Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

Mike Schur:A wedding seemed like a better place to have a total meltdown than the original work presentation, because Lacie yearned for social standing and snapshot perfection above all else. We also liked the idea that Lacie had a real talisman from her past with Naomi – the little doll, Mr Rags. Lacie’s brother was originally a boyfriend, I believe, who broke up with her because she was too consumed with the points system.

Charlie Brooker:I remember they had an idea I was really taken with that didn’t end up being used. It was the idea of rage rooms, where people go to just smash stuff up, because it’s the only place they could vent any anger. It was sort of like needing to go to the toilet somewhere. So it was a funny idea, but then we realised that it just destabilised everything, because why doesn’t Lacie just go into a rage room?

Annabel Jones:While Nosedive would end up being the first film in the Netflix running order, it was the third film we shot. Obviously we were curating the series and trying to make sure that there’s range within it. We’d done San Junipero first, then Shut Up and Dance , which was obviously bleak and small and gritty and suburban. Then Nosedive became the big pastel, Americana, aspirational-living episode, so we could afford to be slightly heightened with it.

Charlie Brooker:There was a point at which Shut Up and Dance was set in America and Nosedive was potentially set in a non-specific Britain, but then they swapped around.

Annabel Jones:If you are going to live in the idealised world, it’s going to be hard to sell that when it’s in Hounslow. No offence, Hounslow! But, you know, when you’re controlling your life to such a degree, you want the beautiful weather, you want everything to feel manicured. And that’s when Joe Wright came on board.

Joe Wright is the award-winning British director of Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement (2007) and Darkest Hour (2017).

‘Naomi and I were best friends. I wish her well and I wanna express that best I can. And yeah, if I nail the speech and get 5-starred by hundreds of primes, so what, it’s win-win’

Joe Wright (director):I’d just made this film Pan , which had been universally slagged by the critics. The whole star-rating system can lead to you validating yourself, based on how other people think of you. And so Nosedive kind of spoke to me, in terms of that experience.

The only social media I’ve ever engaged in was Instagram. I was on that for about six months, and then realised I was becoming completely obsessed and addicted by it. Instagram was just a disgusting lie, really. I found I was judging myself based on the appearances of other people’s lives and constantly comparing myself to others. I would either become vain or bitter, based on those judgements. It’s a desperate, soulless endeavour that concerns me greatly.

The interesting thing about Charlie’s work on Black Mirror is that he’s completely obsessed with all the tech and high-concept stuff. It’s pretty much all he talks about and it appears, on the surface, to be all he’s interested in. And yet he writes these incredibly emotional, and tender, portraits of human fallibility. He seems to do that without really realising he’s doing it, as if that’s easy to him. So the thing that’s most difficult to most people comes quite naturally to Charlie. He does it without really paying very much attention to it. Which is very odd.

Charlie Brooker:That’s a very perceptive quote from Joe. I’m pretty sure I could be diagnosed as being on a spectrum somewhere, because I am quite socially awkward and obsessed with little details of things. You should see me trying to follow a recipe. If it says 450 grams, I have to measure and if it’s 449 grams, I’m like, “Oh no, it’s a fucking disaster.” I had to be trained in how to do small talk once, because I’m so bad at it. If it’s a Monday you say, “What did you get up to the weekend?” If it’s Friday, you say, “Have you got any plans for the weekend?” If it’s the rest of the week you’re fucking lost.

I feel like I know exactly what characters are thinking emotionally when it’s really clear. For example, when the stakes are life or death, or someone’s child has gone missing, or they’re about to see a loved one die. I find that relatively easy, because that’s a strong flavour, so I can imagine what that would be like. I find it harder to work out how people would be feeling when it’s less of an obvious emotional cliff edge. Maybe it’s more that I’m just desperately unsubtle, but when it’s something like, “How would an old lady feel about seeing a sail boat?” I have no clue.

Annabel Jones:Yes Charlie is obsessed with the tech details, as increasingly am I – he’s dragged me over to the dark side – but the obsession is with making the tech as backgrounded, unobtrusive and subtle as possible. Working with Gemma Kingsley, we spent a lot of time designing the Nosedive phone interface to ensure it was as simple and beautiful as the rest of the world. It needed to feel unassuming, like a friend you’d invite into your life. That’s what makes Black Mirror sometimes feel so insidious. Similarly, Max [Max Richter, composer] and Joe had the idea to make the reward-sounds from the phones part of the score. So these ringtones which were driving the narrative also became very subtly and sinisterly part of the soundscape.

Charlie Brooker:A pet hate of mine is ostentatious computer interfaces in movies and TV. You know, when someone opens an email and it triggers a 30-second animation of an envelope spinning around. It’d drive you absolutely bananas in real life. It’s just silly and actually bumps you out of the story, because it doesn’t tally with your everyday experience of computers and so on.

I understand the impetus: it’s based on a fear that screens are boring, or viewers won’t understand what’s happening unless icons are the size of picnic blankets. But in the real world, the successful interfaces are minimal. Apple’s interface, at its best, is graceful and understated. So a frequent refrain from me when it comes to our fictional user-interface design is to strip out absolutely anything that either wouldn’t be necessary or would hog processing power. Less is always, always more.

Joe Wright:There wasn’t a Nosedive script yet, but I signed up on the basis of that synopsis, knowing that the writing would make it something really special. I’d been wanting to work with Bryce Dallas Howard for ten years. We’d met, once, and I thought she was great, but wrong for that project back then. And then I thought Bryce would be perfect for Nosedive so I asked her, and she signed up on the basis of this synopsis also. Getting Bryce to do that part was by far my most important choice.