I'm one of the producers on the new series Ice Age Giants, who along with the rest of the team, was tasked with bringing those long extinct animals back to life.

The CGI brief was to create animals that looked as real as possible so that the animation could pass as natural history footage.

Having never worked on a creature animated show before, I was excited and curious about how it all worked.

We drafted a storyboard of what we wanted our animals to do, and set off to film the backplates - the 'real life' backgrounds that we drop our animated creatures into.

The shasta ground sloth has seven-inch long claws to defend itself

For the most part the backplates were shot where the animals once lived, so the sabre-toothed cat was shot in LA, the mammoths just outside San Francisco, the armadillo-like glyptodonts in Florida and the ground sloth in the Grand Canyon.

It's a complicated process, but the key things were to put the animal in context and try to film it as we would an animal in the wild.

All very well, but the animal in question wasn't actually there. This is when we realised that we, the production crew, would have to stand in.
 
As you can see in our video, we were given a ball by the animation team. One side was grey matte, the other silver mirror.

Mags filming the territory of the iconic sabre-tooth cat in Los Angeles

The ball was to be held in the approximate position of the head of the animal and we should carry it through the action sequence we were filming.

The silver ball would record the direction of the light so that when they came to build the animal, they could light it accordingly and it would fit in naturally to its surroundings.

So having recorded several vital details for the animation team – focal length, height of camera off ground, distance from animal etc, I found myself filming just below the iconic Griffiths Observatory in LA, as had James Dean before me.

Instead this time I was pretending to be the sabre-toothed cat, or smilodon - that's me in the clip.

Repeated takes of me holding a silver ball, slinking up to a ridge overlooking downtown LA, whilst a crane swung above me, were watched by many confused onlookers.

To add to my acting credits I can also claim to have been the startled shasta ground sloth in episode one.

By planning the sequence carefully and thinking about the animal’s behaviour, we were able to film movement that would let the animated animals interact with the environment – such as eating bushes, splashing water and kicking up dust and snow.

We returned the footage to the animation team at the post-production company The Mill (who have also worked on Doctor Who). They set to work on by far the most complicated process of all, building the animals.

From a concept drawing, they carefully constructed grey-scale drafts which we sent to our experts around the world for comment on shape, size, etc.

The animation team then rigged the creatures - meaning they prepare them for movement.

They build an internal skeleton, then overlay it with muscle and skin and then the figures were animated, creating creepily realistic movement.

The visual effects team's attention to detail was excellent – our sabre-toothed cats had ears that twitched when flies bothered them, and the paws of the cave lion splayed as it prepared to pounce.

They developed existing technology for Ice Age Giants, so that over three million hairs are visible per creature!

We were delighted with the results, as were our experts. The creature animation really took us back in time and brought these Ice Age giants to life!

Mags Lightbody is a producer on Ice Age Giants.

Ice Age Giants begins on Sunday, 19 May at 8pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

What compelled you to take the role of DSI Stella Gibson?
She feels a little like an island but I find that interesting and it makes me want to know more, which is always a good thing where character and drama is concerned. 

Can you tell us a detail from the script where you felt a connection to Stella?
It's hard to say. I am intrigued by her no-nonsense way of being. And that over time we get to see warmth and what she cares about. She is an enigma.

What are the key factors behind Stella's professional decisions?
I think she is professional and driven and has a mind for this kind of work and knows that if she keeps at it she will crack it. I think on the whole she works from instinct but I think this case touches her much deeper and that's in part what is driving her. Her emotions have become engaged and that's unusual for her. She is thrown.

Are her personal decisions driven by different impulses? Such as when she introduces herself to the policeman...
Obviously this is one of the ways she compartmentalises for better or worse. She has found a way to justify this act in her mind. She is used to dominating her environment and here she goes again. I think we all have to compartmentalise, especially with all the versions of ourselves we are expected to perform with some self- and society-imposed perfection. We do it with aspects of our inner selves and with relationships between work and home and other.

How do you portray this contrast?
It's compelling to see characters that have duality. Playing that is easy. It feels more natural for one, than a single dimensional character but also there's layers to build on and that's the joy and challenge of the work. Humans are more complex than our wildest imaginations. And then sometimes, oftentimes, we as individuals can't even explain why we do the things we do. We take stabs at it, we hypothesise and justify, but then years later we may realise it was all down to a forgotten event in childhood. So any fabricated history for a character can also have that same complexity – the character might even think it's one thing but it can be something laying much deeper.

Do you think there are any aspects of her character that she shares with Paul Spector?
Yes but I think I need to let that unravel on screen.

Gillian Anderson plays DSI Stella Gibson in The Fall.

The Fall starts at 9pm on Monday, 13 May on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

What to do with her? She was a character in search of a role.

And then BBC One asked me to write a drama series about district nurses and bingo! There she was, ready made, in her uniform, just raring to go.

I realised she was working as a character when the producer and script editors said they wanted to be a part of her team, to spend time with her at the pub, to share a pizza and a bottle of wine with her at the end of a long week.

She felt real. Now we had to find someone who understood her as much as we did.

The casting director, Andy Morgan, brought us some very talented people for the part and we were excited to see Frankie going in this direction and then in that... and then Eve Myles walked in and we were bowled over. She was Frankie!

She completely understood Frankie's love of life, music and dancing and she was delighted by the Ken Bruce strand which weaves through the series.

I like including radio in my dramas and it had to be Ken Bruce because my husband was a Scot, and when he died Ken's voice on Radio 2 reminded me every day that it was ok to laugh, to grin, to groan at bad jokes, to shimmy in the kitchen, to ease off a bit with the grief.

Ken Bruce has recorded voiceovers for previous dramas written by Lucy

I know I'm not alone in this - radio is the soundtrack to life, and when you're going through hard times it can be an encouragement, whether it's a local station, Classic FM or hospital radio.

Frankie's a fast living, fast driving, singing, dancing, radio gal.

So, we have a busy, modern professional woman with an independent streak and her own soundtrack. Sounds perfect.

Ian (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Frankie have been together four years

But like many millions of busy, happy, successful women, her personal life can be a bit complicated. She has high standards.

Sometimes men don't quite live up to them... who'd have thought it?

I hope you like her as much as I do, and that you enjoy spending time with her and her lovely blokes.

Lucy Gannon is the writer and creator of Frankie.

Frankie begins on Tuesday, 14 May at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

More on Frankie
Watch Eve Myles talk about playing Frankie 
Watch Lucy Gannon explain her writing process

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

At English Heritage, my role involves the challenging task of tackling heritage at risk; that is everything from the buried remains of Roman villas to important listed buildings that find themselves on the brink of extinction.

The four areas we visited in this series, Stonehenge and the River Avon, Hadrian's Wall, the Norfolk Broads and the Hoo Peninsula are all very different, but each is very special in its own distinctive way.

That's what makes our country so interesting - so much heritage and variation packed into such a small place. So what is the connection between flying and archaeology?

Two apparently unconnected disciplines actually meet in the niche domain of aerial archaeology.

The term encompasses all research that involves looking for historic remains from the air, and on the ground, scrutinising historic aerial photographs, or analysing the results of cutting-edge techniques, such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR) on a computer.

English Heritage's painstaking efforts to map all the significant archaeological features visible on vast collections of aerial photographs really is revealing lost worlds.

It's not too bold to claim that this small sub-discipline has done more to reveal the rich history of the English landscape than any other investigative technique that we have developed over the last 100 years.

And yet this contribution to understanding our past is not nearly as well-known as it should be.

A reconstruction of the network of trenches discovered on the Hoo Peninsula along the Thames

So the idea of The Flying Archaeologist series is to show how our knowledge of some of our most iconic landscapes, and those more hidden corners of the country, is being transformed by the aerial view.

Now, you might think this would be a relatively easy TV task. Fly around, find wonderful things, and film them.

However, many of the most exciting aerial discoveries are exciting precisely because they do not reveal themselves easily.

They require a combination of the right crop cover, dry weather and good light, and being in the right place at the right time with a camera. 

In the wettest and least sunny summer on record, we had to abandon filming on Hadrian's Wall in June when, after days of rain, we were caught in one of the most catastrophic flash floods ever to hit the area.

Excavations at a civilian settlement near Roman auxiliary fort Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall

It's hard enough to get access to the tightly-controlled military airspace around Stonehenge at the best of times - and we also had the exceptional sporting calendar to contend with in the south.

The massive anti-terrorist aerial exclusion zones thrown up around the Olympic events made usually accessible places forbidden for most of the summer.

So getting a helicopter and small aeroplane loaded with cameras and crew, in the same place at the same time in reasonable weather, and managing to fly despite the restrictions was a significant achievement in its own right.

You'll see some of the intriguing things I spotted from the air during the filming. Ultimately, however, plans and theories generated by the aerial perspective need to be tested on the ground.

New evidence has revealed traces of human settlement 3,000 years before nearby Stonehenge was built

It was great, therefore, to meet archaeologists who are doing just that. The dedication, skill, and in some cases, the community effort being harnessed to explore and explain our past is a joy to behold.

It may sound trite to some people, but I think poring over maps that show hidden landscapes, or flying over ancient sites, trying to interpret how it all fits together and thinking back to life in the distant past is about the closest we can get to time travel.

Ben Robinson is an archaeologist and the presenter of The Flying Archaeologist.

The Flying Archaeologist will be broadcast at 7.30pm on Friday, 19 April on BBC One with four different episodes shown simultaneously in four select English regions. All four episodes will then be available on iPlayer for seven days on most platforms.

The series will be broadcast across the UK on BBC Four starting with episode one at 8.30pm on Monday, 29 April. For all programme times please see the broadcasts page.

More on The Flying Archaeologist
BBC News: Hadrian's Wall: Aerial photographs 'could change history'
BBC News: Network of World War I trenches discovered on Hoo Peninsula 
BBC News: Norfolk Broads: Bronze Age evidence 'everywhere'
BBC News: Stonehenge occupied 5,000 years earlier than thought

BBC Four Collections: Archaeology At The BBC: Explore archive programmes charting the BBC's first ventures into archaeology programming, available online to watch in full. Included are the popular Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? series and programmes featuring legendary archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

We were heading out to Indonesia to film the second episode of Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero, about one of the great forgotten heroes of natural history – Alfred Russel Wallace.

Bill first heard about Wallace 15 years ago when he was birdwatching in Indonesia and he's been fascinated by his story ever since.

Wallace was a bug collector who spent eight years travelling through Borneo and Indonesia in the 1850s, seeing orangutans, flying frogs and birds of paradise.

And in a malarial fever he came up with one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time – the theory of evolution by natural selection (independently of Charles Darwin). Bill's determined to get Wallace recognised alongside Darwin.

Filming for the series took us from the deep jungles of Borneo to the remote and exotic Spice Islands.

As one of the producers, I was keen to get a sense of what life was like for the Victorian explorer.

And it was on the volcanic island of Ternate – Wallace's base for three years – that I believe we got our best insight.

Wallace had to get permission to explore from the sultan of the islands and now, 160 years on, Bill had to obtain his permission for us to film.

We weren't quite sure what to expect from our meeting with the sultan of Ternate, organised through our location fixer.

We'd been told he was a somewhat eccentric character and a great fan of Wallace but other than that we had few details.

"Arrive at the palace at 9am", we'd been informed, "and look smart" (not the easiest thing for a film crew recently emerged from the jungle!).

As we approached the gates it was clear the sultan had organised quite a welcoming party.

Guards with golden shields and spears were there to greet us. Courtiers in ceremonial tunics lined the route. There was a great sense of occasion – and a very real connection with Wallace's journey.

This was the same palace he visited when he first arrived in Ternate in 1858 – and apart from the bright pink steps, little had changed.

Although I knew visiting the sultan was an important part of our story, I was concerned that a formal interview might feel stuffy – out of character with the rest of the film.

My fears were allayed as soon as we stepped inside the palace.

Seated on a vast throne, and flanked by his courtiers, the sultan first enquired whether Bill was from the government.

When Bill explained he was in fact a comedian, the sultan insisted he tell some jokes after the meeting. At this point even the courtiers cracked a smile.

The sultan was passionate about Wallace and genuinely proud of the naturalist's links with Ternate.

He was outraged that Wallace wasn't better known in England. And he was happy to give us his approval to go in search of birds of paradise on a neighbouring island he controlled.

The meeting had been a success. But there was one last surprise. As we were about to leave, the sultan asked if we’d like to see his crown – or mahkota.

I had heard that it held magical powers but was somewhat taken aback when the sultan told us it was covered in tiny hairs – that grow!

From a few feet away I couldn't see any evidence, but the sultan insisted the hairs grow so rapidly the crown needs a haircut once a year!

It was a surreal ending to my first audience with a sultan – and a genuine insight in to the extraordinary world Wallace experienced more than 150 years ago.

Sam Hodgson produced episode two of Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero.

Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero starts with Wallace In Borneo on Sunday at 8pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

That doesn't mean that I don't get nervous at the beginning of each race, but I have so much confidence in her ability so I know she'll be fine.

I know how good she is. I'm lucky that Susie trusted me to make Driven: The Fastest Woman In The World.

It's a BBC Two documentary filmed over a year of Susie's racing life, including her testing for the Williams Formula 1 team.

She knew that I wasn’t out to do some exposé on women in motorsport; instead I was aiming to tell her story.

Susie can be quite a guarded person so at times it was difficult as when she was dealing with some of the low points leading up to her Formula 1 test, she obviously didn't want a camera crew around documenting her tough times.

It was my natural instinct to step in as a brother and try to make things better, but as a director I had to stand back and leave things in the hands of her team.

'My sister's racing career is not just unusual, it's exceptional'

At the end of the day there is little I could do to help as this level of racing is much higher than anything I have experienced.
 
When Susie ventured out in her Formula 1 car for the first time, I was nervous and that made it tough to concentrate on directing my film crew.

I think the crew could sense that tensions were high, but they understood how I was feeling on a personal level. There was a lot of pressure on her that day as she wanted to make a good impression and I could see that Susie was anxious.
 
All motorsport teams are uneasy having film crews around. They are competing at a very high level and don't want anything sensitive getting out that might give the other teams an advantage, but as Susie's brother I was given a level of trust that not many other filmmakers would have been granted.

The film explores Susie's highs and lows, at times there were more low points than high points, but we don't shy away from that.

Susie was open and honest throughout filming – like when she qualified poorly at Brands Hatch. 

We filmed her afterwards and you could see the raw emotion in her disappointment, which isn't typically what you would see with a racing driving driver facing the media. Normally their public persona is very different from their private.

'There are times where she's just been too fast for me' F1 racing driver David Coulthard

Many people have the perception that motorsport is glamorous, but behind the scenes it is actually incredibly tough –  like the intense hours Susie spends in the gym training and how careful she has to be with everything she eats.

As a female driver, Susie is faced with the usual clichés about her role within the sport. You'll hear her opinion on having to drive a pink car as a marketing stunt, but she never lets these things deter her.

Susie races because it's in her blood and I hope this documentary will give viewers insight to the dedication it takes (and disappointments you have to cope with) to achieve your dream.

David Stoddart is the director of Driven: The Fastest Woman In The World.

Driven: The Fastest Woman In The World is on BBC Two and BBC Two HD at different times across the UK, starting with BBC Two Wales at 4.30pm on Sunday, 14 April. For all programme times please see the broadcasts page. It was first broadcast in Scotland on Sunday, 24 March.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

To get a sense of that scale, we wondered what it would be like if we filmed this enormous institution in just a single day. 

What would that make us think about an organisation that touches all of our lives?

Surgeon Martin Drage removed Alan's kidney and transplanted it into his wife, Ann

As one of the executive producers I was responsible for helping to shape the initial concept and from the start I was excited by the idea, but also found it pretty terrifying from a production point of view. 

With any other documentary series you'd spend months filming stories that developed and unfolded over time. With this we only had one chance at it and for many of the stories we didn't know quite what would happen on that day.

We wanted the day to feel as 'everyday' as possible, so Thursday, 18 October seemed the ideal candidate - midweek and neither in the middle of winter of summer.

Then came the enormous task of persuading NHS services to allow us to film with them. We spent about five months securing permissions, and researching with medical staff on the ground to find out what would be happening that we could film on 18 October.

And then there was the not insignificant task of assembling the camera crews, all of whom had to be trusted to go out into some of the most sensitive environments and return with meaningful footage.

Dr Chris Abell is one of three GPs responsible for the 3,500 inhabitants of Islay

On the day itself I was sat with my fellow executive producers in an office surrounded by white boards and phones, knowing that apart from react to what came up on the day, there was little more we could do. The die was cast.

In the end we had over 100 camera crews filming across the UK in 88 NHS services, including hospitals, GP surgeries, community services, ambulances and helicopters.

There were a small number of stories that were planned - like a scheduled surgery - but there were a huge number where we didn't know which patients were going to come in, who was going to give birth, who was going to end up with the emergency services and of course whether they would allow us to film with them.

When the crews returned, they brought with them a total of 1,217 hours of footage, but to be honest we had no real idea what that would all amount to until we started assembling stories in the edit.

And in some ways I felt this was the scariest part of the endeavour - knowing that there was no way back. So much effort and resources for just one day.

A team of brilliant editors and directors spent five months making meaning out of the material and fashioning eight episodes that retain a sense of range, amazing juxtaposition and randomness, while also being loosely themed so that the programmes always feel more than the sum of their parts.

I hope that the series makes you ask questions and look at the NHS in a different way and also a look at ourselves - we'll all rub up against this institution in some way during our lives.

Magnus Temple is an executive producer of Keeping Britain Alive: The NHS In A Day.

Keeping Britain Alive: The NHS In A Day continues on Tuesdays at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

What Peter was interested in was living memory, a history that wasn't coming from history books but from oral history, from real people who lived ordinary lives.

Peter feels passionate that if you write about the past you must write about it as if you are writing about the present.

In our first episode of The Village set in 1914 on the week that war is declared with Germany, the big event in the village is the arrival of the first ever bus, meaning that people would be able to travel more.

'I don't know why, but it was a solemn occasion and that made it even more exciting'

They didn’t know that all the young men of the village were about to travel further than most of them could have imagined - to the front - and most of them would never come back. They thought the war would last just a few months.

They were only thinking about the immediate day to day grind of their lives, not global political events, just like we do in our lives now. This how we wanted this drama to feel.

We needed, then, to learn about history through anecdotes as though they happened just the other day, not through books written decades later with all the terrible distortions of hindsight.

Joe heads off to the front line: 'It's as if you were there'

This gave me the task of finding lots of people who experienced that time for Peter and me to talk to.

I contacted some local historians in the Peak District, where we had decided to centre our drama, and up we travelled for three days of intensive interviews in people’s homes around Stoney Middleton and Eyam.

What is fantastic about talking to elderly people is that while their memories of the last few weeks or years can sometimes be very vague and sketchy, when you ask about their childhood, often, their memory is incredibly sharp.

'My name is Bert Middleton. I'm the second oldest man in Britain.'

This I knew to be the case with my own 94-year-old father who can talk endlessly about the 1920s and what his school years were like, but not have a clue what he had for breakfast.

And they loved talking! And we loved listening, and it was fascinating the things we heard.

The single most important thing I came away with was that none of them talked about rural life back in the day before electricity and hot water and indoor loos as being a better time.

Life was clearly tough back then and they didn’t miss it! 

Grace Middleton (Maxine Peake), John Middleton (John Simm), Young Bert (Bill Jones) and Joe

I have to confess my favourite recollection of those early meetings. Most of the people we met were women and one of the great things about elderly ladies is that they serve cake when they have visitors.

Though Peter got to eat a lot more cake than I did, I thank them all for their fine stories and their fine cake.

John Griffin is the executive producer of The Village.

The Village continues on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Village
The Derby Telegraph: More than six million viewers watch two rising Chellaston stars
The Guardian: We long for a sense of belonging that village life offers
The Telegraph: The Village: The most accomplished new drama of the year so far 

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

What were your first impressions when you met?
Marc: I had read Iqbal's book, Sorrows Of The Moon, and met him to discuss it. I found him to be extremely charming and sensitive. I also realised that he had his own story going on and was keen to have him in the film.

Iqbal: When I met Marc for the first time, I knew he was someone I could work with. I had already seen his documentary, All White In Barking, and liked his work.

What expectations did you have, if any, when you started filming together?
Iqbal: It gave me a chance to look at myself from the outside and reminded me of Robert Burns' verse – "To see ourselves as others see us".

Marc: I hoped and prayed that his wife would come over in time for me to film and she did of course but that was uncertain for a long time during the filming. One day he just went off to India and within a week he had returned with her. Perfect!!

What was it like actually filming together?
Marc: Iqbal was quite a shy person and filming him in public locations such as his hotel reception was quite difficult. I wanted to get closer to him to really understand how he felt about not having his wife here in London with him.

I discovered they spoke regularly on Skype so decided to film a typical Skype conversation between the two of them. To capture the emotion and atmosphere, the lighting has to be correct, the mood has to be just right so it does take a good deal of planning.

I approached the scene in the film where Iqbal is making the double bed in the hotel room in a similar way, in the sense that, whilst he does often do this task, I set this up for the purpose of the film in order that I could create a quiet and intimate space for him to talk about the emotional pain he was going through because of his wife's absence.

'I laugh and joke... but I don't tell them about the pain I go through every day'

The hotel room and the double bed was suggestive and a good way to visually deal with his situation in the film. For me, this is what documentary film is all about. I am looking for the poetry in people's lives and not just dealing with facts.

Iqbal: Marc would usually ring me a few days in advance and ask if I was free for the filming at the weekend. He knew I worked on the weekends and would usually choose a Sunday evening when the hotel wasn’t very busy so that his filming wouldn't interfere much with my tasks at work.

I found it totally different from the filming of a drama or a feature film at our hotel when the entire lobby area is taken over by a film crew. I was surprised in the beginning to see Marc arriving at the hotel with just one assistant.

What is it like to take part such a personal documentary?
Iqbal: In the beginning you are conscious of being filmed but after some time you become oblivious of the camera and say what you want to say.

'As an outsider you can just disappear'

Marc: It's a deep privilege to be able to share these moments with people and I am always grateful that the people I film with feel willing to let me in to their lives in this way.

It is a very intimate experience if somebody shares with you things they usually keep to themselves. As a filmmaker, you develop very special relationships with your contributors and you have to respect that at all times.

Did the contributors know about each other?
Marc: I was filming everyone at the same time but they never met each other although they knew of each other’s existence. They have now met at screenings together. I didn't feel it correct to bring them together in the film itself.

In one of my previous films, I did bring two characters together, but that was motivated by the subject matter of prejudice and people's fears. I am not at all against this method but it has to be for the correct reasons.

Marc Isaacs has made 14 documentaries since 2001

It takes me two years to make a film sometimes and this is a process of discovery - an exciting process which I want the audience to feel in the finished film.

Iqbal: I was aware of other contributors' stories but I hadn’t met them. I actually met them when the documentary was screened at the BFI Southbank. It felt like our lives were different strands of the same story and other contributors seemed familiar when I met them again.

Can you tell us a bit more about Iqbal's writing credit on the film?
Iqbal: Marc had read my book and wanted me to write the narration for his documentary. But I was a bit preoccupied during that time as I was trying to get a visa for my wife, and in the end, I agreed that Mark could film me at work and home. I'm not sure I merited the writing credit I got for the documentary but I'm very happy to have been given it.

Marc: I met him with the thought of him helping me with my narration because he is a writer but once it became obvious that he'd make a brilliant contributor, that became his main role in the film rather than the writing element, which he was happy with.

Marc Isaacs is the director and Iqbal Ahmed a contributor and co-writer of The Road, A Story Of Life And Death.

The Road, A Story Of Life And Death is part of Storyville on BBC Four at 7pm on Sunday, 31 March.

More on The Road, A Story Of Life And Death
DocGeeks: In conversation with documentarian Marc Isaacs
The Guardian: The Road: A Story Of Life And Death - review
Totally Dublin: That Transient Space - Interview with Marc Isaacs

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

But when Grand Prix racing originally developed its own World Championship in 1950 it was a different era all together. This is what we wanted to explore when we started making Motor Racing At The BBC: That Petrol Emotion.

The brief for the series was very explicit - to make five films which drew exclusively on the BBC's own archive to show what the world of F1 was like before the contemporary era.

The first challenge was to mine the BBC archive, and we soon found that many of these films were in a very poor condition and hadn't been viewed for decades. At the same time as the World Championships started, the BBC was also entering a new phase of broadcasting.

It became clear that there was a wealth of fascinating material, not just of Grand Prix races but of all aspects of motoring and at a time when Britain as a society was changing rapidly.

One of the stars of the first episode wasn't a driver, but the BBC’s own motoring correspondent, former Spitfire fighter pilot Raymond Baxter.

I felt strongly that the series should be made without any narrator and that characters like Baxter would tell their own story in their own words.

There were two major influences for this style: the recent cinema documentary about Ayrton Senna and the BBC's own The Rock'n'Roll Years.

I felt the archive could talk directly to you, the audience, and we would use only short captions where necessary. I wanted you to be totally immersed in the world of the archive.

Some of the archive is shocking - I will never forget watching the footage of British driver David Purley trying in vain to save Roger Williamson from his burning car at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1973. And then learning that he himself had died in a flying accident a decade later, after retiring from motor racing.

With the exception of making documentaries about World War II, I don’t think I have ever worked on a series where so many of the main characters died.

The contemporary era is relatively safe, indeed no driver has been killed on the track since Senna in 1994, but in the 1950s and 1960s several drivers a year were killed, including many of the world champions we feature like Mike Hawthorn and Jim Clark.

But the footage also revealed a lost world of charming and eccentric characters who injected great humour into broadcasting. Many of them featured in Wheelbase, the BBC's first motoring programme and the forerunner of Top Gear.

The Wheelbase presenters helped cement the sport's glamorous appeal with numerous reports from the south of France where its presenters reported from the Monte Carlo Rally and Monaco Grand Prix, but also took in the local vineyards and restaurants.

Through the 1960s and 1970s they covered international races from across Europe, South America and Africa and in the days before many Britons holidayed abroad, these reports offered a glimpse of the exotic.

To help us present this old material in a fresh and stylish way we worked with the graphic design house, BDH. We edited the films at their studio and incorporated their graphics as we cut the material. They created the opening title sequence and the whole graphic look of the series.

As much of the film was mute (the sound had been lost many years ago) we also plundered the BBC's radio archive for material from interviews and race commentaries.

I wanted music to be a driving force and we put together a soundtrack from the period, consisting not only of pop hits of the day by artists like Little Richard and Link Wray but from film scores by composers like John Barry.

We wanted to use the BBC archive to take the audience into a disappeared world before Formula 1 became the big business it is today.

Everyone who worked on the series has their favourite piece of archive – and although it's a tough call I would probably choose the footage of Stirling Moss winning the 1955 Mille Miglia - it perfectly captures what the series is about - the excitement and glamour of a British driver racing to victory through the beautiful and unspoilt countryside of what was then far-off, impossibly sexy Italy.

Francis Welch is the producer of episodes one, three and four of Motor Racing At The BBC: That Petrol Emotion.

Motor Racing At The BBC: That Petrol Emotion continues on Mondays at 8.30pm on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The music and fashions of that decade were marvellously distinctive and it was a time of massive social change.

Britain was just getting back on its feet after the ravages of World War II, it was the beginnings of mass immigration, the birth of youth culture, the Cold War, and the feminism of the 60s was still a long way off. 

The idea of a young woman wishing to buck the trend and join the police force, a traditionally male profession at that time, seemed to me to be rich in story potential.

Once I'd fallen in love with my subject matter, I knew I had to do it justice by doing as much research as I could. 

I began with visiting the Metropolitan Police Museum which opened to the public in 2009 and is located at the Met's recruitment centre near Earls Court in London.

It is a small but fascinating collection of artefacts taken from a vast array of such treasures collected by Scotland Yard over at least a 100 years of policing – uniforms, weapons, photographs and archive footage.

I was even allowed to try on a genuine WPC's uniform jacket from the 1950s. While I was there I chatted to a couple of lovely retired policemen who were only too happy to tell me stories of the WPCs they worked alongside, mostly in the 60s and 70s. 

One anecdote that stuck with me ended up in episode one, where the male officers give Gina Dawson a 'Brinford Branding'.

This was apparently a real tradition in some police stations, where new recruits were rubber stamped on the backside by their new colleagues, and the women had to endure the initiation too (although they proffered their thighs as a compromise).

The retired officer described the women as being "game" for it, but I wondered if it was really good fun to them, or if they were merely anxious to fit in.

PC Eddie Coulson (Chris Overton) stamps WPC Gina Dawson (Jennie Jacques)

Also I was told some female officers volunteered to work undercover as decoys, and occasionally were attacked before the male officers could intervene.

This was echoed in a book I read called The Gentle Arm Of The Law by Jennifer Hilton, a WPC in the 1950s.

She gives a vivid, firsthand account of walking along a canal at night in the hope of drawing out a reported rapist. She escaped unscathed but found the experience understandably frightening.

I was struck by the irony of the so-called "fairer sex" electing to take such risks, and yet they were generally considered less brave or capable than the men.

I interviewed Sioban Clark, Chairman of the Metropolitan Women Police Association and she told me about the impossible choice women had to make between love and career – if a female officer chose to marry or have children she would automatically lose her job.

These were some of the realities I wanted to reflect in the BBC One series.

WPC Gina Dawson in her office, the broom cupboard

The fact that women police were treated as an isolated section of the police force meant that even when they worked alongside the men, their ranks and responsibilities were considered separate.

They weren't fully integrated into the main force until the early 70s, and they didn't drop the prefix for Woman Police Constables until 1999.

No matter what her rank, a female officer in Gina's time was expected to do the typing for even the lowliest male colleague.

Reading firsthand accounts and listening to hours and hours of transcripts of police women and men, there were of course many differing experiences, and certainly not all of them were bad. 

However, most would agree that making tea for the men was simply part of the job!

Dominique Moloney is the creator of WPC 56, and wrote episodes one, three and five.

WPC 56 continues daily until Friday, 22 March at 2.15pm on BBC One. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The fireball that engulfed the spacecraft, just 73 seconds after launch, destroyed the lives of seven astronauts, among them teacher Christa McAuliffe.

The immediate demand for answers triggered a soul-searching process that ruined careers, rocked Nasa to its core and ultimately discovered a clear-cut flaw that some had known about before Challenger had even lifted off.

The painstaking journey of one man who, ignoring terminal cancer, searched for the answers that a shocked nation was waiting for, is explored in The Challenger, an ambitious new factual drama to be shown on BBC Two.

The real-life Challenger investigation involved an impressive array of experts. But since many of them were associated with powerful agencies (such as Nasa or the Air Force), a strong independent voice was needed.

This role went to maverick Nobel-winning physicist Dr Richard Feynman, (played superbly by William Hurt in the drama), who reluctantly agreed to swap the relaxed world of California academia for the furore of Washington politics.

As the film's researcher, I wanted to know Feynman's story. How did he accomplish his task, how did he cut through Washington's red tape and intrigue, and why did he take part at all?

Dr Richard Feynman was an eminent professor at the California Institute of Technology

Over two years, and working closely with executive producer Mark Hedgecoe and writer Kate Gartside, I built relationships with Feynman's family, (the man himself died in 1988) and with those directly involved in the investigation, especially Air Force general Don Kutyna and whistle-blower Allan McDonald.

As trust developed, the phone calls grew longer and the number of questions increased. But as is always the way, it was only when I was able to spend a few days in the States and meet everyone face-to-face that I could properly get to know people.

Integrity and a commitment to accuracy are critical, and it's hard to persuade someone of this if you're not looking them in the eye.

Only once you've done this can you ask the hard questions that will unearth the emotions and turning points that Mark and Kate would need when squeezing a story that unfolded over months into a 90-minute film.

I suppose this is the essence of the job, it's certainly one of the things I enjoy the most.

Feynman's books, and the transcripts from the investigation, only go so far. If you want to understand how someone stands up in front of their colleagues and says "These people were warned about the dangers but they launched the spacecraft anyway" then you have to spend a little time in their home.

In Allan McDonald's mountainside house in Utah, I joined him, his wife and a friend for lunch. We talked about kids, skiing, the weather. We left the difficult stuff for later.

It's good to take things slowly, build trust, wait for the story. Eventually we left the house, and during a sightseeing drive through the Rockies, Allan – picking his words carefully – recalled his long-held concerns over the basic design of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters.

Examining the evidence: Richard Feynman and fellow commission members

But it was only when I crossed the mountains and spent a few days in Colorado with General Kutyna that a bigger picture emerged. Kutyna, every inch an elegant and distinguished senior officer, is a Vietnam fighter ace and former test pilot whose most recent job title was no less than Commander, Air Force Space Command.

I told him about McDonald's concerns. "Never mind that," he replied, "that shuttle was covered in ice. You got to ask yourself why did they launch?"

"Why did they launch?" I asked, slightly chastened.

"Damn good question," he replied. "Feynman wanted to know the same thing. I gave him a classified presentation at the Pentagon. Come down to the den and I’ll give the same to you."

General Kutyna (Bruce Greenwood) at a Presidential Commission press conference

Slightly in awe, I followed him to an office strewn with pictures of himself alongside Thatcher, Reagan and others, and began to take notes on an incredible story. 

This was the first we knew of this briefing, and Kutyna's revelations quickly came to influence the shape of our drama.

When Mark and Kate chose to recreate the briefing in a scene in the film, Kutyna further helped us with broad details about the room (a secure basement lecture theatre) and with general information about Pentagon security, the type of thing we would need when dressing the set.

Step by step, the drama came to explore an intriguing relationship as Kutyna nudges Feynman toward the dark truth underlying the explosion.

It's a story that embroiled McDonald and also astronaut Sally Ride – which we only came to realise following her passing in July last year – as hopefully you’ll come to discover for yourself, once you see the film. 

Dan Parry is the researcher on The Challenger.

The Challenger is on BBC Two and BBC HD on Monday, 18 March at 9pm.

BBC Archive Fun To Imagine: Watch the 1983 BBC series featuring the real Dr Richard Feynman.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

We are preparing to shoot the BBC One version of The Lady Vanishes, which Hitchcock made famous in his 1938 film.

Most of the action is set on a moving train, from which the unassuming Miss Froy 'vanishes', provoking the irritating and self-centred Iris to put herself on the line to find her, foil a plot and redeem herself.

  'She was sitting right here': Miss Froy and Iris Carr

Sometime later, I stand in the finished set and am awestruck by the superb skill and attention to detail that our carpenters, painters and set decorators have delivered.

I then remind myself that it was me, the director, and my designer who insisted the dimensions be virtually no bigger than the real thing - and that was cramped!

The Doctor (Jesper Christensen) in a reconstructed carriage corridor

Outside hang the huge green screens which, by the wizardry of computer-generated imagery, will enable suitable backgrounds, which we have previously shot on the Croatian coast, to appear to whizz by with complete credibility.

Now for me it is a toss up which to be more anxious about: creating the necessary illusions and drama in this wonderful tight space, or following in the footsteps of Hitch!!

Fast forward a little more and the illusions are a joy in themselves. Light effects flash past, curtains sway gently on hidden wires, even the actors have been schooled to never quite stand still; think trying to carry two cups of coffee down a modern express train without spillage and you’ll have the idea.

We have even mastered the problem of squeezing several actors, sound recordists and a hand-held camera down the corridors all at the same time without the equivalent of a motorway pile-up.

I hope you’ll enjoy the result. If you should wonder whether this director makes a very fleeting appearance himself as Hitch used to; well yes, of course - it would be rude not to!

Diarmuid Lawrence is the director of The Lady Vanishes.

The Lady Vanishes is on at 8.30pm on Sunday, 17 March on BBC One and BBC One HD.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

"I am a Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer and what I did in my untreated state was not my fault."

That's what everyone here at the Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) Treatment Centre in Norfolk - all the doctors, all the therapists - keep telling us to repeat.

They say that if we keep repeating it then our brains, our newly functioning brains, will be tricked into actually believing it.

My new brain cells don't buy it. I don't believe it. It was my fault. I'm a zombie, I rose from the grave, I went on a killing spree, I ate people's brains. There's no denying that.

I would have carried on doing it too if it wasn't for the government scientists inventing a chemical compound that makes us docile, a drug called Neurotriptyline.

Now we all have to have shots injected into the back of our necks every day. If you take Neurotriptyline chronically then it not only takes away your need for others’ brains but it also promotes the neurogenesis of fresh glial cells in your head, making new connections, reactivating different parts of our once dormant brain.

Kind of like a computer rebooting is how Dr Shepherd puts it.

I know all this because there is nothing else in here to read except the pamphlets and booklets that the pharmaceutical company that make Neurotriptyline provide for friends, families and people like us, the "sufferers" of the "syndrome".

Of course with any sort of medication there are side effects.

Here's a few of them: Insomnia, vivid dreams, involuntary recurrent memories, lethargy, depression, panic attacks, fever, convulsions, nausea.

And that's just the common ones that you can get when you take Neurotriptyline.

The worst side effect for me is the flashbacks. I've been getting them a lot. They're becoming more vivid.

They’re always of the last person I killed before I was caught and treated.

The guilt I feel is crippling. But I guess I deserve that.

Some zom - sorry - PDS sufferers don't get this side effect at all. What they did in their untreated state is forever a cloudy foggy mystery to them. Like my roommate Alex.

He says he doesn't remember anything from The Rising (when we came back and started attacking people).

He says he wished he did because he would relish (his word) recalling all the Living he maimed and killed because in Alex's eyes all the Living are bigoted, lying sheep that deserved what happened to them and more.

Alex is a bit of a radical nutjob, truth be told. He'd be intolerable if, deep down, he wasn't so vulnerable and scared.

I understand why he's scared though. I'm scared too. Soon everyone here at the treatment centre is going home.

All due to the PDS Domiciled Care Initiative the politicians call it. They can call it anything they want.

I call it pure dread.

Having to face our families and friends again. Going back into society.

Alex says there were riots when the government started trying to do this the first time, that's why Parliament had to pass something called the PDS Protection Act.

But I'm not sure about this. Alex can be paranoid delusional at the best of times. Keith - our treatment therapist - says that Alex is talking rubbish.

I really want to believe him. Keith also says my parents have been looking for a new place to live. I really want to believe that too.

The last thing I want is to go back to the village I grew up in - Roarton. God, the people in Roarton hated me even before I was like this.

If I'm honest I'm not looking forward to seeing Mum and Dad again. Because of the way I... because of how I left. Died. It was... very sudden.

I am looking forward to seeing Jem, my little sister though. The thought of seeing Jem has actually kept me going in here.

Kept me doing my physical therapy, kept me talking in group, kept me from feeling so hopeless and afraid. Just to see her smile at me again.

That's something worth living for I think.

Kieren Walker is the lead character and Dominic Mitchell is the writer of In The Flesh.

In The Flesh starts on Sunday, 17 March at 10pm on BBC Three. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Read Dominic's post Writing In The Flesh with the safety off on the BBC Writersroom blog. 

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The teenage Kevin Eldon occupied half a page in a book called Volume, Oliver Gray's history of punk-era Southampton, where, in 1980, Kevin fronted a band called The Time.

"His between song patter was laden with mimicry and improvisational flair and he obviously had a bright quick mind," writes Gray, "If stand-up comedy had been around then, Kevin would probably never have been in a band at all."

I met Kevin a decade or so later, at a stand-up gig at the De Hems pub in Soho, London, where we were both on the bill.

He had a manic amphetamine energy, delivering a rolling cascade of obscure impressions at impossible velocity, a trait I later learned was the result of nothing other than terrible nerves. A fictional man from the north of England with fictional tales from, about, or pertaining to the north of England

Watching him I realised there didn’t appear to be any voice he couldn’t do, and resolved to ask him to be the funny accent guy on a radio show I was working on with Richard Herring.

Kevin has kindly credited us with 'discovering' him, but he already knew exactly where he was, and someone would have stumbled over him sooner or later.

That night, I remember being confused by what this ancient figure - he must have been all of 31 - had been doing for 10 years, between his 1979 John Peel session and his 1990 stand-up debut, but Kevin has never been one to rush things.

Kevin's grateful collaborators, whose TV and radio shows have always been massively improved over the last 20 years by his supporting contributions, have all noted his meticulous, almost insane, attention to detail in voice and characterisation, and I have rarely seen the comedian Simon Munnery laugh more than when describing sitting backstage during one of Kevin’s multi-character live shows, and watching him trying to get methodically into character, whilst also trying to get into a succession of hats and wigs, all within the space of a 20 second turnaround.

Kevin's become a Zelig-like figure in British comedy, instantly recognisable to fans of quality shows, but rarely featured above the title.

Despite the massive wellspring of goodwill towards Kevin within the comedy community, his progression towards fronting his own show has been steady and measured, rather like the growth of his signature character the poet Paul Hamilton, whose act grew by about a line a year over that last two decades until it was all of 15 minutes long, but oh what perfection those 15 minutes are.

I expect It’s Kevin will display that same attention to detail, as well as the wild-eyed intensity that’s as evident on those old John Peel punk sessions as it is in the comedy characters that have made his name.

Stewart Lee is a comedian who appears in episode three of It's Kevin.

It’s Kevin starts on BBC Two at 10.30pm on Sunday, 17 March. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.