Thursday 24th April 2022
Synopsis
Jean Slater (played by Gillian Wright) is bipolar, and in this episode she is in a manic phase. Jean ran away from Albert Square and made her way to Southend and managed to escape her daughter Stacey Slater and Stacey’s former husband Martin Fowler who were looking for (and looking out for) her on numerous occasions. One escape was into a Hall of Mirrors. Then Jean walked into the open water which almost leads to her death, partly due to the huge wedding dress she was wearing. The episode ended with Jean crying in Stacey’s arms out in the open ocean.
Mike Jordan
I know EastEnders is not for everyone, but Thursday 28th April’s edition has some totally amazing scenes, reminiscent of when even regular serial shows like this had them.
Specifically stuff shot in Southend (which I was regularly taken to as child so recognise some bits) where there was a whole segment with Jean Slater (and excuse my using cast names) in the very fast big dipper and shot from behind her heading down the slopes and cross-cut with her totally enthused and excited shot looking up into her face.
The second amazingly clever stuff was shot inside the huge “Hall of Mirrors” where she was shot from all sorts of angles with much cutting between reflected in the mirrors and one where she was seeing herself and responding with her reflection. The twirling around “lost” was out of this world.
And then of course she was found by Stacey also with multiple cross-cut reflections and a chase around where she was lost in her own reflection with different angles – hence shapes – of herself as she ran around.
Even the final scene shot on the beach as they went down to and into the sea was amazing and there was a beautiful closing sequence when the clear blue summer sky was replaced by huge storm clouds at sunset – WOW!!
I haven’t seen such brilliant stuff on TV for years – even more effective than some Hitchcock films.
It is on iPlayer and is not to be missed.
Nick Ware
Totally agree. Spectacular by all departments. Why does it take soaps to show how TV drama could and should be? We switched the latest one off after the first five minutes.
Steve Lowry
I’ve now caught up with this EastEnders on iPlayer – It is brilliantly shot in every way; I then looked at the credits and realised why – TOP TEAM: Karl, Hils West, Hilary Charles, Mark on sound, John Carberry, all ‘departments’ – all the very best – on location and in the Studio and on the Lot.
Top work, top team!
Steve Lowry
The director for 28th April TX ‘Southend’ EastEnders was Karl Neilson who I have had the pleasure of working with many times in our overlapping careers. Karl is a genuinely lovely, no-nonsense person who as a great director always puts so much thought, planning and DEDICATION into his work whilst inspiring the best from all of his team.
Therefore, I forwarded to Karl your emails and, as you will see from his response, he was delighted and chuffed by your comments. He really appreciates your kind words.
[Editor: A big “Thank you” to Steve for contacting Karl Neilson and asking if the Tech Ops page could report his reply. And “Thank you”, too, to Karl for describing how he shot the episode in detail.]
Karl Neilson
Thank you so much for sending me the snapshot of the discussion, it was fascinating to read and made me really proud. So many questions! Firstly, do I know Mike Jordan? Or is he someone I probably haven’t crossed? I love the fact that he watched the episode and took so much from it. As you know I put a lot into my episodes, and include film references etc which are very rarely picked up! But for Mike to draw comparisons with Hitchcock was just fantastic. It tells me that perhaps I do know what I’m doing!
You were spot on about the team. It was brilliant, but also very significant with Hils, because it was the first block with a vision mixer since Covid struck…. I am a little old fashioned that way. So one significance of this block is that it was the first to be shot ‘the old-fashioned way’, and I feel it is no coincidence that it also turned out to be so good!
I have actually not been around EastEnders as much in recent years, as I have been fortunate to be able to work on Coronation Street and Holby.
Covid affected me mainly in a financial sense. I lost 6 months of work overnight, for which I was ill prepared. It was a very tough 5 months or so with no income, and I was unable to access the government schemes. It’s only now I can confidently say I’m truly back on my feet. Shooting during covid has been no fun, very technical, and just difficult. Now restrictions are loosening it is all becoming much easier and the joy is starting, slowly, to return for me.
But back to the episode! For those who were interested, the hall of mirrors was an exceptionally demanding scene to shoot. The set was actually quite small, and in reality it would be impossible for Stacey not to find and trap Jean easily. It was shot single camera, and very carefully, shot by shot. For each shot we would clear the set, and both me and Adam (the camera supervisor) would find a position for the actress, and then the camera so we could get what we needed. The actresses would be continually moved from position to position to create the cheats and for us to not see the camera. I knew geography wouldn’t matter, but eyelines would, so I arranged all the shots so Jean would look Left-to-Right when conversing with Stacey (whether in a mirror or reality), and that Stacey would look Right-to-Left in her shots. Therefore I knew I would get a non-jarring cut between them whether I went via the mirrors or the person. It was absolutely exhausting, and it took so much out of me that day I think it took a while to recover! Obviously it was a lot of fun in the edit to create the ‘mirror Jean’ which was a really successful way of telling the story (And that bit wasn’t in the script!)
For the beach scene we were so lucky to have consistent sunny weather across the two days. When I saw the weather I had to embrace it and give Jean a pathway to the Sun. I would’ve attempted this in post, but it wouldn’t have been as successful. The downside of this as I was then having to chase the tide AND the Sun, which really is quite stressful.
Plus on the second day the wind was up, so on the shots favouring Stacey in the water, the sea was really choppy, meaning I had to quickly change my plan as I couldn’t move backwards with her.
I spent a long, long time auditioning music for this. It wasn’t in the script, but I knew it was essential to the final sequence whereby Jean goes underwater and yet it seems a good place to be. In the end, out of nowhere, I remembered the Lotus Eaters track and also remembered I had spent my whole career trying to find a suitable moment to use it. It was a very weird realisation, but I was so happy with how that detail aided our understanding of Jean’s journey.
Roy Bailey
The reply from Karl was very interesting, having myself worked with him many times. But he refers a couple of times to ‘old fashioned’, indeed he is, as he says ‘I knew geography wouldn’t matter, but eyelines would’ – eyelines often seem to be a dead art these days!
Peter Hider
Reminds me of “pulling up” Philip Savile on an eyeline for Susan Penhaligon when she abruptly sat up in bed, waking out of a vampirish nightmare in the 1977 Dracula.
“Oh no, I want the eyeline wrong to show her disorientation”
Excellent! but it only worked because all the other eyelines had been carefully managed! (including in the mirror, with Louis Jourdan not being reflected)
