In The Flesh Writer Dominic Mitchell Interview

By Connor Macgregor / March 25, 2013

The Zombie genre has its strong following of fans in the UK, as well as around the world. Many genres and visionaries have carved their own version of the undead, with many creative interpretations on screen. Films like Night Of The Living Dead provided us with the standard slow walkers, whilst 28 Days Later opted for a faster energetic take of zombies (which were called €œthe infected€ but none the less have been pushed by mainstream media as zombies, so€). Television hasn€™t been entirely focused on making zombie themed shows. The only show that has managed success has been AMC€™s The Walking Dead, America€™s highest rated cable series with over 11 million viewers a week.

Now, BBC Three is opting for a take on the zombie genre with In the Flesh, a three part drama focusing on a world where zombies have been integrated back into society, with conflicting views from the survivors. WhatCulture managed to speak to its writer Dominic Mitchell on writing the drama as well as other topics relating to writing. How did the idea of In The Flesh come around?

It came to me back in 2007 actually. I€™ve always been a big horror fan and I was watching a zombie movie late at night, which was terrible. The characters were just awful to watch, and in that I started to feel sorry for the zombies. As well as that, another influence was based on another film about a character that had a psychotic episode. So I took roughly those two ideas and began to develop the idea of a young zombie boy returning to his community as well as the idea of what if Britain had really entered a zombie apocalypse.

You mentioned watching a lot of zombie films to get the idea of In The Flesh, did any really empower the development of the project?

There hasn€™t really been one that influenced me to write In The Flesh, aside from the one film I just mentioned. I did hear of the book Warm Bodies whilst I was writing it, and when I did I didn€™t want to go anywhere near it incase the ideas of that story got into my head and changed things around. A lot of the zombie films I watched were really all the same: bunch of human survivors; few undead; and abandoned environments. So I always wondered what would happen five years from now and things would have calmed down. In many ways, this is a counter to the standard zombie movie.

The cast contains a lot of unknowns in the drama, were you involved in the casting process at all?

Me and the casting director both wanted it to be new faces, especially for the main characters, because if you were to cast a young star in the role, you would immediately associate them with the other characters. We just wanted the right people and so David Shaw (Casting Director) along with Jonny Campbell (Director) went in that direction. Jonny is brilliant in that area of finding young talent, because he knows exactly what to look for when casting the character. I trusted him and its brilliant that we have new faces and they€™re just brilliant and fit the part so well. We didn€™t really have any pressure from BBC Three to cast any big stars. Ricky Tomlinson is really our only known face in this series.

What was it like going on set and seeing your script being performed?

It was great! Jonny invited me on the first day of shooting to have a look. I got there and it felt like an out of body experience really. I€™ve been working on this for five years. It was incredible just being there and was very much all in 3D really. It was amazing to see something that I put on page come to life in front of me.

This is your first writing credit. Were they any particular writing influences that you can say influenced you as a writer?

The first writer that really had any influence over me was Stephen King. When I was at school, I had a tough time studying grammar and English weirdly. When I was 11, I began reading Pet Sematary and couldn€™t put it down and read it all night. That got me into reading and had a lasting influence over me. Then at 16, I remember watching Pulp Fiction, and it was a revelation to me that there was this writer behind the camera controlling everything. Others would be Ken Loach & Shane Meadows when it comes to Independent Cinema. John Fay on the writer€™s room was a great mentor and really got the project, and a brilliant influence. He didn€™t care about budget or schedule; he just wanted me to write what I wanted to write without any boundaries.

In The Flesh is a new step for The BBC, in the sense that it€™s a zombie and supernatural drama. Usually BBC tend to go for Crime & Period dramas, Do you think this is something new for BBC audiences to connect to?

I think so. When I was writing it and on the scheme, we were asked to write something we wanted to see on TV, and this really fits the mould. Its shot differently and has a very different pace to it unlike a usual BBC Three show would. We don€™t have a pumping soundtrack, and it isn€™t noisy. Its more eerie and spooky and its something that we haven€™t seen in a long time since Twin Peaks which is again another influence. I wanted to go back to that twin peaksy quality American gothic, which is something we haven€™t seen for a while. I think with BBC Three, it does tend to take risks unlike BBC One or BBC Two. We all sort of saw In The Flesh as one big film split into three parts. We never really saw it as a TV series.

How much input did Zai Bennett & Ben Stephenson have in the process of In The Flesh?

They responded really well to it when they read the pilot episode. From that, they told me to go write a series bible. Being so new, I didn€™t know what a bible was and ended up writing a long document about the world, and making mock leaflets. When I sent it in, I thought they were really going to hate it, but instead they absolutely loved it. They still talk about it amongst themselves. They really responded to it very well.

The Supernatural Genre has been overexposed in many ways and Twilight has redefined how a mainstream audience sees Vampires. Does In The Flesh offer a new view of zombies?

I hope so. I hope people watch it and think about the zombie€™s families and past life. I hope it bleeds into them and makes them think different about the genre.

Is there a particular actor/actress we should watch out for?

Luke Newberry is great as the lead. Harriet Cains plays Jem in this, and this is her first big part. From the preview screenings, everyone was saying she knocked it out the park and were really moved by her performance. And then Emily Beven who plays Amy I think will be really popular amongst viewers.