, and everyone was relieved. On the morning of the shoot, the line producer wakes me up early. She says it's been pouring down all night, and it's still raining. Our lot is a pool of mud. The director wants to postpone but we are afraid we may never get the vehicles again. I need to make a fast producer's decision. I say: "If it rains in Afghanistan when Birgitte Nyborg visits, then it rains in Afghanistan. We shoot." I arrive at the lot and the cast and crew are in knee-high mud. Within an hour the production designer manages to get his hands on 10 tons of rubble. We use the rubble to cover the lot, you know, just to avoid falling into the mud. We shoot between showers and take care of the rest with visual effects in postproduction. When airing, the scene looks like a sunny, dry day in the Afghan desert.

OMN: How much influence did you have over the story direction that Borgen took?

CH: As producer I take part in the script development. I read and give notes to the different drafts. On Borgen we had up to 7 rewrites of each episode screenplay. If there is anything I don't like or if I have a good idea, I tell the writers. Sometimes they listen. Sometimes they don't. Adam Price was the series' creator and head writer. Jeppe Gjervig Gram and Tobias Lindholm were the primary episode writers and primary co-contributors to the story line. I was the only woman in the writer's room, so without taking credit for the writing, I like to think I have lent a woman's perspective to the story. Moreover, Adam Price and I decided who directed, photographed, edited, composed and so on. So yes, I have had quite a significant influence on the creative content of the series.

OMN: What do you think made the show so successful?

CH: The rise to power of a country's first female prime minister is fundamentally a good story. It launches a range of dilemmas. A woman makes her entrance in the centre of power and needs to work in an arena, which has only ever seen a man in the lead. This is fascinating material. The dilemma between the busy work life and the dream of the perfect private life is a story many people can identify with. And this mix of fascination and identification is balanced well in Borgen. However, when it became a global success, which none of us had seen coming, I think it was primarily because of the depiction of the Danish society. This is a country where top politicians ride their bikes to work without bodyguards and where professionals can bring their children to work when necessary. It's a country with a high degree of equality between the sexes. To many other nationalities Borgen represents a sort of dream vision for the future. Or at least, that's what people tell us, when we ask them, surprised about the sometimes crazy hype, the series has met. Another reason is the contemporary focus on the Nordic countries and the fact that Borgen came after The Killing, which obviously paved the way to the international arena for Danish TV drama.

OMN: Do you think if Borgen had been a novel rather than a TV drama, it would have touched a nerve in the same way, or is it very much about the visuals?

CH: We live in a golden era of drama series and I cannot imagine that Borgen would have had the same degree of attention if the story of Denmark's first female prime minister had come out as a novel. The story is created for television. We want to see, hear and feel Birgitte Nyborg.

OMN: Is that it now for Borgen? What is next for you?

CH: Borgen is over and done with. We have no plans to make more seasons. I know however that creator Adam Price and actor Sidse Babett Knudsen, who plays Birgitte Nyborg, joke about reuniting in 5 to 10 years in order to find out where Birgitte Nyborg will go, what she has done with her political life and what her place is in the circus arena of politics. But no concrete plans. However, I am producing a new DR series with Adam Price as head writer. It's called Rides Upon The Storm and deals with faith and religion and takes place in a Danish priest family. It premieres in Denmark in the Fall of 2017 and we start shooting in June. I'm ready to rewind the process I describe in The Borgen Experience and start all over again.

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The Borgen Experience by Camilla Hammerich

The Borgen Experience by Camilla Hammerich

Creating TV Drama the Danish Way

Publisher: Arrow Films

Amazon.com Print/Kindle Format(s)

How did an obscure Danish television series about coalition politics end up airing in 70 countries? In her book about the creating of Borgen, Executive Producer Camilla Hammerich gives us her answer to that question. For six years she had the overall responsibility of the production — and of the more than 500 people involved. The story describes the journey from the initial idea to accepting international awards for the completed series. Borgen was broadcast over three years and became so heated that the series came close to becoming a part of the political reality it sought to portray.

Camilla vividly communicates the many decisions on every level of the creative process that lie behind the big Nordic drama productions. How does one respond to becoming a topic of cultural debate even before the series premiere? React when the ceiling collapses into the studio? Deal with a lead actor turning up for work on the crutches? In many ways, The Borgen Experience may be regarded as a 'learning by doing' creative management textbook for working in a chaotic environment. It is like being there in person. I should know. I was there …

Adam Price, Head Writer, Borgen

The Borgen Experience by Camilla Hammerich

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