Background

With 26 million viewing hours and counting on Sweden’s public service TV channel SVT play, the pre-teen series Klassen from the BBC Studios Nordic Productions is nothing but a complete success. It captures life in a high school class and has generated several spin-offs, such as Västra Gymnasiet, in both Sweden and abroad. A lot of drama is promised. What happens to friendship, identity, hierarchies, love, and social status as the teens get to know each other? This summer, Sweden is getting ready for the ninth season.

It was around two years ago that BBC Studios spotted the Malmö production company STV, which had small but very successful production hubs in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the company was acquired.

“STV was the biggest independent production company in Denmark and which also had a Swedish and Norwegian office. So that's why BBC Studios was interested in buying our company to be represented on the Nordic market. And since that, we've also opened an office in Stockholm that focuses a little bit more on non-scripted productions, entertainment, and reality documentary series, while we here in Malmö are more focused on the scripted side,” says Mikael Hansson, head of scripted for Sweden.

“I had a background doing different theatrical productions, and therefore I was curious about storytelling, and I was super into producing good content for kids and teens. Therefore when I started in the TV industry, it was natural to try and find these kinds of productions where the audience was kids, and also it's very interesting to create something like Klassen for a mass crowd, with all these 26 million hours of stream,” says production manager Erik Björkheim.

Besides his love of producing good content for kids and teens, Erik is a very technical person. He loves to learn about videos and codecs and all this stuff about cameras and gear. It’s not a coincidence he began working with television, where you can combine the technical side with good storytelling. “I felt a bit like coming home,” says Erik.

Mikael has been working in a lot of positions in various film and TV crews and has always been very interested in telling the most important stories and creating strong emotions. That’s why he began working in the film industry, first as a grip, electrical assistant then photography assistant, assistant director, and production manager - then he landed as director and producer.

The Production Workflow

On set, there are typically around 25 filmmakers per production, and in the main cast 20 characters. Then there can be side characters entering specific episodes and some extras. Every day around 30 kids or so, including those passing by in the background during scenes, and hang around in corridors. This requires logistics and detailed planning.

The production scheme is very efficient having firm locations and prepared schools. “We can be super fast and go on to shooting on different locations, and then we have a solid cast, which is there every day. We can make double the amount of content on a day compared to an ordinary film set,” says Mikael. “We produce one episode in half of a day, then we take lunch, and then we produce another episode in the afternoon.”

This type of efficacy is very much needed. With 52 episodes for Klassen and 40 episodes for Västra Gymnasiet in a season this small but highly effective crew is producing no less than 92 episodes in a season. “We are talking volume series”, says Mikael. “With 92 episodes a year, things must work in terms of asset management, communication, and streamlined workflows.”

Every day on set BBC Studios has staff who backups the material and deliver the material to the Post-Production on the same day as the filming. “In this process, sometimes we discover a need for changes on set, which we directly communicate to the production” explains Erik.

However, even with a highly structured and disciplined crew, problems can still occur. Like the one where a camera shooting with dual cards had some technical error, and the cards were damaged. “We shot some scenes with the slow motion sequence, and the camera had something that didn't work, so the cards were damaged and we didn't get the whole sequence. But we discovered it fast and managed to reshoot some of the scenes” explains Mikael. He continues “Also, we had some issues with a logo on one of the actor's shirts and needed to bring in a digital expert to help take it away. Then you have the normal challenge when some cast members get sick. Maybe we have to switch episodes to shoot another episode without the sick actor, but sometimes the schedule is so pressed that there is no other alternative but rewriting the script.”

In a normal scripted production, it's very common to watch dailies, but the BBC Studios Nordic team doesn’t look into the specific dailies of Klassen. Instead, they check quality and use KLASH to watch the different editing versions. “We have three different editing versions, and then we lock the version. That's the final version”, says Mikael.

Overall Security

Security is important for a show like Klassen. In terms of security for the actors and stunts, the BBC Studios Nordic team usually hires experts to make the scenes secure when there are action scenes.

In terms of content security, it's forbidden to do social media on a set that contains the actual scene, and the content of the scene/episode, and the production does not distribute the scripts. But at the same time, social media is important for a series like Klassen. Especially with the younger audiences used to this digital landscape. “As long as we can keep to our content security principles, everyone is welcome to do social media since that helps new audiences find us,” says Mikael.

Organizing The Assets

Klassen and Västra Gymnasiet usually shoot between five to seven terabytes. Each cut uploaded to KLASH is a low-res copy with a good codec. Low-resolution viewing copies with a good codec are uploaded to KLASH in the cloud. Short-term, assets are stored on the onset backup disks and in Avid Media Composer, on the Nexis service, with multi-editorial hard drives. Long-term, content is stored on LTO copies that are archived in different locations for maximum security.

“With 92 episodes of Klassen in a season, we need a good and structured way of organizing assets and KLASH gives us that”, says Mikael.

Technology and Communication

Klassen always shoots with two photographers, the main key is that the cameras and lenses need to be the same. BBC Studios are using the Sony systems, with cameras ranging from the FS7 to the FX9 depending on the production. “For Klassen, we want a cleaner, more Disney-like look, so we choose the FX9. With Västa Gymnasiet, we have this vision of a bit more retro look, so it is shot on the FS7, and we try to work with lenses with a vintage look", explains Mikael.

As always, challenges come with the volume: more cameras, more memory cards, and more hard drives. “Mors is more”, says Erik. He continues “You have the challenge of deleting the right card ahead of the next production day. This takes a lot of discipline and structure, for example in terms of managing the metadata.”

With KLASH, the main purpose is to have a good workflow with the different cuts, where BBC Studios Nordic can have all the directors, producers, and broadcasters viewing them. “The KLASH platform is super easy to use, and we appreciate the exportation of comments to Avid. That’s a critical factor in our workflow”, says Erik. Mikael continues “The KLASH platform is very convenient for me as an executive producer to be able to log in from anywhere and see where the production is heading. It's a really fast thing for me to just go into KLASH and make my judgment: what do we need to do and solve?”.

This workflow also involves the broadcaster who needs to review and approve the final version. “I know that the broadcasters who should green-light the final versions are also very happy with how the KLASH platform works. It's nice to be able to communicate when you're in different locations. You can do markers in the timeline with the parts of the episode we should look at and maybe the broadcaster doesn’t have a strong opinion on how we should solve it, but they can highlight the parts that they think could be solved better. KLASH is a really good tool for this”, says Mikael.

BBC Studios Nordic has a post office with all the editors, and they mostly work from there, but they could also work remotely. There is a dedicated post-producer responsible for the complete production because you can't always communicate at every level of the workflow, so there needs to be one in charge.

“We try to have a weekly meeting at the office. Especially when working with so many different editors. It's really important to be able to share your experiences more naturally and so I believe a weekly meeting is crucial for every production”, says Mikael. “When not on KLASH, online communication is usually by calls and emails”.

The Post Production Workflow

BBC Studios Nordic finds it most suitable to work in Avid, with the volume of content and the need to have many editors working with the material at the same time. “In terms of the editing part, it is most beneficial for us to work in Avid. And then it's up to our grader and sound editor to work in the systems they prefer. At the moment it's DaVinci Resolve for grading and Pro Tools for sound editing.

The Bottom Line

Producing four episodes per day requires efficient workflows. Challenges include managing large volumes of data and ensuring security. KLASH is crucial for version management of edits, and for providing broadcaster feedback in the production workflow. However, while new and innovative technology and communication platforms can certainly make life easier, the importance of having a weekly in-person meeting should not be underestimated.