WHAT WENT WRONG - Below The Line - Intimacy Coordinator (Magic Mike's Last Dance)

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Ita O'Brien (Watchmen, I May Destroy You, Magic Mike’s Last Dance) is the UK's leading Intimacy Coordinator, and the founder of 'Intimacy On Set'. Join us for a discussion on what is means to be an intimacy coordinator, what it's like working with actors on intimate scenes, and what the future holds for this important position in the industry going forward. Go to https://www.itaobrien.com to learn more about Ita and her work.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everyone and welcome to our very first below-the-line interview. We are putting this in front of the paywall so you all can enjoy it and get an idea of the kind of bonus content that we are going to be offering you all over on our Patreon. If you enjoy this and you do want more of that bonus content, please consider supporting us on Patreon. So without further ado, here is our interview with Intimacy Coordinator, Ida O'Brien. Hello, I am your host, Chris Winterberg. here as always with my co-host, Lizzie Bassett. And Lizzie, we have a very special guest today.

Why don't you take it away? We do. I am unbelievably excited about today's episode. We have with us today, Ida O'Brien. She is the UK's leading intimacy coordinator and founder of intimacy on set. Go look at her IMDB page. I cannot list off all of the credits. The amount of shows, movies that she's worked on is absolutely insane. But a couple that I want to highlight that I think will probably talk about are normal people, watch men, sex education, and then one of my favorite series of all time that I think is just unbelievably brilliant is, of course, I may destroy you. So without further ado, welcome, I can't believe you're here. What are you doing on our podcast? We're so happy to have you. Wow, that's amazing. Lizzie, thank you so much. And Chris, and I'm delighted to be here.

And it's just an absolute joy to be able to come and have this conversation with you. Well, thank you so much. And I also want to be so much. to mention Magic Mike's last dance, which is in theaters right now. How could I forget? You should go see it for great Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek. Fun for fun for everyone. My wife and I will be saying it. That franchise, we both actually really love the smoothies. I do too. They're so good. They're so fun. It was utterly, it was utterly just amazing and joyous. And I have to give a big shout out also to Alison Fork, who's a choreographer. And all of those dancers were just amazing. I come from musical theater. So I know, you know, you know,

know, they were so sharp. The choreography is so beautiful. And that whole thing of what Channing Tatum has brought in is that flipping the genre to being female empowerment, female going, we know what we want and asking for what we want, and the man and the masculine sensuality and sexuality being in service, it was truly something, it was absolutely magical and such a privilege to support that production. Well, I think that's a wonderful natural transition to our first question, which is how you found your way to this position of intimacy coordinator and to being a pioneer for a job that

Lizzie and I were talking earlier should have existed for the last hundred years, yet only just now has come into existence. So could you walk us through kind of like the quick series of left turns that led you to being at the forefront of this important new movement? Yeah, absolutely. And I too, just incredulous and, you know, like how I ended up here. here as, you know, I've got very strict Irish Catholic parents, but that's partly the antithesis of, you know, partly it's a springboard from that that's brought me to hear. So, yeah, I was a dancer. My mum took me to ballet at the age of three. I ended up working as a musical theatre dancer for 10 years professionally. I then trained at Bristol-Vic as an actor, worked as an actor for eight

years, and then my kids were young, so I thought, what can I do when I'm out of work? So I found the MA in Movement Studies at Central School of Speech and Dramas. Love that, brought together all my acting, all my dancing, you know, embodiment. So I worked as a movement teacher and a movement director from 2007. And then I wrote my own work. I put on a piece called April's Fall in 2009. And then I was looking at taking that piece of work further. And I wanted to look at the dynamic of the perpetration, the victim. And then I was thinking, well, if I'm asking my actors to come and explore, you know, those dynamics, how do I put in place a really robust, safe rehearsal process to explore that and then to be able to step away from that at the end of the day.

There's actually a video if anybody's interested. It's called Does My Sex Offend You? That shows, you know, sort of some people talking about that I'm R&D. But one of my colleague Meredith Duffton, who's the head of movement at Mountview, as I was talking about this work, said, please come and teach what you're developing. As head of movement, I'm noting all the plays for my second and third years have all got intimate content. I note the content. Invariably, it doesn't tell the right physical storytelling.

And yet when I say this is what you need to portray, their eyes glaze over because there was no, as you said, professional structure in the industry in order to create this work in a professional, you know, way that really invited and supported the actors' artistry. So I started sharing the work. That was April 2015, and it was great. We would get feedback from the students. Meredith and I would sort of interrogate, you know, what worked, what didn't work and refine it.

And then gradually by 2017, the students were saying to me, this is great in drama school. What's happening in industry? I started speaking to British equity. I said, what do you have that supports the actor? They sent me their legal contracts. That's sort of the first time that I pulled together what became the intimacy onset guidelines in June of 2017

where I shared the work with a group of agents, which is called the Personal Managers Association. They instantly were saying, God, we need this, absolutely. And so I was telling me all the stories, you know, from their actors, you know, sort of awful things that had happened. I was back trying to speak to equity in the summer of 2017, which didn't quite happen. And then Weinstein happened and the subsequent meet him in Times Up movement.

And then in that environment, I had the intimacy onset guidelines, you know, together, ready to share. And the industry saying, finally, we cannot turn a blind eye to this predatory behavior that we know is going on. We have to do better than I was saying, here are the intimacy onset guidelines within which now we can work with the intimate content with that intention. work with best practice. Well, I was just going to say, just for our audience, because this is such a new profession, what are sort of the guidelines of what constitutes an intimate scene? So first of all, we're looking at anything that comes to touch and particularly intimate touch. So intention is everything. It could be just a hug, but again, we need to look at, you know, what's the intention, but certainly into a kiss, caressing sensualness, sexuality. We're looking at, you know,

intimate content, simulated sexual content, nudity, and degrees of touch. So all of that is what we're looking at, and that's what's being supported by the intimacy practitioner. And I read an interview that you gave that, I think you described it as, why are we not treating sex scenes in the same way that we treat fight scenes? And I thought that was a great way for the audience to understand the risks involved in what actors are being asked to portray on screen. and how few safeguards there were. And what I found really interesting about this journey is that it seems like you had the opportunity

to workshop this in a very protective academic environment and really develop out these guidelines. And then, obviously, agents, it's in their best interest for their actors to feel comfortable, so hopefully they're going to be aligned with you. And really, it's just about getting it on to set. And then obviously the Harvey Weinstein of it all provides that kind of final catalyst to get things over the line.

when I read these best practices, they feel so obvious, right? But not that I would think of them. They're obviously incredibly thoughtful. But as I go through them, I'm like, yes, of course we should make sure everything is agreed upon and signed, et cetera. I know that it took a few years to put these together. I'm curious, as you were going through making these guidelines or hearing feedback from your students, What were the most egregious common practices from your perspective that were happening on set prior to the existence of an intimacy coordinator?

So prior to an intimacy coordinator and the intimacy guidelines, there was the attitude in the industry of you're an actor. You know that this is part of what's involved in physical or human storytelling. So that's part of your job. You know that you're going to be expected to be naked. you're going to be expected to perform intimate content, so just get on with it. Then the other side of it was there was no practitioner to support a director with this content. Also, people are just embarrassed to talk about the sex scenes, you know,

and the actor would know it's coming up and the fear would rise. And, you know, before I started doing this work, I was talking to a person in wardrobe and she said, oh, yes, the day that they come and do the intimate scene, they're saying to me, God, I'm so nervous. what modesty garments do you have? And the wardrobe person said, but this is their job, they know what they've got to do, so I've got short shrift with it.

And then because there was no process or structure or it hadn't been able to be considered artistically on the day on set, it would be the director, perhaps would talk about the intimate content, and then one of two things would happen. One, they'd either say, right, get in front of the camera and just go for it. And then this is where this confusion, yes,

this confusion of, well, for people to really have chemistry, and they've got to really have chemistry because they just go for it and so they've got to really fancy each other. And of course, in that place, nobody's checked out how they feel about their own body being touched, how they feel about their own nudity or nakedness,

how they feel about touching their partner, how their partner feels. And so my feeling is that there was that weird double take of the actor both wanting to be good, wanting to give their all for the character, wanting to please, wanting to say yes because invariably actors do. But they've got their half a mind also going,

Oh shit, where's he touching me? Or where's she touching me? And is a tongue going to go into my mouth? Or is my modesty garment going to fall off? Do I have a modesty garment? The amount of times that you hear people say they were doing a simulated sex scene and the modesty garments were falling off,

they just whip them off. So there you have a situation in someone's workplace where you have naked genitalia touching. You know, if you have fluids, you know, could possibly be exchanged. It's completely unsuitable in someone's workplace. So that's one scenario or the other scenario is that the director would go, okay, you two go away and work it out for yourselves and then come back and show me what you've got

and then we'll put you in front of camera. And again, it's not holding a professional space or it's not giving those two artists the opportunity to really work artistically, creatively, with autonomy, with the outside eye that's serving the writing and serving the director's vision, you know, with that artistic view. Of course, that's their intention to serve the writing and serve the director's intention, but they haven't got the outside eye to hold that and make those creative choices. every person really literally has got their story. Anybody who's been working in the profession will have a story of their experience

or performing intimate content that has been anything from awkward to feeling harassing to feeling sadly downright abused. Well, and you just touched on something that I can't believe this didn't even really occur to me until right now, but these scenes frequently you are telling the story through the movement and through the physicality.

So even outside of obviously needing someone for the comfort of the people that are working, on it, you would think that they would also want someone like you who can literally tell the story through the scene. Yes. It's like, you know, you don't tell a stunt man to just, ah, go figure it out. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Do you still ever experience pushback about the idea that this should feel spontaneous

or that this shouldn't be rehearsed? Is that something that ever comes up? Of course. And we are subtly referencing a couple of older particular male actors who have pushed back on the idea of an intimacy coordinator saying that it sucks the spontaneity out of filming a sex scene, which I think is the point. And so, sorry, just needed to interrupt briefly. So, yeah, so of course we've had actors who are, you know, highly respected and who I highly

respect, you know, saying one that, you know, it interferes with the actor-director process and or it takes a spontaneity out of it. The thing is, would those two actors say that rehearsing at all takes a spontaneity out of an actor telling their storytelling. I know it's mad, isn't it? Yes. You know, again, you know that you want to work with your director to pull apart the script, interrogate the storytelling, checking out that each part of that writing is furthering the storytelling, what it's telling us about each character, each character in relationship. And all of that's the exciting bit, you know, for myself as an actor, just, you know, mining into

the script, the words that have chosen. Words are 20% of what we understand. And 80% is the physical, is what we get from bodies and physicality. So I always feel when you get a script, you're basically been given the top 20% and it's our job as actors to then mine into it, uncover it, do our research if something is outside of the realm of our experience. And we know that as an actor, that's our job, to rehearse, to share, to play,

to make exciting choices, and then you come to perform that, be it in front of a camera or on stage. So working with choreographers, the example that I love, because I absolutely love the song and this scene is the Roxanne song in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Because of course, Baz Luhrman wants this amazing, heartfelt, passionate moment. So of course, he's talked to his choreographer. They've brought in the most amazing dancers. And then that choreographer would have talked to Bazlehrman and then not only rehearse the dancers,

but then also rehearse, you know, the main cast into it to create this incredible spectacle that tells us our story and lifts us up with passion and desire and longing and everything. There's no way that you could suddenly just, you know, speak to your director, speak to your actors, speak to the movement people, and then say, do you know what, let's just not rehearse this and wait till the day on set and then throw it up there and see what we can do. You know, that's mad. And with a fight, it's the same thing.

We know that you want practitioners who are going to listen to the director and then teach the skills to the actors, be it a fight or a stunt. you know, check out the risk assessment, put in, you know, your crash mats, putting your wires if they're going to be flying, teach those skills, and then choreograph it really clearly, making the most exciting fight or stunt. It's rehearsed, it's considered. So of course you need a practitioner who can teach those skills and then choreograph it really clearly, given the director, what they want. If you want the most beautiful tango, it's a tough dance. Of course you need your choreographer to come and have, you know, the best dancers, teach it really clearly, make it really

exciting and then put that whole sequence together. The thing is, we are all human beings and who we are in our intimate lives and our sensuality and our sexuality and our sexuality and our expression through our intimacy is fundamental to who we are as human beings. And so that's where I feel this role wasn't in the industry before now, is that sense of, well, we're all human beings who have sex. And so we don't need a practitioner in order to teach us how to do that. Exactly. But yes. I would have liked one just in real life. It would have been great. They're for couples therapists. We don't have time to tackle the problem of American sex education today. I was like, just so you know, it's bad. Well, I'm working on that as well,

but actually I'd love to come around and talk about that in a minute. But so twofold, why it hasn't been there in the industry before. As I said, one, people were embarrassed to talk about it, to talk about openly about sexuality, the sexual content and everything. And then, two, the idea that we all do sex, we don't need a practitioner to come and teach us how to do it. But of course, what that completely overlooks is

that there is an injury that we're at risk of, you know, someone being, you know, experienced to, if we don't do it well, that you're not with your loved ones, you know, so this isn't spontaneous. You're not, you know,

in the instant expressing all your love of the person that you're with at that point in time, which is for me the, you know, and it's a loving intimacy and the highest expression of ourselves as human being, our connection with another human being, through to our connection with ourselves, through to orgasm, that is just the most glorious and beautiful part of who we are, where beings that are, you know, our sexual organs are made to be part of our pleasure,

not just a function. So all of that's part of who we are as humans, and that's part of what should be in our storytelling. You know, it's a very important part of it. But, you know, this isn't real life. So when our bodies are being touched in a way, that, you know, a very intimate way when there's a degree of nudity that might be asked for, when there's degrees of simulated sexual content, we have to check out what's okay with somebody.

The statistics, sadly, are that by the time a woman gets to 18, one in six will have experienced some degree of harassment or abuse, and of all men in the world, one in five, will have experienced harassment or abuse in their lives. Therefore, of all the people that might come to work on any one day, there is a high chance that somebody or perhaps several people will have issues, will have boundaries, will have areas that they might be activated around regarding touch, simulated sexual content and nudity. We don't need to know those stories in our workplace, but we do need to put in place a process by which we can check out someone's requirements, allow that to be spoken about clearly, openly, in fact, invited as a positive, and that's joyously what the shift is in the industry,

instead of an actor feeling that if ever they said no in any way, shape or form, and this really was the case before the intimacy guidelines. If an actor said no, they would be worried that they will lose the job, which really has happened. Oh, yeah, we've talked about it. Or be blackballed and not get any jobs going forward. Yep, that's right. Or being considered a diva or a troublemaker. Right.

And, of course, the irony is that if someone's in a place of feeling compromised or unsure or feeling put upon or disrespected, you're not going to get an actor in free flow. Basically, they're not able to freely just be channeling and telling the story of this character and this character and relationship. And I absolutely love that now it's flipped. We're saying, tell us your requirements. Tell us what's not suitable for you so that we can trust your yes. And then we can all work freely and opening you everywhere that is in your agreement and consent.

I want to touch on a couple of things that you just said because there was so much in there that was really, really important. But the first thing is what you just said about, you know, someone who is, someone who is, experiencing trauma or is uncomfortable, that they're not going to be giving their best performance. That's something that I think so many people don't think about. And, you know, as women, as you said, many of us, if not most of us, have experienced harassment in the workplace. I know I have. I know I was very bad at my job when that was happening. And that's the thing that I think people don't take into account. The other thing I want to ask about, specifically on I May Destroy You, because of course, that was inspired by Michaela Cole's own experience with assault.

And you were touching on this a bit in terms of how people have experienced trauma in the past and how that informs the way that you're working with them. How did you keep that set a safe space for everyone, but particularly for Michaela as she was making this incredible piece of art? So just like a stunt coordinator or a choreographer, you're looking at what's the risk. And of course, the difference is with intimate content is the risk can be physical, but also emotional and psychological. And then in particular, if there's someone, you know, offering and giving an art,

some of their own personal storytelling that is from a place of being vulnerable and, you know, an injury that's there, then that's part of my risk assessment. And I'll say flag it to the production, you know, when I do my check-ins, if someone has a concern or might feel that they might be activated. And so I say, I co-work with an artist well-being practitioner, that that's part of my team, that I bring that person in. Obviously, it's very important that those sessions are private and confidential. The artist's well-being practitioner will read the script.

They'll set in those sessions. If a scene's coming up, I might flag to the artist-well-being practitioner, just letting you know there's this content coming up and these are the dates that they know. Sometimes there's skills or sort of particular techniques that that artist-well-being practitioner shared with the performer, that they'll just say, okay, if we're using this language and we're looking at this technique, so just remind them that they can use that to resource them. And also helping to create space. space of time and process within the filming day so that if someone is activated, then we're

helping to provide that time and space. I will always then wait and check in at least 24 hours afterwards because, of course, someone is shorn up on the day, they're in that role of adrenaline, but then they might go home and overnight go, oh, my goodness, actually this or actually that. So yes, it's that extra care. And it's really, again, it's a really positive development in the industry for them to understand that we need to take care of our artists, not just physically, but emotionally psychologically, and to do that, to use the artist's well-being practitioner. Something I think, too, that people, it may seem, once you think of an intimacy coordinator, a little more obvious, oh, of course, we need to rehearse, we need to do the same practices that

we would do with a stunt. I do think it's important to also reiterate something that you just mentioned, which is the pressure of on the day how that feels. So, you know, on a production, you might be spending $150,000 a day, you might be spending $2 million a day as your run rate. And every minute that you burn as a crew is precious and you feel that tension coming from your executives at the studio all the way down through your nervous rec director behind the camera. And I think that something that seems so valuable and, of course, obvious now in hindsight to me is having an intimacy coordinator as that shield, as that piece of friction between the actor and everybody else who's saying, go, go, go, go, go.

And as a director, you want to think, or I can say for my limited experience, I would like to think that I'm the protector of the actors. But the truth is, I serve two masters in the sense that I have to answer to the producer and, you know, the studio and the executives. I, you know, only directed two movies, but both movies had a kiss scene.

And now, in retrospect, I'm like, oh, my God, it would have been so great to have an intimacy coordinator for just these two seeming. simple kiss scenes. And in both, so in the first example, it's a coming of age story. One of our actors was 12, the young woman, the other was 15, the boy. So we did not film the kiss. We did it as like a camera move and then a tilt away, which I felt morally good about. But we could have choreographed it better. We were all fumbling. You know what I mean? To try to get the camera move, to work with the

couple of kids, like who are just doing what you tell them. And I think we fell into the same trap. I fell into the go for it camp in my second film, which was, We shot, it's a, you know, Y-A. Rom-com. Our actors are in their 20s. Both big, you know, actress have done on-screen kisses before. You know, it was not a raunchy kiss or anything by any means. But it was like, okay, yeah, and then you get to the last line and you look at each other and then you go for it.

And that, I think that was my direction. And I hate to admit that about myself, but I think that was, you know, what I said. And so obviously I'm going to have an intimacy coordinator going forward for all of this. And I'm very curious about, because I write as well, and I'm curious how you feel the intimacy coordinator can be involved not just in the production process, but in the development process. And after that, I want to ask about in post-production as well, because that seems, and there are horror stories of, you know, takes being used that should not have been used, et cetera. Basic instinct being a classic example. Well, being the exact insurance stone, not knowing that they were actually filming. And going to use that shot, yeah.

So, you know, maybe we could start with in the writing process. Do you have experience being brought in early in the development process? So first of all, with the writing, you know, so I had the joy of working on Watchmen with Jeremy Irons in a mad folly of a castle in North Wales in September 2018. And in my preparation for working with him, I listened to his dead's islandest, and he was saying regarding, you know, doing intimate content,

the very often it was saying the script, they have sex. Yeah. And he's like, oh, God, come on, you know, come on, write it, write it better. You wouldn't say in a musical, you know, it gets it, and they sing. You know, you want to know how they sing, what the melody is, what the words are. So that's what I say regarding writing, write it clearly. You know, we're all different in our intimate expressions, the quality, the delicacy,

or, you know, whatever energy it is. You dream into it. And again, if you don't know it, you research it. And so you write it really clearly. And then we can honour it. So, for example, on sex education, I remember, you know, Laurie None had written it and her amazing team of writers, you know. So I remember the, in season two, the lovely scene where Olai is asking Otis to, you know, give her pleasure and he has this

clock technique. It's brilliantly written. And, you know, when I, you know, separate it out, beat one is this, beat two is that. And there's about 16 beats in it. And so when we choreographed it, we can honour each and every one of those beats. And then once we flowed it, the director's going to go, it was able to say, actually, we don't need that beat. The other aspect is, of the writing of it, that what we try and invite in the industry is that shift so that we can speak about the intimate content openly professionally in an adult way, not using slang or anything that's objectivating or infantilising. So again, a character might go, oh, I love her tits, but then when you write it, then write it in lovely open professional language,

detailed language. And then so like normal people, again, why that intimate content was able to be so brilliant is that came from, and Sally Rooney's amazing writing of the novel, that intimate content was there so beautiful and so inherent, you know, right from reading that content. You go, wow, I've never seen a writing where the intimate content was so beautifully written. So that's there in the get-go. And sometimes I'm brought in to sort of help look at it with the scripts. And that's very exciting in the times that I have done. But other than that, the scripts, you know, written. And it might be sometimes that I go back and go, okay, you've got this, you know, and if I have the joy of working with the writer present, and I'll say sometimes

if there's not enough detail. In fact, there's one bit with Michaela that we went to rehearse it, and it said, you know, it had a certain amount of information. And then Michaela was going, oh, but it's this, this, and this. I'm saying, wow, you have absolute clarity in what you want. That's not, why isn't it written? She goes, well, because I thought, you didn't want people to see into, you know, my mad mind.

And I'm going, but great, now that you've told us, we can honor every detail of your vision. And that's what we put up on, you know, can choreograph it really clearly, and put it up on screen. And then, you know, you mentioned about sort of having someone in your own life. You know, so for me also, what's exciting is that I'm more and more, you know, consulting and working with couples therapists and educating myself and my fellow practitioners with the anatomy, the proper, you know, really realistic anatomy of arousal and the anatomy of dysfunction and the anatomy of our trans community and all the rest of it.

And I was just, as I said, listening to your lovely podcast on 50 Shades of Grey. So again, if BDSM is outside your realm of experience, but you want it to tell the right storytelling, go and research it. Working with the amazing Master of Nun with incredible Naomi Acki and Lena Waith, queer female storytelling, which was great. But particularly when it goes into, you know, the Naomi Aki's character wanting to, you know, have a baby. So we went through the whole IVF procedure. And again, Aziz Ansari was really, really clear. and again, to me, it's really important as well that we make sure we bring in the medical experts

so that the detail of those procedures that are told right because always any storytelling there's going to be somebody out there in the world who's experienced this. You just brought up, you know, queer intimacy and queer love scenes and that's something that I think we've seen misrepresented so frequently on screen because people, particularly if it's a man who's directing

and there are examples where they've put women on screen and then, you know, the LGBT community has watched and been like, that's not how it works. So I'm wondering sort of when you're directing, like you're saying, a queer intimacy scene, trans, anything that you're not, well, I shouldn't assume, but anything that you're not familiar with, do you ask the actors if that's something they have experienced or what are the sort of ways that you go about making sure that you're getting the details of those scenes right? Because that's something that I think we're just starting to see happen now. and I know it's so important to have that representation.

Yeah, that's right. And I'm very proud of, you know, I worked on, again, along with sex education, Gentleman Jack was one of the first productions that I worked on back in April 2018. And then, of course, it's a sin honoring Russell T. Davis's incredible and beautiful writing of the experience of the queer male community fundamentally during the 80s as HIV and AIDS began to take hold.

And also for me, you know, with that sort of, storytelling, I was a musical theatre dancer in the 80s. So there's so many of my friends and colleagues for who that was their life journey. And so yes, just, and again, as I said before, as an actor, you know, you mind the script. If it's something that you don't know, you go away and you research. So it's exactly the same with this. Queer storytelling, several things. First of all, we had Analyst as amazing diaries. So going and reading those and particularly what was so valuable the way she spoke about her connection with women, her relationship with her own body, her relationship with her partner's words like we'd talk about grubbling and pressing her into me

and this kind of quality. So taking on board those things. We spoke to people from the queer community. We worked with the expert historian. And then, you know, regarding shapes, I worked with the lesbian handbook to again get positions right. The same with, um, it's a sin so here we've got the lovely book the gamer sutra and as you can see all of my yes you know sort of pieces of papers so so which gave us a whole load of you know sort of different shapes so we're looking at the detail that's right and and then you know and invariably people from the queer male community have said you know thank you for that and again with a queer female community with gentleman jack you know people saying thankfully for the first time intimate

content that really reflects who we feel we are and what our loving is, apart from the fact that their fingernails were too long. You're going to miss something. You're going to miss something, no matter what. Even if it's small. I'm curious to, you know, it's so much of how a film comes together is how it's edited. You could edit your footage from a horror film into a comedy film if you don't believe me, go on YouTube and watch Nicholas Cage's The Wicker Man as a comedy.

It's a very funny editing exercise. But obviously with intimate scenes, it's the same with you could butcher a fight scene. That seems like very obvious to people. The punches don't land, right? You could easily imagine. So you could imagine the same thing when it comes to intimate scenes. And both in terms of making sure you're editing the scene to the scene's potential, but also editing the scene in a way that's not exploitative toward the performers.

Because I'm guessing that invariably, when you're performing an intimate scene, stuff ends up on camera. that maybe wasn't intended to be on camera. And, you know, slip-ups, et cetera. We mentioned before there was an infamous example with Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct and Sharon Stone only found out really when the movie was out

that she was exposed to the camera, which is horrifying. And so I'm curious, does your involvement at this point continue into post-production? Is that, or is that something that we need to be working toward as an industry? It's really brilliant that you bring that up and because it's a delicate part of our support

in that whole process, but absolutely. So what I say to producers is it's very important that if an actor or a supporting actor is offering their nakedness, their nudity, their similar sexual content in the service of a production, that they have the opportunity to see that content before it goes out to the rest of the world. So there's three different times at which a performer can see it.

One, they can see playback on the day and go, yep, absolutely really happy. that's cool. Two, they can see the rushes, so perhaps they can arrange that on the next day that they came in. So, for example, on industry, the series of industry, that's what we used to do, that the producer got the rushes together and they would, they call them into the, you know, sort of sweet and they would watch it. I'm really proud, thank you very much. Or the third option is to see the rough cut of the edit. So that's where then you wait until there's a rough cut and the producers bring you in. You can sit and watch the content there.

But to make sure that one of those is put in place. And again, what's important is that the actor can see that their requirements have been honoured, how the intimate content, you know, has been filmed. Because as you say, Chris, you know, I can choreograph an intimate scene, and it can be made incredibly innocent and beautiful, depending on where the camera angles are, or it can be made incredibly gratuitous and vulnerable-making for the actor. And so that's part of the process.

because of course we're not saying, you know, to, you know, or as a producer said to me, I don't want someone coming to me and saying, oh, I can see that a cellulite on my thighs, can you not use that take? You know, if the take is honoring their requirements and is telling the right storytelling, we're making sure that they haven't got that kind of veto.

But it absolutely is so that the actor can see that their requirements have been honoured and that they're comfortable and happy and that they've seen it before it goes out to the rest of the world and their mum and dad and their granny are all seeing it. So, yes, so really, really important. part. And so the various things that we put in place on that journey is that, first of all, whenever you're doing intimate scenes, invariably it's a closed set, and the footage is marked with R. So it's a restricted view in.

Can we just stop for a beat? Could you describe a closed set to our audience really quickly? Because it seems maybe obvious, but I don't think it necessarily is. And I would love to hear from your perspective, who actually needs to be there when you're filming? Absolutely. working in a closed set is a really important part of helping the actor to feel respected, heard, autonomous, and also just working, you know, so that there's not a single person that has a gratuitous gaze. And even for me, you know, that realization that when someone offers their simulated sex and nudity, for a scene, it's for the camera. You know, so even I

am watching it. I'm not watching them. That's them as a way in their personal body. I'm, you know, obviously they're in character, they're in, you know, in the role of the actor. But even for me, my gaze is through the camera, through the lens, is what's been captured on the lens, you know, sort of, you know, how's that coming across? So everybody on a clothes set should have a job to do. And if ever there's anybody that's able to then just sat there and be on their phones, you say they're out of there. So who we need is, obviously, the camera operator and the focus puller, the boom operator

invariably if it's nakedness, they can't be having a mic on to them. Then the script supervisor, the first AD, the director, and myself as the intimacy coordinator, and then most importantly, obviously, is wardrobe. And so everybody else should be out. And again, what's very important with any degree of nakedness is that nakedness is from action to cut and all other times you're covered. So the wardrobe person is very important. So you have the actor and they might, hopefully, if they're in positions lying down, you don't want them to be wearing a dressing gown, so they'll get into position,

ask everybody to turn backs or for the crew to step out of the room while the actors get ready will place the robes over them. Either they can turn around or step back into the room. And then the rhythm is camera rolling, sound. And then last thing is pull robes. And the wardrobe person will say, you know, robes pulled. And then it's action. And so that then flow of the filming of the scene. And then on cut, nobody moves depending on how, you know, where it is, I might say, all people in the clothes set turn backs. the wardrobe person goes in, places the robes over them, she'll call out covered, and then we can go, great, turn round, and then any notes given or resets or whatever, before we go again. And so branching off of that in two different directions, so first of all, what do you look for in your actors?

And I know everybody's different, but what are common things that you're looking for to get indicators in terms of comfort for your actors? When you said that you can tell when someone's activated, like what are the cues? what does that look like? Yeah, what should, for example, as a director, what should I be cognizant of, you know, and make sure that I'm being sensitive to, that might not be obvious necessarily. Yeah, no, so obviously you want everybody,

you want everybody to feel, just to be able to be relaxed, grounded, present, expansive, you know, and being able to be, you know, being able to bring the best themselves, you know, to your day of work. So if anybody is not feeling comfortable, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? What happens when you feel uncomfortable? Yeah, you don't do a great job. Like, you can't, you're not able to fully express yourself,

and especially in a position where that's your entire job, then it's difficult. That's right. So as soon as they say someone starts pulling in, there's tension, perhaps you just feel someone sort of just, you know, when someone goes back into themselves, goes that place, a feeling fuzzy, I'm looking for that. Also, I'm listening to, you know, to not just what someone says, but how they say it? Like, are they saying, How many more takes have we got to go? You're beginning, you know, it's like, okay, what's going on here? Do we need to take a break now?

Very much body listening, listening, not just with, you know, your conscious antennae, but with your unconscious antennae. And then if you need to take a break, just calling that. Do you run into issues of, let's say you've rehearsed the scene, you film the scene, how do you deal with on-the-fly changes as you're working through these carefully choreographed, intimate scenes? And that could be a justified on the flight change. Everybody could maybe agree that, hey, this isn't quite working the way we wanted it to work.

Let's make this change. Or conversely, how do you deal with somebody who maybe is trying to change things up for less good reasons? That was a terrible word choice. Go ahead. So, yeah, so first of all, just like any good choreography that gives you a good. a really clear frame within that, you can then be spontaneous and free in each and every take. So that's also what we're looking at. So very often, like say, if there's kissing, we'll say, okay, where are you happy to be kissed? You're happy to kiss on the lips, happy to kiss on the cheek,

down the neck, onto the top of the declatage, no-go areas, sort of like from the top of the breast down, those sorts of things. And me coming from a musical theatre dancing background, you know, when we rehearse and very, bearably I'll work in counts of eight, just because that's how I work, so it might be sort of engage and breath and reaching down and penetration and one, two, and thrusting three, four, five, six, seven, eight

and speed up, two, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight. Literally. But what that does is it gives both the actors a basic shape of overall what the journey is. And then once they've got done that a couple of times, you can let go on it. Very often what's very useful is that the director might then side coach, you know, in the flow of a take. So you might go take and then go back to that

bit. And this time, you know, have a bit more urgency and they might go again and then go back. And then this time you have a response of just really allowing yourself to receive that. But as you, you know, suggested Chris, then there might be something that then perhaps the director offers that's beyond and outside, something that we've checked. So there was one time that there was a moment of sex from behind. And then the side coaching was on her go harder and go really hard. And it was like, okay, just let's have a time out here. Because that was beyond and outside of what had been agreed and consented to. You know, are you comfortable with that?

What are you comfortable with? Are you comfortable? Let's really find what that means. Sometimes going stronger and go harder actually doesn't help the actor. But if I say, find more of an impulse, you know, have an impulse that has a stronger edge to it. So I think that's what we looked at in that particular instant. Found that shape, found that, you know, made sure that everybody was again comfortable and then again, off you go. So, yeah, that's what we're looking for.

So that's very important, all directors who might be listening. She improvises. It's not that there aren't opportunities to make changes on the day. You just have to be respectful about how you do it. Well, it's establishing the circumstances and the boundaries of the theme. And then within those boundaries, you can play within those. There's all sorts of play that you can engage in. And again, for me as an actor, you know, the lovely Mike Alfreds, who I've done a few workshops

with, who is absolutely brilliant. his book different every night. That's what we want an actor to be able to be in, to have that spontaneity. And it's answering to the likes of the lovely actors who have said it ruined spontaneity. It's actually the opposite. Because you've considered it,

because you've opened it out, because you've had that creative conversation and storytelling, we've looked at techniques, we've looked at everything, that actually that's where we can elevate the intimate content, and we can go further than you can be more free and more spontaneous within each and every take. Right.

safe space is not restrictive. It is in fact the opposite. I want to ask because this is something that we've seen popping up in the news lately, the issue of in the past very young people being involved in sexual situations on screen. And I think we're now as a culture revisiting things like Blue Lagoon with Brooks Shields, things like Zeparelli's Romeo and Juliet, which of course now has spawned a lawsuit from those two actors. So I'm wondering, how do you handle intimate scenes with people who are younger, who are under 18, does that differ from how you handle them with adults? And also, what sort of boundaries do you put in place for those scenes where it's just like, no, we're not doing this? So obviously, when you're working with someone who's under 18,

you're not just working with a performer, but you're working with their parent or guardian. And so the journey of the check-ins involves all of that. And you want absolute clarity. and you want absolute guidance because, of course, every child's different. You can have an 11-year-old child who's incredibly innocent, or you can have another 11-year-old who has a real sense of them as well, real sense of themselves. I've just worked on a production that's going to come out shortly, so I can't say what it is. But we're working on, you know, worked with an 11-year-old child, and the intimate content was there that they had to say very provocative sexual language.

And I was very concerned that any 11-year-old would be asked to do this language. But so the journey is check in with the director really clearly. What do you want? And if possible, if there's physical content to create storyboards, so those images, not just what's asked, but where the camera is, can be told through a storyboard. So that's a really brilliant and very important tool. And then you take that conversation, that open conversation of the director, you know, clarity, storyboarding to the parent or guardian.

And then we would be guided by that parent. So there's another situation where, you know, the child was going to be. walking through somewhere and then hiding and then a couple come in and start having intercourse. So when I checked out with that parent or guardian, you know, and the suggestion was that that child would be told that they would be watching a punch duty show. But when I told that parent or guardian, they said, I have a really close relationship. I talk to my child about intimate content and in their sex education and everything. And if, you know, in a couple of years time they find out that I've told them something that's not true, they will be really,

they'll be really pissed off. So I will tell the child exactly what, the storytelling is, and then, you know, the child shouldn't be actually witnessing then the adult performers performing that, but the director-side coached that actor through, and then we will bring that language through what we've been supported with that parent or guardian to the child and checking out that they're comfortable with everything. I, you know, and I've had that, I worked with, you know, sort of as a 14 and 15-year-old. So also there's that sense of, you know, that laughing uncomfortableness because it's something new for them and, you know, invariably, you know, it could be the first time they've ever had a kiss ever.

Yeah. So that's also partly sometimes I'll check out, you know, if ever kissed anybody? And then again, just really making sure that part of the dialogue is this is character. And for me also with working with children, it's even more important to support them with a really professional and clear structure of how do you feel personally? What, you know, what's your connection with yourself? And now let's step into character. And I'll help to have tools to step into character, really highlighting physicality, really step into the character's physicality, that's going to keep them safe. This is the character's experience.

This is a character's moment of intimacy. And then at the end of the day, high five, congratulations, well done. And then how we're going to shake that out and step back to self and gone, great, you've been brilliant today and how you go home, back at home as yourself. So all of those tools are really, really important. Well, we've got really just one more question for you. Back in 2020, and I think it was the interview with Esquire, you said that the industry still has a really long way to go in terms of standardizing how we keep actors safe. Sort of a two-part question here. One, what changes do you hope to see in the next few years? And two, what are you working on additionally to kind of further everything? I think you mentioned this a little bit earlier with

sort of maybe general sex education. But yeah, I would love to hear from you on that. So first of all, for the industry to understand and trust what the role of the intimacy practitioner brings. So very often you hear people say, oh, you're here to keep people safe. You know, check in with the actors, do the nudity waivers, and then stand back and do nothing. You know, for me, you wouldn't say to a stunt coordinator, you know, check in with the actors, you know, do the risk assessment and then stand back and do nothing. So we bring skills where practitioners, we're not the fun police, we're not the sex police. We're absolutely there as practitioners with skills, just like a choreographer, a fight director or stunt coordinator.

So to know and trust that and that we are there of service, you know, that I, you know, that, you know, I had a practitioner who is learning and she said, oh, they came and when I arrived, they said, right, you're the expert, you take over. And I've had this before when director say, oh, you know, okay, here, you take over. No, I'm here to support your process. I come in and I'm just like a fly on the wall. I'm coming in. First of all, I'm listening to your actor-director process. I'm listening to how you talk about the scene and this moment. I'm also body listening. to see how the actors are moving, what they're bringing, where they're moving from. So I reflect that back so that, again, you're lifting everything that's being discussed and then supporting them and then putting that up on its feet. So I hope that that gets understood. And then in that place, then I hope that intimacy practitioners will become standard practice and to be legislated that if there's intimate content, that you have to either work through the intimacy guidelines or work with an intimacy practitioner.

So that's the other thing that I just want to be really clear about is that the process is what's most important, particularly at the beginning. You know, so you were saying about a kiss. So first of all, you know, very often say, oh, it's just a kiss. But actually, it's never just a kiss. And very often actually a kiss, lip to lip, is far more intimate than a full-on simulated sex scene. You know, where the genitalia patches and, you know, we're looking at anchoring with different body parts, then make sure that no pubic bone is against pubic bone. It's really clearly choreographed.

But if you're asking to actors to kiss, they are really kissing. Yes, lip to lip. So it's even more important that you're serving storytelling, serving character, making strong choices, checking out everywhere that there is to be touched. And then you're choreographing this kiss. Very rarely is it they kiss. There's often power play.

Who's doing what to whom? All of that's luscious, which is where, Chris, as you were saying, and you know, just go for it. You know, no, unpick it, undermine, you know, mine it, you know, journey back. yeah, know what that kiss is saying and then again really clearly choreograph it and then you go to your actors going great, this is the content, how do you feel about it?

What are your requirements? And then from that professional process you can make an informed decision as to whether then you need the intimacy practitioner to choreograph this moment and to be on set. So yes. And then the next thing is, you know, I do want intimacy practitioners

to be in the legislation if a scene or a production needs it. And then the other side to that is I haven't pushed for that so far because we need enough really well-trained intimacy practitioners. Because there's no point to say you have to have an interpici practitioner if there aren't in your hands. And you can't hire anyone. That's right.

I've had people from Finland just recently saying, we need interpicy practitioners. There is no one here in this country. And all of that's really exciting because I'm looking at, you know, contacting their different places. So I am, you know, looking at setting up. a professional structure of training alongside or a drama school, we'll very soon be able to announce that. So that's happening, which is very exciting. But that's what needs to be put in

place. And of course, I was heading for that, but during COVID, and it scuppered everything. And for me, while it is really good to do a certain amount of training online, this is a physical act. This is a body dance. And you can only do so much online. It has to be in the space, physically working with your practitioners because it's not just, you know, choreographing the body skills, but how that person holds space, what their presence is in space. It's a very complex role. You're serving the producer, where the producers ally, you're serving the director. They have their different focuses. You're serving the actors. You're also then supporting a DOP, you know, sort of how you support them to bring the best of their creativity, working on Lady Chachley's

lover. Benoit, the most incredible cinematographer. It was glorious with him. You know, he was regaling times that he's been really compromising intimate content and he was saying to me for the first time I can bring all of my skills as a DOP to the intimate content because it's journeyed through openly creatively which is just joyous. Anyway, so there's a lot of complexity but I'm really happy that I'm establishing a really good robust training program. Let's get enough intimacy practitioners out into the world and then we can really say right now let's put this into legislation. And the other thing for me that's really important, and that's come from so many times when I'd run workshops. And as you say about our kids, people saying, oh, the first time I had to kiss was when I was in school doing GCSE, Romeo and Julia, and I was just made to kiss.

So that's the other aspect that intimacy onset is developing, which I'm very excited about, which is developing both consent and boundary workshops for students in secondary school, and then in bringing in the intimacy onset and guidelines training to teachers and to students. doing GCSE and A-level drama so that those guidelines are established in our secondary schools and then also doing workshops with the parents, because of course it has to be supported by the parents. And I'm joyously co-working with a company called Active Consent, so we're dovetailing our work in developing those workshops. So I'm also very excited about that aspect of the work. That's amazing. The work you're doing is so unbelievably important, not just for this industry, but also I think for everybody, like just for people. I mean, this is this is stuff I wish I had had. I did go to acting school. We had none of this. But, but even just as a person and you're talking about consent workshops, you know, for kids, like, yes, I wish I had had that. So I just have to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for doing this. And I think your work not only is important for the people that are on set and are doing this, but it's also important for those of us that are watching this content. It really has ripple effects through. everyone. So again, thank you for what you're doing and thank you so much for being here.

This has been really amazing. And anybody, please go to Ida's website and check out the best practices when working with intimacy, simulated sex, and nudity. We will link to it in the show notes for this podcast. It's just really important basic stuff that we should all be aware of, especially those of us that want to work in film or do work in film. So thank you again. Edith so much. We deeply appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with us and help educate both us and our audience about the importance and how to make your sex scenes and intimate scenes in your movies not just safe, but as you mentioned, as good as possible. So it's a win-win for everyone, the actors, the directors, the producers, and the audience.

And we're just, we're thrilled. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk with you and share the work with you. Thank you. That's ITA-O-B-R-I-E-N.com to learn more about ETA and view the intimacy-onset guidelines discussed in this episode. Go to patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast to support what went wrong and gain access to bonus episodes, video content, and more. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman with cover art from Uthana Uoos.