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It’s interesting that it was so comfortable, because I imagine it could potentially have gotten really awkward. What were your sex scenes like?

It was ultimately quite fun. When you’re doing intimacy scenes, it’s a closed set and you’ve only got the key people there, so that takes the pressure off because you haven’t got like 80 people looking at you having sex. But it was all so well-handled — we had an intimacy workshop way before filming, where we spoke about our worries and any questions we might have…

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F​ew TV series are as likely to cause such a stir this year as Sex Education. This addictive new comedy drama from Laurie Nunn which was written as a love letter to those American High School movies such as John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club.

Be warned – with sex both shown and discussed in graphic detail, the series is not suitable for younger teenagers. The programme makers hired an “intimacy coordinator” in order to make the young cast (several barely out of their teens) feel safe as regards the many explicit scenes.

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In the wake of the MeToo movement, the major TV networks are hiring ‘intimacy coordinators’ to ensure actors don’t feel exploited. Alice Vincent reports.

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Netflix is going to get down and dirty this week as it launches its new comedy-drama Sex Education.

The series follows a boy and his sex therapist mother who set up an ad-hoc clinic in his school.

With that subject matter you can expect plenty of scenes of people going at it, which even the most talented of actors can struggle with (or in the case of Olivia Colman, involves some devilish pranks).

To get it right, the cast of Sex Education had an ‘intimacy director’ to choreograph the scenes, and they told Digital Spy and other media that they’re glad they did.

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Hollywood’s #MeToo reckoning not only shone a light on the industry’s toxic culture of predation and sexual violence. It also underscored the critical need for an overhaul of the way sex and consent are portrayed on our screens, and a major change in the way cast and crew members are treated on and off set.

In Netflix’s new teen comedy Sex Education, that change is palpable in the way the writers’ tackle the topic of sex, but also in how sex scenes were filmed.

Netflix hired an “intimacy coordinator” to ensure both cast and crew felt comfortable when filming sex scenes and responsible for making sure actors agreed to be touched during intimate scenes

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The Independent newspaper in the UK dubbed her the world’s leading sex scenes director. Ita O’Brien from the UK has the job title of ‘Intimacy Cooridnator’. She teaches in some of Britain’s premier acting schools, hosts Intimacy on Set and Stage Workshops for film and theatre actors around the world, and devises her own work. Ita is currently working to establish best practice for producers, directors, and actors working with scenes with sexual content

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Ita O’Brien, the UK’s leading intimacy coordinator, has worked with Netflix, BBC1, Channel 4 and many more to ensure sex scenes on set are done safely

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Sex scenes tend to arouse great passion in people; they either love them or hate them. Not surprisingly, most actors hate them. Ita O’Brien is one of the world’s leading intimacy directors, making the process safer and less traumatic for actors.

Listen to the interview (14min 5sec) first broadcast on Wed 28 Nov 2018, 12:30pm.

Listen on abc.net

Staging workshops and seminars on “best practice” approaches to intimacy on screen and stage, Ita O’Brien is finding there has been significant progress in the #MeToo era – but much needs to be done.

“There is a lot of good practice out there already and there are lots of directors and productions that have done this well,” says the British intimacy coordinator, who was brought to Australia by the Equity Foundation.

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In the past year, Ita O’Brien’s job has become part of a global conversation. An “intimacy coordinator” for stage and screen, based in the UK, her role is to coach production companies through the protocols of touch and contact between actors in explicit scenes.

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