Black Doves is a British spy thriller television series created by Joe Barton, starring Keira Knightly and Ben Wishaw. Set in London, Helen (Knightly) begins a passionate affair that may endanger her secret identity when her lover falls victim to London’s underworld and her employers send an old friend to protect her.
The MARS Volume Virtual Production team worked closely with Sister Productions to deliver stunning simulated travel scenes that would be otherwise challenging to capture outside the studio on location. A large portion of crucial dialogue scenes take place while on the move, for example in the back of a black cab, and in a vintage BMW. The location choice was specific and seasonable – meaning that accessibility and realism were a huge factor in the decision to utilise Virtual Production. Scenes included travelling down London’s infamous Oxford Street at Christmas time, with reflections of the festive lights and pulsing energy of central London mirrored on the vehicle. To do this in on physical location would have been expensive and impossible to effectively control (if it was permitted at all), while green screen would never have afforded the production the beauty of the reflections in the glass windscreens and water droplets as Oxford St passes by in the background adorned with illuminated festive lights.
With ease and beautiful creative resolve, our client was able to easily capture their scenes on schedule and on budget, in the MARS Volume studio environment with complete control. Black Doves has been extremely well received by audiences everywhere, and every episode contains scenes shot on MARS. It is a high end show, with an engaging storyline and it is clear that the commitment to capture the show as cinematically as possible has paid off. Shooting on an LED stage has been a key element of this high level cinematography. Black Doves DOP commented:
“The city is becoming a very difficult place to film, especially when you’re using cars, as you rarely travel over 20 miles per hour. For any car chase, you have to think, ‘Where can we do that? Do we need to travel to Birmingham or film outside London?’ The Met has clamped down so much, and getting into central London has become much harder over the past four or five years. You really have to make a strong case to film here. So, all of the car scenes were shot in the volume at MARS Volume, as it’s much more efficient to film driving scenes in virtual sets. It’s an excellent solution, and MARS has an incredible setup.”
- Other works from Scripted Drama
