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Butterfield even credits his time working on the series with helping him feel more comfortable talking about sex, and realising “that it’s all normal. You don’t have to be embarrassed by it.” What has also helped him and other cast members not just open up more, but create a more comfortable and safe space for filming sexual scenes was having intimacy director Ita O’Brien on set. The role of an intimacy director or coordinator has been a welcome addition to Hollywood sets in recent years, with shows like The Deuce, Euphoria, Watchmen, and Crashing employing Alicia Rodis and her nonprofit Intimacy Directors International to ensure safety and comfort for performers doing sex scenes.

“It was a real support,” said Gatwa. “We never felt alone. They could be quite isolating and scary and intimidating, those scenes, but you always felt you had someone in your corner.”

Prior to filming, Gatwa explained, O’Brien led a workshop in which the actors broke the ice by emulating various animals mating. They gathered and pretended to be monkeys, lions, slugs, and other members of the animal kingdom straight up doing the deed.

It was to help us loosen up a bit and get to know each other, but also it helped us think about how sex is so personal and everyone has a rhythm, or noise style. So it helped us find your character’s animal, so to speak,” said Butterfield. “It’s not like you’re going to have sex like a monkey or slug, but you just use bits of it.”

Gatwa thinks the mission behind Sex Education is important. “”As much as sex positivity is great, teenagers feel a lot of pressure. You need to learn how to fall in love with your body as well, and you’re doing that as a teenager,” he said. “These storylines are so empowering. It’s an honour that we get to portray them.”

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“I’m really glad I had Sex Ed to kick me off, because on Eiffel I’m naked,” she says. Sex Education was among the first shows to publicly announce the appointment of an “intimacy coordinator”, Ita O’Brien, to coach young actors through delicate scenes and safeguard against any pre-MeToo behaviour on set. O’Brien’s first ice-breaker for the cast was to have them watch videos of animals having sex, and attempt to imitate them. The stars could find the animal they felt best meshed with their character, and choreograph their sex scenes accordingly. “Honestly, I was watching it thinking, what the hell is this job? It’s absurd,” says Mackey. “But it was also a really good way of bonding. It was a great day, like being part of some really odd drama school.” 

Does Mackey think O’Brien’s role is necessary? “Yes, it totally demystifies and desensationalises what might be a really intimidating sex scene. And getting to know each other beforehand is a real luxury, because sometimes you rock up and you have to film an intimate scene and strike up chemistry with an actor you’ve never met before in your life. Luckily, too, our show isn’t about ridiculously passionate, romantic sexual intercourse.”

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The show’s commitment to approaching female pleasure in an unbiased, non-judgmental way shouldn’t be surprising considering Sex Education was the first Netflix series to employ use of an intimacy coordinator. Ita O’Brien, a trained dancer, actress, movement director and intimacy coordinator, helped develop the Intimacy On Set Guidelines that have sparked a change in the way TV and film approach filming scene simulating sex and nudity. While O’Brien spent years training theater groups in these practices and developing the now widely referenced guidelines, Sex Education marked the first series to seriously use her expertise.

“The idea of creating time and space for rehearsal of the intimate content wasn’t there, and there was pushback from that. The production, if there’s a fight or a dance, they will make time, they’ll know they have to put in a schedule time to choreograph, time to rehearse, and that’s the shift that we were asking for in the industry,” O’Brien explains.

It was an ask that Sex Education director Ben Taylor eagerly said yes to.

O’Brien held a workshop for the cast a crew a few weeks before filming began. “I share how the guidelines work, and then they get up on stage doing a warmup,” O’Brien says. “Each of the actors look at the different scenes that they had and then I put them into groups, and we worked through the various scenes, helping them find the structure, the guidelines. And it was a joyous day, it was so lovely. And, of course, in asking people to get hot and sweaty together, physical work just helps to make a connection with each other, to help to open that ensemble feeling.”

Sex Education doesn’t shy away from raunchy scenes seeing Otis and the gang get steamy between the sheets. But while both teenage angst and dreams are at the heart of the binge-worthy series, we can’t help but feel some of the more seductive scenarios might get awkward on set. Talking about the secrets behind those ‘realistic’ sex scenes, intimacy co-ordinator (yes, that’s a thing) Ita O’Brien has opened up on how they keep the cast as comfortable as possible.

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O’Brien told news.com.au that one of the significant developments in the industry brought on by the MeToo movement and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein was that it had “invited a positive ‘no’ in the industry”.

“We want to know your ‘no’. We want to know what’s not suitable for you as a person, and we can work creatively with an actor with your agreement and consent and help the production. When we work from a clear ‘yes’ from the actors, it’ll be a way better sex scene because the actor can be free, they can be open, which you can see from the scenes in Sex Education.”

Intimacy co-ordinators like O’Brien are also skilled to choreograph the intimate content – that could involve where camera angles might go or where legs are placed.

“We have an understanding of physicality, body movements and anatomy, and of an actor’s process and how they can serve the script,” she said.

Ideally, O’Brien would be able to have time during rehearsals to go through the process, but she has found that “old school people” are still resistant to what she brings.

Intimacy Coordinator and Movement Director, Ita O’Brien, joins the podcast this week to talk about her work which involves establishing best practice when dealing with intimacy, sexual content and nudity in film, television and theatre. Georgie finds out about the brilliant productions Ita has worked on, such as ‘Sex Education’ on Netflix and why the work of Intimacy Coordinators is so important in this industry.

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​With Netflix’s Sex Education returning to our screens next week, Ita O’Brien, the show’s expert intimacy coordinator, will be in Elephant & Castle’s London College of Communication (UAL) for a seminar on how actors and directors work to support the actor.

The industry is now embracing intimacy coordination on set and stage with the help of experts like O’Brien, to provide support to the industry in the post #MeToo landscape.

The show has been celebrated for its candid — read: graphic — depiction of sex. Netflix employed an intimacy director, Ita O’Brien, on set to ensure the cast always felt safe; consented without pressure; and were able to discuss where they were and weren’t comfortable being touched.

O’Brien’s methods include a workshop, where cast members could practise impressions of animals having sex. This wasn’t just a riotous icebreaker, Wood says. “[Ita’s] going, ‘Oh yeah, I do thrusts as a bonobo monkey’, and you’re like, ‘OK, that’s cool because it’s distancing me from the character’.

“So this is Aimee Gibbs having sex, not Aimee Lou Wood.” She adds that the sensitivity is game-changing. “You don’t want to feel vulnerable, like your skin has been stripped off, and then watch it back and go, ‘Why did I do that? I wasn’t comfortable, and now the whole world can see it’.”  For that crumpet scene, “the vain part of me was like, ‘This is so embarrassing’,” says Wood.

“But then I was like, ‘I’d much rather this, wearing days-of-the-week pants, in a big pink T-shirt, in unflattering positions and grunting, so that girls feel seen’.” Rather than? “Rather than watching some person in Victoria’s Secret lingerie with a bit of sweat dripping down her chest. That’s bullshit.”

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One of the big behind-the-scenes stories that came out of season one was the show’s decision to hire intimacy co-ordinator Ita O’Brien.

“You never have a fight scene without a fight director. Why would you have a sex scene without a sex director?” says Patricia. “Or a dance scene without a dance choreographer. You don’t just fling people together in a room,” adds Emma.

Out of all the scenes that the cast shoot on the series, the sex scenes sound the most mundane with the biggest challenge being reminding themselves that they’re supposed to be enjoying themselves while being asked to “start on a number two orgasm and work to a number four”.

“You have beats. It’s not as glamourous as it might look,” explains Emma. “You have to hit certain beats. You come towards him and touch him here, here and here. You kiss for three beats and then move to the wall.”

Asa, who Ncuti describes as a “busy boy” this season, said: “It often looks like we’re doing things, but often it’s just your hand going under a table. You often have to remind yourself in a scene that you’re supposed to be doing stuff so you will be feeling a certain way. Nothing is actually going on. There is no awkwardness. You just have to remember that you’re doing more than you think you’re doing.”

Explaining the lengths that the crew went to in making the cast feel comfortable, Emma said: “We had a whole morning where we talked with the directors, cast and writers about our own experiences of intimacy. A massive conversation. And then we had a more physical session about physical consent. There were animal rhythms and all that stuff.  It was a real ice-breaker.

“And then you walk into the room and you feel empowered to say no, no, no to this, this and this. And I’ve taken it on to other jobs and it wasn’t scary doing that. And thank god it’s happening. It’s really necessary and about time.”

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The cast of Sex Education tell BBC Radio 5 Live about how they prepared for acting sex scenes in the show. This included watching videos of animals mating, to help make it less ‘real’ and less personal. The videos formed part of a workshop with an ‘intimacy expert’, and Conor Swindells, who plays Adam, said it was “really beneficial”.

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There are film scenes that are uncomfortable or dangerous for actors. Stunt doubles help out with action scenes. Battle scenes are choreographed down to the smallest detail so that nobody gets hurt. There has been no support for other scenes that can be hurtful: sex and nude scenes.

Sex scenes can violate privacy and can be emotionally, physically and mentally stressful. For example, if there is a huge team in the room. When a director repeats a violent sex scene many times. When actors are touched in places where they don’t want to be touched.

For a long time there was hardly any talk about the risk of injury in intimate scenes. Now something is happening: so-called intimacy coordinators are being established to ensure the security of nude scenes in the film. The United States and the UK have already set standards for staging intimate scenes. Now there is also the first intimacy coordinator in Germany: the actress and screenwriter Julia Effertz.

Note: this article is no longer available on the original link: wdr.de/radio/wdr5/sendungen/neugier-genuegt/redezeit-julia-effertz-100.html

Netflix’s Sex Education might be peppered with NSFW scenes (which shouldn’t come as any surprise) but the cast enjoy filming them as they are all carefully choreographed.

Aimee Lou Wood, who plays Aimee Gibbs in the series, revealed that they all find it ‘really fun’ filming the show’s – often cringeworthy – sex scenes as their moves are planned in advance. 

Speaking ahead of the launch of season two, Aimee told Metro.co.uk that the cast aren’t worried about filming the graphic scenes: ‘It’s actually really fun and I find it really helpful, those sex scenes, because you’re spending a lot of time with your character.

‘You could have full days of doing those kinds of scenes, just you and the director and one other person, so it’s probably the most time that I have personally to really sit with Aimee and be with the character and get to really know who she was.’

She added that seeing how a person behaves in the bedroom helps you get to know them better, explaining: ‘It helped me inform the rest of my characterisation and the other scenes so much, doing those sex scenes, because it says so much about person, how they have sex.

‘So it’s just helpful, it informs so much. That’s why sex scenes are great if they’re done well and if they’re not gratuitous, because it’s a person in their most vulnerable state.

‘You get to feel that you really get to know the character if it’s done honestly and not, you know, mood lighting.’

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“Sex Education” – a series telling in a natural way about the first sexual experiences of a group of teenagers – is one of the productions that can boast of being on the set of an intimacy coordinator. Although this profession has appeared only recently, it is already radically changing standards in the film industry. What exactly do intimacy coordinators do? We talk about it with Ita O’Brian, a precursor in the industry. on the set of “Sex Education”.

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Marking an industry first, Netflix even hired an “intimacy director” (Ita O’Brien, who’s joined by David Thackery for season two) to guide its young stars through the more uncomfortable moments on set, and Nunn hired a “sex educator” for her (largely female) writers’ room. 

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London — Two years after the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal fueled the MeToo movement, the media industry has been forced to rethink how it produces sexual content on stage and on screen. The biggest U.S. actors union adopted new guidelines for nudity and simulated sex scenes last summer, and a British directors association followed suit late last year. 

Emilia Clarke recently spoke out about pressure she felt when filming nude scenes for HBO’s Game of Thrones. HBO has since made it mandatory for crews to hire “intimacy coordinators” to consult on any scenes involving intimacy. 

TV, film and theater have always recruited specialists to consult on fight sequences, stunts and even historical context. Now intimacy coordinators are increasingly being called upon to help make sure actors portraying sex scenes feel physically and psychologically safe at they work.

“Just like a stunt coordinator, you’re bringing techniques to keep the actor safe… you’re mitigating the risk” says Ita O’Brien, one of the U.K’s leading intimacy coordinators and founder of Intimacy On Set. Her intimacy guidelines have been adopted by British actors union Equity U.K. 
O’Brien has worked with shows including Netflix’s Sex Education and BBC/HBO’s Gentleman Jack. She sees herself as “a mediator of consent, to ensure that every touch and every reaction is comfortable and consensual for all parties involved.”

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Ita O’Brien advises actors and directors on sex scenes. A conversation about the similarities between love scenes and stunts, the need to catch up in the industry and professionals who refuse help.

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Listen to the BBC World at One Interview with Ita O’Brien, from December 2019.

British film and TV directors have been issued with guidelines on simulated sex scenes and nudity, with industry figures saying they will help the UK catch up with the US and eradicate “grey areas” that leave actors vulnerable to exploitation.

Directors UK, the professional association for screen directors in Britain, issued the 96 guidelines, which are meant to create “clear and shared professional expectations” with the aim that they will become standard working practice within the industry.

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