Talk:Our Friends in the North

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The early episodes are clearly reminiscent of the events surrounding John Poulson and T. Dan Smith. If others don't disagree I shall add Linuxlad 09:14, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks like someone else (DBIV?) did agree :-) - (when I first came down South, TDS was still doing time in the local open prison, and was one of its star inmates).

Director Stuart Urban writes: Having kept silent about the issues raised above for ten years, even though other members of the team went public with their versions at various times, I would now like to make some observations:

It was intended and contracted that I was to direct the first 5 episodes and Simon Cellan Jones direct the last 4. When I split from the production after 6 months or so, Pedr James was brought in at short notice as a replacement/stopgap director. I had filmed for 10 weeks (longer than most UK feature films!. During the first 7 or so weeks, the BBC professed itself entirely happy with my rushes.

It was only when friction arose between me and Peter Flannery due to what I took to be mounting interference in my role on set (e.g. giving notes to the actors without referring to me) that relationships deteriorated. He won the producers over and I felt isolated. There was general dissatisfaction among all parties after the rough cut of Episode 1. Peter Flannery blamed me. But I felt the episode's script concentrated on far too many characters and too closely on Labour party politics and extraneous themes. It is true that after I left, the episode was reshot by Pedr James, but only after being completely rewritten by Peter Flannery, because, as a script, Ep. 1 simply did not work. Had the original Ep 1 been put on the DVD, it would have proved my point, I feel. If the problems had been due to my direction, as is suggested above, the first Ep 1 script would have been filmed again, largely unchanged.

Looking back on this after a decade, I believe the nervousness of the BBC about the first episode of this massive risk and financial gamble led to me being targeted for publicity purposes by Peter and those close to him, as the “culprit”, whereas in truth my departure from the series was because of differences in personal temperament and creative approach between me and Peter and an Episode One script that did not work. Two hours of my material remained, and even though, because of the earlier friction, I was not interviewed for the DVD extras etc, I had played a key role in the casting, look and impact of the serial which is why Bafta and certain critics recognised my work alongside that of the other key team members. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.114.24 (talk • contribs)

The article states that the 2010 DVD release had a shorter clip from the song "Don't Look Back in Anger" so the credits ran in silence, and the reason is unknown. I haven't seen it to check, but if it's true it could be an issue with the royalties.

Using a 30-second music clip may be "fair use" in some contexts and countries. This 2009 UK article gives a few examples. I doubt the DVD company paid the record company nothing, but maybe costs were considerably lower with a shortened version of the song {{Citation needed, naturally}}. On Daria's DVD release, for cost reasons, almost all copyrighted music was replaced.
-Responsible? (talk) 23:05, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]