INTIMACY
CO-ORDINAToR
HIGH END TV & FILM
Fully Trained
Our in person training involved 12 selected international industry professionals, coming together in South Africa after eight weeks of tuition. Here we practiced handling and choreographing a wide range of intimate scenes in HETV and Film contexts. Not only were each of us put through our paces as an Intimacy Co-ordinator but each of us would also go through this process as a performer, several times a day. Over the week long intensive we explored over 40 different scripts - together we explored the ins and out’s of IC work from all perspectives and we learned as we went. It’s hard to put to words the level of embodied learning and growth that took place in this eclectic learning environment - how we levelled up as a cohort daily, got braver and inspired one another creatively and respectfully but when you’re in a room full of industry professionals from AD’s, Directors, Actors, Casting Directors and Choreographers magic happens fast.
Working in this way exposed the range of inevitable surprises that may arrive when working with people that you both have and haven’t met before under these circumstances - we were humbled often. I have left with a sober and deep rooted enthusiasm on how to prepare and manage those cases effectively and discretely in a busy working environment. This training has integrated over 15 years of learning and practice from acting, dance and therapeutic facilitation and I feel extremely privileged to have learned alongside this cohort under our trainers - Sara Blecher, Kate Lush, Émil Haarhoff and Sam Murray.
Over the next 6 months my tuition continues in the form of structured mentorship and remote supervision. I am not only ‘set ready’ with some of the worlds most experienced IC’s on call but I am continuing to learn from industry experts in niché area’s of the work. This includes -
Working with minors - Global Protocols in TV, Film w/Guardianship, working with prosthetics, BDSM and Kink - working safely, ethically and consciously on scenes with consensual violence with Lidi Ravisso from Intimitalia and unique protocols, from co-ordinating childbirth scenes and working in water to working on sci-fi and period dramas with Amanda Cutting from Principle Intimacy Practitioners.
Below are shots from moments in recorded scenes that depicted consensual intimate moments like ‘first times’, ‘organised hook-ups’ and ‘meeting at a dance club’ . After receiving a script, the 'Intimacy Co-ordinator’ would consult the ‘Director’ to grasp their ideal vision. They’d then meet the actors - and considering the actors’ boundaries and requirements they would move through a habituation process and choreograph the vision from a pallet of movement agreed, integrated and practiced.
By our final day we were tested carrying out this creative and collaborative process within 7 minutes! - obstacles and all.
It’s in these conditions I earned such an embodied sense of the potential of this work and how to hold it practically.
Mary’s creative practice is rooted in a 15 year career in performance as an actor and credits in production, directing, choreography and voiceover. Mary has worked through Ireland, the UK, the US, and South Africa. As an advocate and trade union activist, Mary has represented Equity’s Women’s Committee and the NI Belfast Branch at UK conferences from 2021–2025. Her place on Safe Set’s international programme was largely funded by Equity Charitable Trust and Screen Ireland.
