How I work: Intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien
Ita O’Brien is an intimacy coordinator and movement director for film, television and theater. She was previously a dancer and actress herself and has incorporated that experience into creating safe, considered, and consensual environments for working with intimacy, as well as for scenes with sexual content and nudity in film, television and theater.
O & # 39; Brien pioneered the role of intimacy coordinator and for the past six years has developed the Intimacy on Set Guidelines, a best practice document that covers everything from the foreplay process to the actors' performance. She also founded Intimacy on Set, a service that provides intimacy coordinators, advice, legal advice, and training for TV, film, and theater sets.
The role of an intimacy coordinator has come to the fore more recently because of the breakthrough work done by O'Brien on hit TV shows like Sex Education, Normal People, and I Can Destroy You, all of which deal with sensitive topics related to sex, intimacy, and relationships . The beauty of O & # 39; Brien's work is her ability to develop best practice processes to ensure all parties feel safe and secure, while also ensuring that those intimate depictions are still authentic, engaging, and essential Feel part of the storytelling.
Here O & # 39; Brien explains what the role of an intimacy coordinator actually entails, the challenges she faces, and why anyone involved in portraying sex or relationships with the masses has the responsibility to do so from a position of "equality, Safety and Caring ”out.
Above: I can destroy you, BBC / HBO, Above: Ita O’Brien from Nick Dawes
What an intimacy coordinator The role of the intimacy coordinator is a practitioner who gives the intimate content in theater, television and film a professional process and techniques to give the intimate content a clear physical structure. My job is to choreograph intimate scenes and, given the nature of the content, also make sure the actors are confident in creating it.