Arvingerne Season 2

[Charolette Antosh]

TheLegacy (Danish: Arvingerne, literally "the heirs") is a Danish television drama created by Maya Ilse and produced by DR. Series 1 was first broadcast on the Danish national television channel DR1 on 1 January 2014, and was sold to a number of other countries worldwide even before it had aired in Denmark.[1] The series is a modern family portrait which tells the story of four siblings trying to cope with their mother's death which has turned all of their lives upside down. After the success of the 10-episode first series, a second season of seven more episodes started broadcast on Danish television on 1 January 2015,[2] and a third series of nine episodes started in January 2017.

The Legacy starts out at the legendary manor Grnnegaard on southern Funen, where the internationally renowned artist Veronika Grnnegaard has lived an eccentric and colorful life since the wild sixties. The serial follows Veronika's four adult children whose free and chaotic childhood at Grnnegaard has left its mark on them in very different ways. They live scattered to the four winds until Veronika unexpectedly dies and they are forced to gather to wind up the estate. Just before she dies, Veronika leaves the manor to her daughter Signe, who was given up for adoption. Signe lives with her partner in a quiet residential area in the local town and has never known the truth of her parentage. What was meant to be a quick and painless estate division becomes the start of a journey into secrets and lies that turn their lives upside down and forces them to look at each other and themselves with new eyes.

Our empirical study of the series draws on an analysis of in-house design/concept documents [1], interviews with the production designer Mia Stensgaard [2], and promotional material made for the series [3]. The paper also draws on visual analysis of the finished production. Our overall argument is that the importance of location and production design has been overlooked in studies of television drama development and production, despite the fundamental part these play in drama production in general and in establishing the production values and the visual style of a series in particular. We also want to shed light on the somewhat neglected relation between place and story in television productions. At the end of the article we suggest a simplified analytical model including dramatic text, visual design and location registrations as mutually dependent objects in the development of screen fiction.

The production of The Legacy illustrates how design ideas can be developed at an early stage as part of a collective, creative process that includes not only the scriptwriter, but also the production designer and the producer. Based on our previous works on production design and creative processes in film productions (Wille, 2014) and television places and media geography as an interdisciplinary field of research (Waade, 2013), we consider this case to be significant in the way production

In the pre-pre-production phase writers and designers, if involved, use particular documents and objects to explain their ideas. Writers use written documents and screenplay drafts to explain the characters, their relations, the places and the actions. Designers use visual objects such as mood boards, concept drawings and models. These written and designed objects assist in transferring ideas and knowledge, both within the creative team and beyond. They play a vital role when the creative team have to communicate their visions and pitch ideas to stakeholders outside the core creative team, e.g. for approval and funding. Star and Grisemer (1989) use the concept of boundary objects to describe the qualities of objects that facilitate the creative process, to develop a shared understanding within the creative team and to communicate ideas and knowledge to stakeholders. For example, the concept bible or role book contains both visual and written content in order to synthesise dramatic and audio-visual principles, and can be seen as a boundary object, made by a creative team in order to ensure consistency. The production hotel can be regarded as a particular boundary space in which creative personnel work together and develop ideas in collaboration with the producers (Wille, 2014: 208-209). A characteristic of this space is that ideas are shared, tested and developed by the creative individuals. The walls of the room are decorated with notes, suggestions for casting and locations as well as visual material and sketches created by the designers: prototypes, suggestions for props, models, materials and costume tests. In this space, the narrative and the visual design intertwine and the process encompasses the exchange of dramatic input, visual ideas and location concepts.

In our interview, Stensgaard explained that her theatre background was crucial in her contribution to the idea development. For her, the early collaboration regarding the overall style and concept of the series was not unusual, due to her experiences of theatre and opera productions. The impact and significance of the location, however, presented the greatest difference from her previous work experiences.

As a supplement to the design concepts, Stensgaard explains here that she wanted every episode to encompass a situation, or a conflict, that would work not only visually, but also for the dramaturgy and the acting.

Although this might still be true in most productions, this paper documents a production providing a more open structure with input from different creative functions (directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, producers and production designers) in a more collaborative form. Other studies have focused on the complex nature of collaborations in film and television productions. For instance, David Bordwell has described the process of filmmaking as a series of mess-seeking and problem-solving activities similar to design processes in general (Bordwell, 1997: 150; Galle, 2001); and John Thornton Caldwell (2008, p. 228) has described the particular ambivalence of the production designers as they not only belong to the creative above-the-line functions but are also considered to be practical craftsmen, bringing the visions of the director and the cinematographer to the screen.

To understand the production of television drama series, production values and visual styles in general, it is important to look at production design and design processes more closely. In this article, we have suggested a theoretical framework and model for analysing production design in relation to narrative conceptual ideas and location in a drama production. We have suggested the concept of boundary objects to understand the material exchanged by writers and designers. These might include treatments or other written material, as well as design ideas and suggestions: physical models, sketches or other visual forms. The initial development phase, when this material is exchanged, is defined as pre-pre-production. In pre-production, production hotels might be established, creating boundary spaces where additional material is exchanged. A broader scope for this research could be to make a link between production design, televisual places and locations in general. The model can be used as a framework for studying the creative process of developing production design, visual fiction and locations empirically (figure 9).

It has been our goal to demonstrate and discuss the way in which story, design and location intermingle in the development of television series and their fictional worlds or arenas. The interactions between these components (story, design and location) are important, not least in television series feeding on the ability of fictional worlds to produce appealing visual fiction.

1. The in-house and unpublished design/concept documents include: 1) The concept book for The Legacy season 1, written by Mia Stensgaard, Jesper Christensen, Camilla Hjelm, Morten Hjbjerg and Karoline Leth, dated March 2014. 2) The concept book for The Legacy season 2, published by DR Fiktion (no date). 3) The compendium Skulptur, installation, proces, DR Fiktion (no date). And 4) The Compendium: Kunst i aktion, DR Fiktion (no date). This material was kindly made available by production designer Mia Stensgaard and art director Heidi Plugge.

2. Interview with the production designer Mia Stensgaard, Copenhagen, May 13, 2015, conducted by Jakob Wille and Anne Marit Waade. All the quotations in the article are translated from Danish to English by the authors.

7. Maya Ilse has been involved in several television drama productions (e.g. Absalons Secret in 2005, the prize-winning The Pact in 2009, and as episode writer on Sommer in 2008) before getting her breakthrough with The Legacy as a main writer. She trained at the National Danish Film School and graduated in 2003.

10. Mia Stensgaard has worked on a variety of theatre and opera productions, including work for the Royal Danish Theatre and Opera as well as the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen together with the internationally acknowledged director and playwright Robert Wilson. In 2002 she began a collaboration with Oscar-winning writer/director Anders Thomas Jensen, starting with De Grnne Slagtere (The Green Butchers) and later Adams bler (2004, Adam's Apples) and Mnd og Hns(2015, Men & Chicken). She trained at the School of Design as a fashion designer and graduated as a scenographer from the Danish National School of Performing Arts in 1998.

12. Stensgaard was also involved in the second and third season, developing the visual script ideas, but at this stage the main concepts already existed from the first season and Stensgaard and Ilse worked together in more traditional ways. Interview with the production designer Mia Stensgaard, Copenhagen, May 13, 2015.

Hi Diane

I loved the Legacy/Arvingerne series and hope we get season 2 in England soon! Has the theme song by Nina Persson been released anywhere yet? I love this song and would love to get a copy!

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