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'Bodyguard' Graphic Designer Reveals Fascinating Lengths Production Went To In Order To Bring Drama To Life

So much work goes into making each episode.
Ash Percival
By 

Entertainment Editor, HuffPost UK

With so much happening in each episode of hit BBC drama ‘Bodyguard’, it’s easy to take for granted the minute details that members of production spend ages pouring over.

But luckily one of the show’s team has given us a closer look at the prop work, providing a fascinating insight into the lengths they went to in order to bring the police drama to life.

Matthew Clark, who was a graphic designer on the show, has given a breakdown on Twitter of some of his team’s work, which reveals how legitimate bomb reports are written, websites are built from scratch and powerpoint presentations are brimming with detail.

Paperwork makes up the majority of Matthew’s on-screen work...

As you can imagine, there are lots of police reports that need to be painstakingly created and Matthew says “everything is based on reality”.

Paperwork makes up the majority of the worldbuilding graphics; police advisors give us a steer on how the it should look - everything is based on reality, but given an extra pass at feeling a bit more 'designed'. Different textures and colours keep it interesting. #Bodyguard pic.twitter.com/bo2yEEP6iP

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) August 27, 2018

Recreating websites - like a Google results page for a fictional character - is not as easy as you might think

“All of the webpages have to be created from scratch in order to be fully controllable and interactive,” Matthew explains.

The things you think aren't a bespoke creation actually take the longest - all of the webpages have to be created from scratch in order to be fully controllable and interactive. @ctgengineering then takes these and makes an animated package from them. #Bodyguard pic.twitter.com/qIMQHBcaWZ

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) August 27, 2018

Matthew also had to design a whole app for the kompromat on Julia’s tablet

This was accompanied by some old files that contrasted the high-tech of the tablet.

Julia's tablet was another bit of joint work with @ctgengineering / Revolver. I designed an app that was slicker and slightly techier than the stuff we've seen so far, and then created period typewritten documents with loads of noise and photocopy texture to suggest old scans. pic.twitter.com/ialneszJ66

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 9, 2018

All of the screens in the control room all had to be specially created

While many of these were central to the action, others were not, but still had to be created in order to fill the room.

The majority of the work in Ep2 of #Bodyguard was in the control room - the set was a tight, 4-walled space with screens on every wall and desk, with some screens providing scripted action, and other screens displaying filler or generic graphics. pic.twitter.com/5Zk81JUz7M

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 2, 2018

In order to create a set of screens that could fill any room and suit (almost) any scripted situation, I designed a custom program shell that looked moderately techy, that could contain evidence photos, live CCTV feeds, criminal records, documents and traffic feeds. pic.twitter.com/WN4z1776Zi

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 2, 2018

In the real world, software like this tends to run the gamut from being high end, adaptable databases, to extremely basic network access stuff. I tried to represent all of that and have it not overly-sci fi to give the room a bit of reality.

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 2, 2018

Blink and you'll miss it, but at the end of Ep3, a screen behind Deepak shows incident response units from all over London heading out to the college (or what's left of it). Our control room had a lot of contextual screens to keep it dynamic, and moving in line with the story pic.twitter.com/4XTeGrGPQN

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 9, 2018

CCTV, crime scene pictures and mug shots all had to be captured around the show’s shooting schedule

This proved to be a bit of a headache for Matthew and his team, who had to do a lot of their work around things that were happening on set.

This was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to get my brain around, as you have to work with when actors are available and in costume, when things are being cast, knowing when to go get photos on certain days. Lucy, our art assist, was superhumanly on top of this.

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 16, 2018

All of our paperwork, powerpoints etc. are fully detailed. You don't always see but things like our aftermath report feature things detailed bomb radius analyses, forensic photos shot by our ace assistant Lucy, and virtual props like these generated passports. #bodyguard pic.twitter.com/csB8evw1eP

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 2, 2018

A better look at the #bodyguard digital evidence boards. As I mentioned last week, something in the region of 30-odd of these were made for the series, each sequentially updated based on progression in the script. These plain white mockups gave us an idea of how to lay them out. pic.twitter.com/I7VNLr5mWG

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 16, 2018

We had to approach these in a fairly real way as we had to fill them with plenty of 'evidence' - this meant taking on-set photos of stuff like the sniper aftermath, staging CCTV shots, faking passports, generating incident reports, creating paperwork etc #bodyguard pic.twitter.com/ZeY3OuAGes

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 16, 2018

Richard Madden had to learn to use the software Matthew and his team created

No, he didn’t just pretend.

David's PNC search was more of me and @ctgengineering, using the standard Police framework, with a new app inside. This takes a surprising amount of organisation - the AD's have to cast all of the extras who provided a headshot, and Richard had to rehearse using the system. pic.twitter.com/gEzZ9A1U4K

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) September 9, 2018

And of course, no police drama would be complete without a fictional police crest

Firstly, police shows require: a Police force. I designed a generic crest for our force, including different colourways to work on uniforms, paperwork, screens, etc, as well as the warrant cards. The crest was extruded into 3D and printed to create the badges for the wallets. pic.twitter.com/DUY67pOtT3

— Matthew Clark (@mr_clark) August 27, 2018

Read Matthew’s full Twitter thread here.

‘Bodyguard’ concludes on Sunday at 9pm on BBC One.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story quoted a tweet from Matthew that said they got David Cameron to pose for a photo with Keeley Hawes’s Julia Montague and “photoshopped him in to match her, rather than the other way around”. However, he has since insisted this was a joke, while Cameron’s press office have also pointed people in the direction of the original photo of the former PM, which shows him with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

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