Navy Drama Turning Crew And Cast Into Seasoned Salts
The Age
Thursday April 3, 2008
Whether or not you believe in Method acting, dressing the cast of Sea Patrol in navy uniforms and Kevlar body armour and sending them out into a heatwave day after day delivered a similar result.
Returning to the catamaran that served as the show's floating production office during the eight-week shoot at a sweltering Mission Beach in Queensland, they filed in like the walking wounded, sweating, exhausted, dehydrated and clearly in pain. Immersed in the role? Yes. Faking it? Certainly not. Reflecting on the intensity of the experience, actor Jeremy Lindsay Taylor says the challenge was maintaining focus. "Sea Patrol is incredibly challenging, physically and emotionally, and you're trying to do justice to a lot of things - the script, the characters, your colleagues and the Australian navy," he says."Every take, that might be the take they use, so it's got to be your best." Sea Patrol returns this week for a second series, Sea Patrol II: The Coup. The Fremantle class HMAS Hammersley, retired in the final episode of series one, has been replaced by the sleeker, faster (and sexier) Armidale class namesake, a 56-metre, 270-tonne Freudian toy with a Rafael Typhoon 25-millimetre stabilised deck gun, two 12.7-millimetre machine guns and a $28 million price tag. As in the first series, the 13 one-hour episodes of series two are linked by a story thread, a concession to the Film Finance Corporation backing it as a mini-series. In the first episode, the Hammersley is sent to rescue civilians during a coup in the fictional (but Solomon Islands-esque) Pacific nation of Samaru, the first of several return visits. Understanding the strengths of the second series involves, to some extent, understanding the weaknesses of the first, which was criticised for its simplicity and stiffness. In its defence, it was written for a 7.30pm timeslot but aired at 8.30pm, where the audience's expectations (and attention) is greater. Its 13 episodes were written in little more than six weeks before a single frame was filmed. The most striking aspect of the second series is its naturalness, in stark contrast with the first. Taylor believes the biggest challenge with the first series was that nothing on such a scale had been undertaken before. Also, because the navy world was new to the writers and actors, Taylor felt there was an unwillingness to rock the boat. "We didn't want to stray too far from navy protocol and we didn't feel we had that right," he says. "With the second series, I think we've earned that right to make it more ours." The cast certainly seem more at ease in their navy skin. "We know more about it, the writers know more about it," Taylor says. "It was a matter of knowledge and taking that first step up to a new level. This is a lot less formal, a lot less regimented and more how it actually is on a patrol boat." Before filming the first series in late 2006, producers Hal and Di McElroy (Blue Heelers, Water Rats) sent the cast, including Taylor (Pete "Buffer" Tomaszewski), Ian Stenlake (the captain, Mike Flynn), Lisa McCune (executive officer Kate McGregor), Matthew Holmes (Chris "Swain" Blake), Kristian Schmid (radio operator Robert Dixon) and Jay Ryan (Billy "Spider" Webb), to navy boot camp. The challenge for the cast was accepting that, despite the uniforms, big navy boats and military props, they were just a bunch of actors."We had no idea what it was like to be navy personnel," Taylor says. "We were going in completely blind. It was some physical training, marching, learning how to salute and weapons training. It was funny but we all took it very seriously." The second series involved 86 days of filming, 42 of them at Mission Beach on board HMAS Broome (hull number ACPB 90), which was standing in for the fictional Hammersley (ACPB 82). The remainder was studio and location filming at the Gold Coast and a brief turn on HMAS Launceston (ACPB 94). The press material promises more action (and if the first episode is any indicator, delivers on its promise) and more romance, notably the emerging love triangle between Buffer, navigator Nikki Caetano (Saskia Burmeister) and seaman Josh "ET" Holiday (David Lyons). The show, produced on the same budget and to the same schedule as the first season, is "at least 50 per cent bigger" in scope, he says. "When I first read (the scripts) I went, wow, it was like 13 mini-Die Hard films. Then I went, 'Hang on, how are we going to do this?' It's impossible on the same schedule, and yet we did. "There was talk of trying to scale it back but then we got out there and just went, 'Let's go for it'. As a crew and cast, in my opinion, we achieved the unachievable." They also forged a bond that seems stronger than that between a typical television show cast. That is where the line between character and actor begins to blur again. Taylor says the greatest compliment paid to them was to be told by the navy they were authentic. -- MICHAEL IDATO Sea Patrol II: The Coup begins on Monday at 8.30pm on Nine. Critic's View, page 40
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