EXCLUSIVE: BBC2 and PBS have commissioned a Battle of the Worlds-style hybrid drama/documentary that spotlights a close to future by which extra-terrestrial life has been detected.
First Contact will mix actual documentary interviews with among the world’s most foremost scientists alongside a fictionalized narrative written and directed by World In line with Jeff Goldblum director Nic Stacey. BBC Studios Science Unit, which was behind Netflix’s BAFTA-winning The Surgeon’s Minimize (pictured) and BBC2/PBS’ The Planets, is as soon as once more collaborating with the 2 networks on the characteristic.
Main scientists now consider there’s a real chance we’ll shortly detect extra-terrestrial life and the present will profile the most recent in leading edge know-how whereas that includes contributions from the likes of Dr Jill Tartar, a pioneer who was the inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character in Contact, together with showcasing the James Webb house telescope.
Exec producer Andrew Cohen, who produced a BBC Horizon doc nearly 20 years in the past a couple of future pandemic that he stated was “closely criticized on the time for scaremongering”, revealed his workforce has been planning to make a present on extra-terrestrial life for a while and the pandemic made it really feel extra well timed.
“That is being made within the shadow of a pandemic that has thrown up themes round what it’s like for a planet to really feel a deep existential uncertainty,” he added. “The viewers is now extra primed to discover these points than it was two years in the past.”
‘Aggressive confidence’
Cohen stated there may be an “nearly aggressive confidence” in world factual for the time being that has made his workforce snug producing the present in a hybrid drama/doc model.
Whereas crediting the streamers partly for this improvement, he stated First Contact “builds on the chutzpah” of his workforce’s current BAFTA-nominated 8 Days: To The Moon and Again, which used progressive lip-sync strategies to recreate the 1969 moon landings and in addition aired on long-time collaborators BBC2 and PBS.
“Up to now, factual TV may very well be fairly nervous and backfooted however now if there’s a story we need to inform then we’ll discover a method to inform it,” he stated. “That is about story and the way audiences need to be immersed in wonderful storytelling.”
The 90-minute movie was commissioned by Patrick Holland, BBC Director, Factual, Arts and Classical Music Tv and Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Science and Pure Historical past.
Elsewhere, the pandemic has additionally elevated viewer urge for food for science, added Cohen, whose division has made current fast-turnaround BBC docs on Covid-19.
“Attempting to compete with the information cycle in documentaries is sort of inconceivable however we will add depth and perception,” he added.
Cohen’s unit can be working extra within the ad-funded programming house, having produced Cook dinner Intelligent, Waste Much less With Prue & Rupy for Channel 4 in Might, which was part-funded by Hellmann’s mayonnaise, together with a Hyundai-sponsored sequence of brief movies for BBC International Information.