A Scottish director who has worked on Line of Duty, Good Omens and Doctor Who is developing a new television thriller following paramedics through the chaos of the Edinburgh Festival.
Douglas Mackinnon is preparing BurnTime, a six-part drama following newly qualified paramedic Kylie MacDonald through her first six night shifts working in the capital.
Each hour-long episode will unfold over a single shift on consecutive nights during Edinburgh’s festival season, mixing emergency call-outs with a mystery surrounding a tragedy in Kylie’s past.
The project is being developed through Mackinnon’s new Scottish production company Rugged Island Films and has been selected for the Drama Co-Production Market at the MIA international television and film market in Rome.
Mackinnon is presenting BurnTime to potential international partners this week as he attempts to turn the project into a returning television series.
The director said the idea was partly inspired by the intense pressure facing paramedics and other emergency workers.
He told Variety: “The amount of time that paramedics last in the U.K. on average is 18 months, because it’s so stressful and so chaotic and so messy for their lives.”
BurnTime will combine thriller elements with dark comedy, something Mackinnon describes as “pain and laughter”.
At the centre of the story is 35-year-old Kylie, who has retrained as a paramedic and finds herself racing around Edinburgh responding to life-or-death emergencies.
At the same time, she is searching for the doctor she believes was responsible for the death of her son.
The Edinburgh Festival will be more than simply scenery for the series, with Mackinnon planning to use the unusual characters, performers and situations which take over the capital each summer as an integral part of the drama.
He said: “The festival is like a character, not just a backdrop.”
Mackinnon wants the series to capture the unpredictability of Edinburgh during August, particularly from the perspective of paramedics working through the night.
He added: “I wanted to put a paramedic drama at 3 o’clock in the morning in that environment.”
BurnTime has been selected as one of the international projects being presented at MIA in Rome, where producers look for broadcasters, financiers, distributors and production partners.
The project is still in development and has not yet been commissioned by a broadcaster or streaming service.
Mackinnon believes, however, that its central concept could eventually extend beyond Edinburgh, with future versions potentially following emergency workers during festivals elsewhere in the world.
He said BurnTime could become a returning international brand, suggesting cities in countries including Brazil, Germany and South Africa could eventually provide settings for their own versions.
The project is also part of a much bigger plan by the Skye-based filmmaker to create major television and film productions from Scotland.
Mackinnon has spent more than three decades working on high-profile productions including Sherlock, Outlander, Doctor Who, Line of Duty and Good Omens.
He now wants to use that experience to develop ambitious projects through Rugged Island Films rather than waiting for large productions from elsewhere to come to Scotland.
He told Variety: “The idea is to use my experience with huge shows like Sherlock and Good Omens and Outlander and Line of Duty and Doctor Who and build shows of that scale from Scotland.
“Instead of having them come to us, we’re going to be looking outwards. I know how to make these shows, and I want to make some of my own now.”
Rugged Island Films has received slate funding from Screen Scotland and already has around 10 television series and five feature films in development.
Mackinnon believes Scotland’s recent success in attracting and producing major television dramas has demonstrated the strength of the country’s screen industry.
He pointed to productions including Dept. Q, Good Omens and Outlander as evidence that Scotland can compete internationally.
Mackinnon said: “For a small country, that’s punching above our weight, and that’s where all of us in the industry want to keep it going.
“We want to keep punching above our weight, not just making shows for ourselves; we want to make shows for the world. And we’ve got the skill set to do it.”
BurnTime is being pitched at the MIA Market in Rome, which runs from 19 to 23 October.