Hospital : Series 1 Episodes 1-6
- Submitting institution
-
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Output identifier
- 31375708
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
- BBC 2 Television
- Month
- January
- Year
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Hospital, a six part documentary series, represents an important innovation within the established TV documentary format of the observational medical series. As I have argued (Littleboy, 2013) this genre has tended to privilege human-interest stories for their emotional impact over social critique, concealing the reality of the NHS today. Dominant approaches, such as use of remote ‘fixed rig’ cameras, have risked creating embedded relationships, obviating analysis in favour of idealised institutional self-portraits.
I was employed as an executive producer to shape a new format by the independent production company Label 1. Harnessing the affect and attention to character that are key to the success of series like 24 Hours in A&E, I sought to engage audiences with the impact of shrinking resources on the decision-making of clinicians and its effect on patient care. I designed six films for the BBC, including an opener focused on delays in cancer treatment that result from competition for intensive care beds.
Deploying up to seven mobile shooting crews to capture different perspectives simultaneously, I adapted procedures from the maligned docusoap mode. For the first programme, a dramatic narrative was filmed over one day showing the competing viewpoints of two surgeons and their patients, battling for the same intensive care bed, and the hospital managers responsible for the ultimate decision. This multiple crew technique displaced the authority of the director ‘on the floor’. Thus, as executive producer overseeing the whole production, I exercised what I have termed ‘macro’ authorship: the direction of the film as a whole (see contextual information for a detailed explanation). Edited with my direction to Matthew Cracknell’s score, Hospital created a combination of affect and analysis.
The 6 episodes that form this output aired on BBC2 (January-February 2017) and won Royal Television Society Best Documentary Series 2018 and Televisual Bulldog 2018.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
