Norskov as local noir
and regionalization in Danish TV drama production
Kim Toft Hansen,
Aalborg University.
1. Local drama production in Denmark is on the rise
2. Nordic noir may be a driving force of localisation
3. Norskov may ‘lift’ a locality away from the periphery
Regional noir-drama production
En by i provinsen (1977-80)
Strisser på Samsø (1997-98)
Unit One (2000-4)
Dicte (2012-)
Norskov (Danish TV2, 2015)
‘local noir’ (Leenhouts 1996)
‘local noir literature and film’ (Mah 2014)
Covers 26 out of 96
municipalities in Denmark
Public Service Fund:
regional obligations in the
media for agreement 2015-18
The West Danish Film Fund
Copenhagen Film Fund
Film Commission Fyn
Television series co-financed
by regional film funds
Local representation
in local TV – local noir
Almost haft shows are crime fiction
Norskov (2015)
Ludvig and Santa Claus (2011)
The Twins and Santa Claus (2013)
Motivation:
Creating/sustaining local
growth and talent
Denmark is ‘local’ in the world too
Dicte (2012-)
Definition of ‘local’ varies
Wallander (BBC)
The Team (2015)
Midsomer Murders (2014)
Heartless (2014)
The Christmas Wish (2015)
1864 (2014)
The Legacy (2014-
The Bridge III (2015)
Rita III (2015)
Nordic noir, or local noir
Nordic noir brand – a fuzzy reference to place
Local - peripheral Denmark vs. place specificity
“If
anyone tells you that this is peripheral Denmark,
tell them that the world is not flat”
Place in production and plot
“It’s the first time that a town plays the lead role in a TV-series.”
Mikkel Seedorff Sørensen (Managing director at Port of Frederikshavn)
Local TV and local noir challenges…
…generic notion of Nordic noir (not a genre)
…traditional production models
…traditional funding models
…dichotomy between cultural and industry policies
…specificity of Nordic noir
NORSKOV
From ”Nordic crime drama” and ”police drama” to ”drama”
a noun losing adjectives (reversed Rick Altman)
Nordic noir as a selling point for local funding
”Norskov is so global” (Rose Aykroyd, ICM Partners)
Norskov as local, or even port noir:
the port as a very local and global place (Alice Mah)
1) Early international promotional material for Norskov (2014).
AFP – Advertiser funded production
Sponsor’s show reel: representation of locality in sponsorship
8-10 mio. DKR into a potential second season
The port in Norskov:
the closest you may get to product placement in Danish television
2) Promotional still from canaldigital.dk.
drama
3) Images in promotion
folder about port expansion
(”Port of Opportunities –
Sæt kurs mod fremtiden”)
4) Still from Wallander – Sidetracked (BBC, 2008)
Translocal images with commercial value:
Hinterland and Norskov
Quebec 1755
St. Louis 1859
London 1845
Copenhagen 1640
Panoramic maps as place branding
Intention: lifted localities
“In contemporary ‘international communication’ the
standardisation of locality is crucial. A ‘lifted’ locality – a
sense of locality that is communicated “from above” – has
to be a standardised form of the local (whether it be a
neighborhood, a city, a country, or even a world region). An
‘international TV enterprise like CNN produces and
reproduces a particular pattern of relations between
localities, a pattern which depends on a kind of recipe of
locality. This standardisation renders meaningful the very
idea of locality, but at the same time diminishes the notion
that localities are “things in themselves.”
Roland Robertson 2012: 195
From above, from below
Local TV-drama production as a part of
‘a counter-urbanisation trend’
creating
‘forms of dwelling in a world of flux’
and ‘a global sense of place’
where people are ‘rooted’ instead of ‘routed’
Shaun Moores – Media, Place & Mobility
Sum up / defining local noir:
Local noir is a trend on the rise in crime fiction, even though ‘places as such’ have
been a topos in Western crime fiction since its beginning. Local noir is part of an
general counter-centralization trend in drama production and story-telling. For the
locality, it may create a new sense of dwelling and ‘pride’ in a world on the move,
but it may outside of the locality still be viewed as very both national and global in
scope. Rather than diminishing the idea of localities, local TV production, and
especially local crime fiction in its broad appeal, draw attention to specific places
and may ‘lift’ it from out of the downward spiral of peripherality. In doing so local
noir challenges several traditional assumptions about drama production and
consumption.