To commence the celebrations of its 21st anniversary Frantic Assembly announces its involvement in the new 8 part Channel 4 series Humans
Humans is set in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a ‘Synth’ – a highly-developed robotic servant eerily similar to its live counterpart. In the hope of transforming the way they live, one strained suburban family purchases a refurbished synth only to discover that sharing life with a machine has far-reaching and chilling consequences.
Artistic Director Scott Graham said: “I am absolutely thrilled to announce Frantic Assembly’s involvement in Humans. We were approached to develop and choreograph the movement of the many non human, synthetic characters throughout all 8 episodes of the series. It is so exciting to see our work and methods embraced by a new industry and used to tell a such a bold, modern story. Dan O’Neill has been the movement director for Frantic Assembly on this series and his meticulous eye for detail and choreographic excellence has proved invaluable.”
It is the first time Frantic Assembly has choreographed a primetime TV series
The show will premiere in the UK on Sunday 14th of June, at 9pm, on Channel 4. The cast includes: William Hurt (A History of Violence, Damages), Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd, The Honourable Woman), Tom Goodman-Hill (The Devil’s Whore, Mr Selfridge), Colin Morgan (Merlin, The Fall), Rebecca Front (The Thick Of It, Just William), Neil Maskell (Utopia, The Mimic) and Gemma Chan (Dates, Fresh Meat).
Frantic Assembly has created the Synth movement for the show under Movement Director Dan O’Neill. He commented: “Something particularly special about the show and what makes it different to other stories about artificial intelligence is that we didn’t use special effects to create the synths. Their eye colour has been changed, but all of the other synth aesthetics are created through precise movement work.”
The series is produced by Kudos (Utopia, Broadchurch, The Hour) in association with Matador Films (Real Humans). Executive producers are Jane Featherstone (Broadchurch, Utopia, The Hour) and Derek Wax (The Hour, Occupation, Lip Service) for Kudos with Chris Fry (The Smoke) for Kudos, and Henrik Widman and Lars Lundström for Matador Films. Commissioned for Channel 4 by Piers Wenger, Beth Willis and Simon Maxwell and Kristin Jones and Joel Stillerman for AMC and distribution will be handled by Shine International.
Joel Stillerman, Executive Vice President, programming, production and digital content for AMC said:“Humans is that rare sci-fi series that puts the emphasis squarely on the character aspect of the story, and explores the emotional impact that will come with an increasingly blurry line between human and machine.”
Frantic Assembly created the movement direction for the National Theatre Production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which last night picked up five awards at the 2015 TONY Awards in New York.