For the Reckord | TVJ supporting local productions for the world – Pt 2

Television Jamaica (TVJ) is not only offering greater support for locally produced television fare, but looking to overseas markets for same. In the words of the station’s general manager, it is “preparing a foundation for the popular global footprint that TVJ will have in very, very short order”.

The email that General Manager Claire C. Grant sent to me last week continued, “TVJ is determined to explore more and more active models (in addition to the programmes already being aired) to get even more Jamaican content on TV so that they can be exported to the world.”

Among other shows, she was referring to Season 2 of the teen drama Real Friends, which started showing last week, and the reality show Conquering Shakespeare, due to be launched in the next few weeks.

Produced by Paul Bucknor’s Fire Fly Films, Conquering Shakespeare is a 13-part series on the Shakespeare in Schools competition that eight Jamaican high schools participated in last year. The local competition was conceived and piloted by Dr Tony Sewell under the auspices of the British charity Generating Genius, which he founded and heads.

Judith Alberga, manager of the Home grown & Content Monetization Unit, sees the series as “groundbreaking” and said TVJ was “intrigued” when Bucknor suggested the project. “It’s not the usual TV series,” she pointed out.

The initial eight schools, each working on different 30-minute segments from various Shakespearean plays, dwindled over the 13 weeks of the competition to five. The schools are from various environments – the inner city, uptown and the country – and the episodes show the teacher-directors trying different solutions for the many challenges they face.

Productions are adjudicated on the following criteria: Interpretation (demonstration of understanding of material/themes); language and expression (use of language, clarity, diction); visual impact (set design, props, costume, make-up); and staging (use of stage, performance energy, style, use of music). Group awards are given for Best Interpretation of Drama, Best Costume Design and Best Set Design; and individual ones for Best Director, Most Outstanding Actor and Most Outstanding Actress.

The winning school received a trip to London and in the last two episodes, the camera followed the cast and backstage personnel on their journey to London and in London. They performed the winning play at a number of venues.

The trip to England took place on the anniversary of Jamaicans sailing to England on the Empire Windrush, and last year’s controversy over the issue brought added interest to the trip, Alberga said. She added, “Many students had not travelled before, had never seen snow. It was an exciting adventure for them.”

MAJOR CHALLENGES

One episode that Alberga previewed for me at TVJ shows students from St Andrew High School for Girls working on King Lear, students from St Jago struggling with Othello, and others from Haile Selassie dealing with Romeo and Juliet, under the direction of Michael Forrest.

He faced three major challenges. One was getting his cast to master Shakespeare’s language, which was new to most, as CSEC literature (English B) is not offered at the institution.

Getting rehearsal time was another challenge. The team would rehearse at lunch time and after school, Forrest said. “We were often there till 7 o’clock at night, and actually camped there two nights.”

A third challenge was casting the play. “Male students tend to shy away from texts that require a lot of reading,” he explained, adding that he attracted students by setting the play in “a Gaza vs Gully gang situation”.

Other problems were solved when the woodwork department helped to construct the set, the art teacher painted a backdrop, and the mother of a student turned up every Friday night to cook for the cast.

The director said that the process helped many students build their self-esteem and the entire cast got parts in the film that followed the making of the series. They were delighted to be paid, he added.

Alberga told me that, as happened with Real Friends, Conquering Shakespeare has created a movie spin-off, whose working title is I Am Romeo. Written by Bucknor, it stars the young people involved in the series and lasts100 minutes.

Part 1of this article was published last Friday.