With its second season now airing on Ireland’s RTÉ One, the creator and the producer behind Irish comedy-drama The Dry each sat down at Dublin’s Storyhouse competition to offer attendees a masterclass in how they tried to seize audiences within the first 5 minutes of Season One.
The collection, which is written by Nancy Harris and produced by Element Pictures’ Emma Norton, follows Shiv Sheridan (Roisin Gallagher) as she returns to Dublin after years of partying in London. She tries to navigate a brand new section of her life however making an attempt to remain sober and being again together with her household shouldn’t be straightforward.
After exhibiting the viewers the primary couple of minutes of the present, each Harris and Norton mirrored on the craft of constructing an enormous opening scene that will preserve the viewers wanting extra whereas additionally introducing the characters.
“The challenge of that was to try and set up every single character,” mentioned Harris. “It’s not a one-character present, it’s a five-character present and it’s 5 POVs and also you’ve bought 5 minutes to arrange that she’s an alcoholic and make that humorous, to indicate who everyone is within the context of the household and to additionally present that there was a dying within the household however that’s not the dying that we see there. So, proper off the bat, that was the largest factor. We wanted the viewers to be asking questions.
Harris added that whereas The Dry has a “clear conceit”, the entire plot is generated from characters. “That’s why all the characters have to be clear and then conflicted, so we have to think they are one thing and then discover something else that but essentially most of the plot of the show is generated from those characters being put into difficult situations.”
Producer Norton added that the primary 5 minutes of the collection exhibits “the density of story that can be told in a short space of time.”
“There’s also a lot of nonverbal storytelling in that early sequence as well and all the things about Shiv’s expectations of who she’ll meet when she gets into that airport and part of that is restricted, you know all the little hints and bits of information,” mentioned Norton.
The Dry was produced by Element Pictures in affiliation with Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland and ITV Studios in partnership with RTÉ. Paddy Breathnach directs all episodes.
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