Wallander (British TV Series) - Production - Series 2

Series 2

The production of three new films based on Faceless Killers, The Fifth Woman and The Man Who Smiled was confirmed by the BBC in May 2009 to start in the summer in Ystad. The BBC broadcast the series in January 2010. Richard Cottan wrote Faceless Killers and The Fifth Woman, while Simon Donald wrote The Man Who Smiled. Hettie MacDonald directed Faceless Killers, Andy Wilson handled The Man Who Smiled while Aisling Walsh directed The Fifth Woman. Photographer Igor Martinovic (director of photography on Man on Wire, the Academy Award winning documentary) worked with Macdonald and Wilson while Lukas Strebel, who won an Emmy in 2009 for Little Dorrit, was in charge of photography for “The Fifth Woman.

The second series started shooting on 22 June 2009. The film crew consisted of slightly more Britons, as the Swedish-language films were still filming in the area until December 2009. Yellow Bird's Daniel Ahlqvist said, "It is a quite special that we are doing two different Wallander productions at the same time. So it has been a little bit tougher to recruit competent personnel here in Skåne. We came to the conclusion that if we cannot get people from Skåne, we might as well bring in folks from the UK rather than Stockholm." The landscape of Skåne will be a big part of the second series. Shooting will start in the outskirts of Ystad but a big scene in Ystad city square is planned. Scenes are also planned to be filmed at the summer residence that served as the home for Wallander's father. Faceless killers, was first in the shooting schedule, followed by The Fifth Woman and last The Man Who Smiled. As with Series 1, each episode is filmed over approximately 22–23 days, with just 3–5 days set aside for studio recording, and the rest for location shooting. On 23 June, the film team spent all day in Simrishamn, a coastal town north east of Ystad. Scenes were shot at the local police station and in the town square. Production Manager Nina Sackmann explained that "the town was perfect for what we needed to convey with this film". On 21 July, the portions of road 1015 passing by the Karlsfält Farmland Estate north of Ystad was closed from 11 p.m. until midnight to accommodate the film crew.

On 18 August, closing scenes of The Fifth Woman, where Kurt Wallander is dragged away at gunpoint, were shot on location at Ystad railway station. On the right side of the railway track, this dramatic scene was being filmed and on the left side, commuters were exiting the train. About 40 meters away, the Swedish language Wallander film Vålnaden (The Ghost) was being filmed at the same time. Earlier in the week, scenes were shot at an old automobile repair and maintenance shop from 1928 in Hammenhög village. Part of the building had served as a flower shop when Mankell wrote The Fifth Woman and, since a murder victim is a flower shop owner, it was convenient to shoot in the now abandoned building.

Filming on The Man Who Smiled began at the beginning of September. Location production on the episode concluded on 2 October. The first couple of weeks featured location work outside of the swimming baths—which doubles as the exterior of the police station. For the last two weeks, production moved to locations around the countryside of Österlen. On Monday evening 14 September, the Ystad city square was closed off to film an important action scene from The Man Who Smiled where Kurt Wallander comes running across the square as a car explodes. The clear blue September sky caused problems with the lighting and they had to wait until the sun started to set.

Kenneth Branagh explained that the challenge for filming series one was to “create” the strange world of Ystad, in part as Henning Mankell sees it, in part as script writer Rick Cottan saw it, and then upon arrival to realise that the town looks different. "To get all these different visions to work together was a bit nervous last year. This year the pressure is to develop the style of this show and develop the characters, for example the other policemen at the station. Branagh claimed that there had been no problems shooting due to weather conditions except the last day of filming: "Henning Mankell often writes about the long Swedish summer rains, but during two years of filming we have not seen any of that. No wonder British tourists like to visit." He also stated that there is a possibility of a third series. "It all depends on how these new episodes are received, but I think I really would like to film more episodes. But we also need to feel that we have something more to offer, more to tell and that the scripts are good." Any filming on a third series would be postponed until 2011, to allow Branagh to work on Thor. Yellow Bird's Daniel Ahlqvist believes that The White Lioness's South African setting will make it difficult to film, and the post-Cold War plot of The Dogs of Riga is no longer relevant, but sees no reason why Before the Frost and some new story ideas, in the same vein as the original Yellow Bird films could not be developed for the BBC.

Local politicians supported and invested 8,000,000 Swedish kronor (roughly £ 750,000) in the second Wallander series through Film i Skåne, a regional resource and production centre.

Series 2 features some interesting choices of actors for minor roles. Fredrik Gunnarsson features in Faceless Killers as Valfrid Strom, Gunnarson appears in 17 episodes of Yellow Bird's Swedish language TV series as uniformed police officer Svartman. Rune Bergman had a minor role in the Swedish language adaptation of Faceless Killers and also featured in the TV film Luftslottet. Patrik Karlson featured in the Swedish language adaptation of The Man Who Smiled as well as the TV film Mastermind. Bergman and Karlson have the distinction of appearing in films starring the three different Kurt Wallander actors. Karin Bertling also appears in the English language Faceless Killers and has previously worked on the Swedish-language TV film Before the Frost.