Even by television soap opera standards, the idea of a global pandemic that closes down world economies, paralyses nations and claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, would be a storyline previously considered too far-fetched.
Step forward 2020 in all its miserable glory.
However, among the various plots – financial meltdown, closures, curfews, restrictions and redundancies – has come a success story in the shape of Saudi family drama Al Mirath (Inheritance), which has continued filming throughout the crisis.
The daily soap opera, a partnership between Image Nation Abu Dhabi, twofour54 and MBC Studios, has been filming since December and went to air in March, quickly becoming one of the top five shows on MBC.
Ben Ross, chief content officer at Image Nation Abu Dhabi, told Arabian Business: “The ratings have been great. It’s a great success story for all of us.”
Popular UK soap Eastenders saw filming brought to a halt in mid-March due to the national lockdown that forced all UK soaps to cease production.
The number of weekly episodes was slashed in half to keep the show on air for as long as possible, using previously filmed footage, but the cupboard was empty and by June 16 there was nothing to air. The show is to return in September.
There were no such issues for Al Mirath.
Ross explained: “For us, the UAE was very ahead of the curve on the testing issues. Once everything really started happening and there were a bunch of productions going, of course there was the on-set behaviours, there’s social distancing when you can, masks, not only hand sanitiser but sanitising equipment every day, sanitising sets every day. All that stuff got implemented way back in March.
“There were the individual tests at the beginning. There was thermal testing at crew’s hotels, we were testing on set and there was actually Covid testing for every crew member every few weeks, which we started back in March also. We got on top with the help of the government and the leadership.”
Other than Iceland, Abu Dhabi and the UAE was the only jurisdiction to maintain production throughout the lockdown and movement restrictions, with twofour54 spending more than $100 million on a number of projects as the cameras kept rolling, and between 600 to 1,000 crew members kept working.
Ross added: “I think it’s a challenge if you don’t have cast and crew that doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. We operate under the theory that if you treat people like adults, they’ll act like adults, and if you treat them like children they’ll act like children.
“We treated everybody like adults and we said, ‘look, this is what we need to do, and we need to do this altogether because one bad apple will mess up the whole barrel’. People were adults and it was great.”
The Al Mirath drama revolves around a disputed will, stolen identity and secret children. However, script writers also saw fit to add in storylines around the current health crisis.
“There were some Covid storylines integrated into the scripts,” said Ross. “Just very organically because we just realised that people were watching a real-time soap opera that is supposedly happening every day, then you need to deal with the everyday aspect of what’s going on.”
Al Mirath was originally commissioned for 250 episodes, but such is its success that “it will almost certainly” have a second season with a further 250 episodes, according to twofour54 and Image Nation CEO Michael Garin.
“What this allows, which makes it so critical, is the development of local talent. This is what our part of the world has lacked over the years because if you’re in Hollywood or London or Manchester, or Shanghai and you want to start in our industry, there are very well established paths for you to do that,” he told Arabian Business.
“People talk about David Geffen and Barry Diller and Ari Emanuel, starting in the William Morris mail room. If you don’t have an industry, you don’t have a mail room, you don’t have interns, you don’t have mentors, you don’t have apprentice opportunities.
“All those are now possible because we have this continual flow of production and we can take people as we have that start as interns who are now directing episodes of the series and can really develop their professional skills and talent.
“Now the industry looks like everywhere else in the world and this is what’s going to create the continuity and the momentum and the sustainability that we’ve lacked up until this year. This is a breakthrough year for Abu Dhabi and the industry.”
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