Channel 4 dials 999 for new documentary series

3 November 2011

For the first time, the work of all the emergency services will be brought together in an ambitious ten part series.

Channel 4 has commissioned Blast! Films to make Three Nines (working title), following the ambulance, police and fire services in and around Blackpool.

The ambitious series will capture the richly varied work of the emergency services - from life and death human dramas, and major incidents where all three services work together, to more day-to-day occurrences like relationship disputes. The series will intercut different perspectives to paint a comprehensive picture of the daily work of the 999 crews.

Each film will begin in the different call centres at the moment the 999 calls come through and are relayed out to the paramedics, the police, the firemen or the coastguard. What the emergency services have to confront is always unpredictable, often exasperating, sometimes deeply disturbing. And whether they have to deal with the reckless or the unlucky, they get to see Britain at its most raw, its most vulnerable, its most absurd, its most shocking, its most heart-rending.

Head of Documentaries Hamish Mykura said: "Channel 4 documentaries has an incredibly strong track record of showing the work of the key workers in a compelling, humane and engaging way."

Commissioning Editor Mark Raphael, said: "Three Nines combines incredible access - the likes of which we've never seen on television before - with the ambition and scale that will make it a landmark event in our schedule next year. In this series the people who work on the frontlines, who keep us safe and save our lives, will tell us what their job is really like and what they think of us, the Great British public."

Executive producer Edmund Coulthard added: "These are stories of Britain in extremes - and Blackpool is such a brilliant and colourful town to be based in. The emergency staff have a unique perspective of life on the frontline and I'm hoping this series does justice to the fantastic job they do." 

The series brings together a mix of documentary camera crews and fixed camera technology.

 

 

Production credits:

Executive producers Guy Davies and Edmund Coulthard

Series Director Daniel Fromm

Series Producer Mark Jones