TX - Behind closed doors.

The desire to make a film about domestic violence but not to replicate the familiar mix of after-the-fact testimony and statistics, led documentary-maker Brian Hill to a hybrid approach for his first drama, Falling Apart.The 60-minute film is a drama but intended as dramatised documentary - an acted version of the programme that Hill would have made, had it been feasible to get access to a real-life situation of domestic violence.Apart from having the characters talk to the cameras between acted sequences, Hill introduced a number of other elements to give the film a documentary feel. For a start, the whole thing was shot by documentary camera operators using Sony PD150 DV cams and the crew was also a small one - in between the size normally used for drama and that for a documentary.As well as helping stay within the #300,000 budget, Hill wanted to work in this way to keep things loose. 'We wanted to use DVs as there is less fuss and rigmarole. If you have a whole crew it disrupts the flow. You gain a lot this way - the people you have really get involved rather than just doing their job,' Hill says.Part of the flow Hill was after involved the main actors - established names Hermione Norris and Mark Strong - improvising the action within a basic script. 'I find a lot of TV drama disappointing, I wanted to do it differently and was amazed at how much actors could give if left to improvise. They had start points and end points for each scene, but they had some freedom to say what they wanted,' Hill says.The two DV camera operators were then asked to capture things as best they could without tripods and keeping close to the action in order to engage the viewer. 'I said just pretend it's a real-life scene and you have to film it. I wanted the camerawork to involve the audience more than in traditional drama,' Hill says.Hill was pleased such established names were so happy and successful at working in this way - both in relation to the small set-up and the use of improvisation. 'The actors are well-respected so I was a bit trepidatious in asking them to do this. There were no trailers or personal assistants, but they loved it and I think they did brilliantly,' he says.The film gets much of its impact from the fact that the writer, Anna Maloney, researched the subject as thoroughly as one would a documentary. She spoke to victims, perpetrators and listened in on self-help groups for violent and abusive men.The drama-documentary effect is compounded by the fact that the dialogue was often directly inspired from what she heard. For example, a chilling contribution to a men's group by a man who said he used numbers as a code for various violent acts when talking to his wife in public, was used.Hill also sought to give the film an original feel, by setting the story in a well-to-do, middle-class environment.'I did not want the usual council estate with the man coming back on a Friday after having a few. We have seen that too many times so I wanted to explore the problem in a professional setting,' Hill says. Accordingly, much of the production took place in a trendy flat in Rotherhithe. There was 15 days' worth of filming in all, resulting in two and a half hours of material in the first cut.Underlying the hybrid nature of the project, the film was commissioned by Liz Warner within the factual side of Channel 4. Warner first gave Hill funding for a 25-minute pilot to show how his idea would work. Hill hopes the final film is so documentary-like that it could be mistaken for one by viewers unaware of its true nature.FALLING APARTBroadcaster: Channel 4Producer: Century FilmsStart: 17 October 22.00Length: 1 x 60-minutesCommissioning editor: Liz WarnerPRODUCTION CREDITSDirector: Brian HillWriter: Anna MaloneyProducer: Katie BailiffProduction designer: Jeffrey SherriffDirector of photography: Tony ColdwellFight director: Tim KlotzAssistant director: Grietje BestemanBoom operator: Kate MorathScript editor: Lila RawlingsLine producer: Jane Nicholson.