Press

Evening Standard - Emma Mackey admits fearing she was too ‘prudish’ for Sex Education role

1/11/2019

In her role, Mackey's character has sex on screen numerous time and the actress, 23, said she was initially “taken aback” by the explicitness of the script.

Speaking on Belstaff’s The Road Less Travelled podcast, hosted by Reggie Yates, Mackey said: “The first time I even read the script, I was like ‘I don't know if I can do this’. Regardless, I never thought I was going to get the part in the first place.

“I was like ‘you might as well just try’ but reading the script, I was so taken aback by it. I was like ‘I can't, I don't know if I can’. I was quite prudish about it all anyway.

“Luckily like we were just really well looked after from start to finish, even before we started filming, we were given all of these tools by Ita O’Brien, who's the intimacy coordinator.”

She added: “The tools we were given were specifically to prevent any sort of like, trauma post-sex scene. We were given all these tools like psychical consent and we choreographed it quite significantly.”

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BFI: Co-ordinating intimacy: making sex scenes safe

14/10/2019

Approaching the second anniversary of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, the London Film Festival hosted a panel discussion about the rise of the intimacy coordinator on film and TV sets. In the wake of the MeToo movement, is the industry finally waking up to consent and the comfort of cast and crews?

Introduced by Anna Bogutskaya (who reminded the audience that intimacy “isn’t just the sexy bits”), the panel featured Pink Wall writer-director Tom Cullen, actor and Instinct director Halina Reijn, and intimacy coordinators Yarit Dor (Adult Material) and Ita O’Brien (Sex Education).

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The Guardian: Safe sex on set: the rise of intimacy coaches

6/10/2019

How do you stop people being groped in the workplace when consensual groping is part of the job? It’s a question that the film and TV industries have been increasingly agonising over in the last few years, and which has now led to the rise of a new job on set: that of the intimacy coordinator.

“I didn’t think there was even a role in the profession when I first started developing this work several years ago,” says Ita O’Brien, a former actor turned movement director who specialises as an intimacy coordinator. “Now I can name at least 20 to 30 intimacy coordinators working around the world – and we’re training up dozens more to meet the demand.”

O’Brien’s job is to make sure that actors are comfortable, that boundaries are discussed, and every step of a scene is mutually agreed and choreographed in the same way as a fight, a dance or an action sequence.

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Backstage: Actors + Sex: How to Handle Consent

2/10/2019

Intimacy on Set is a company that was founded by Ita O’ Brien to help stage, TV, and film navigate the tricky waters of nudity and sexual intimacy. The intimacy coordinators risk-assess the show, take part in rehearsals, offer on-set supervision, and provide a post-production debrief. Intimacy on Set also offers training and workshops for the wider industry, as they try to change the way onstage sex is approached.

The company also produces a selection of best practice guidelines. These include recommending that actors don’t practice nudity or sex in auditions, and ensuring actors are made aware of all scenes which could include sexual intimacy.

For producers and directors, the decision to employ an intimacy coordinator is one that needs some thought. On the one hand, there’s a valid concern that the creative process could be stymied. On the other, creating a reassuring space for great creative work to flourish is vital.

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Vanity Fair - Intimacy Coordinators Are Changing Hollywood Sex Scenes for Good

16/8/2019

The work intimacy coordinators do is complex and multifaceted. It requires a few skill sets that don’t necessarily always coincide in a single professional—including choreography, contract negotiation, and emotional intelligence. Ita O’Brien, who has worked as an actor, dancer, movement director, massage therapist, and, now, an intimacy coordinator on productions including Netflix’s Sex Education, began advocating for the merits of this job a few years ago. “I was saying then, ‘My hope and my intention is that, say, in five years’ time, that productions will not dream of doing sex scenes without an intimacy coordinator,” she told V.F. during a recent phone interview. “It’s so amazing to see how quickly the industry has shifted and changed.” She and Rodis have never met in person, but Skype frequently, she said, as they work to help productions across the globe embrace intimacy coordinators.

O’Brien has published guidelines for on-set intimacy and nudity—rules that, for instance, mandate that directors and actors discuss all intimate scenes before signing contracts, throughout rehearsals, and during performances. They also call for a true closed set while filming those scenes. “The main thing is open communication and transparency with this work,” O’Brien said.

As an intimacy coordinator, her onboarding process involves speaking with all relevant parties on a given set to identify each intimate scene and do risk assessment. If an actor has worked with an intimacy coordinator before, this usually just means checking in with them to learn of any potential concerns; O’Brien walks those who haven’t through her process before asking them what kinds of interactions might make them uncomfortable. By the time everyone arrives on set, O’Brien has spoken with all the parties involved in these scenes, from performers to producers. She’s familiar with each actors’ nudity clause, and what they’re comfortable with. She also makes sure to check with the director about what the scene adds to each characters’ emotional journeys—in other words, why it exists in the first place, and what it’s meant to express.

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the Times - How Hollywood is fixing its problem with sex

31/7/2019

The film industry has responded to abuses of power by encouraging the presence of intimacy consultants during the shooting of nude scenes. Ita O’Brien, Britain’s first intimacy co-ordinator, has worked on the TV shows Sex Education and Gentleman Jack. She has facilitated agreements on which body parts can be touched and encouraged everyone to talk about sex in an adult way. Both series were praised for their naturalistic and fun sexual encounters.

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W radio (colombia) - The secrets of Ita O 'Brien, coordinator of intimacy and sexual movements in the cinema

17/7/2019

Spotlight - Safety, Harassment and Bullying in the Industry

24/6/2019

On this big episode of the Spotlight Podcast, we discuss safety, harassment and bullying in our industry. Joining us, we have Maureen Beattie, performer and President of Equity, Wendy Spon, CDG and former Head of Casting for the National Theatre, and Ita O'Brien, Intimacy and Movement Coordinator who has recently worked on Gentleman Jack and Sex Education for Netflix.

Scen & Film (Sweden) - Intimate scenes require extreme clarity

14/6/2019

Intimate scenes should serve the content of the text, the director's vision, the character and the relationship with the opponent. The intimacy must feel genuine. . .

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BBc radio 5 live - nihal arthanayake

3/6/2019

Nihal Arthanayake interviews Ita O'Brien on her work as an Intimacy Coordinator.

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