July 26, 2022
We invite you to immerse yourself in the vision and creative process of the successful series 42 Days of darkness, leading the production is Ángela Poblete (TV Regional Director) and Gunther Kaempfe (Executive Producer), who gave us all the details and arrangements after the production in conjunction with Netflix.
The recent production of Fabula, 42 Days of darkness co-directed by Claudia Huaiquimilla and Gaspar Antilo and produced by Ángela Poblete (TV Regional Director) and Gunther Kaempfe (Executive Producer), came to Netflix to mark a before and after in the serial content produced in Chile.
Taking as inspiration a real-life case, the story follows for six episodes the disappearance of Veronica and the desperate search for her sister Cecilia and her entire family, having to deal with the neglect of institutions, harassment of the media and prejudice in society.
Within just 1 week, after its premiere the series reached in its first days a total of 10,000,000 hours of viewing, ranking in the top 10 of many countries.
As this streaming ecosystem grows, Netflix has evolved, becoming a global entertainment production company, taking responsibility for the entire story-making process from start to finish, but how is this process? What does an executive and regional TV producer in Chile do to produce serial content? How do you get to produce with a platform as big as Netflix?
 | “We were very lucky to find a partner like Netflix because they deeply trusted in what we know and how we do it, and Netflix is very interested in saying how they make a good series in Chile” |
 | “It is nice and satisfying to see that our series travel, reach more people and audience and break myths, so we are also opening spaces and paths for the consolidation of our industry” |
Here you can find out all the details -behind the scenes- along with the post premiere of the first Chilean series on one of the streaming platform giants.
Despite cultural differences, different languages and geographical distance, 42 Days of darkness made a great impact during its premiere by fitting perfectly into the genre of –true crime– that in the last time has managed to capture followers around the world who watch content across various platforms.
Gunther: We started in 2019 with the first pitch, to see if anyone was interested. Part of the work that was done before that was to prepare a teaser with the support of Corfo and then during 2020 the script writing and planning was done. During the last two years we prepared the shooting and pre-production that started very early, around January 2021. After that process we finished the post-production at the beginning of this year and it culminated with the premiere a few months ago. It has been 4 full years from the beginning to end with this successful premiere.
Ángela: One of those milestones was finding the right cast. When we had all the characters’ pictures stuck on a blackboard, it was very impressive to see what was up there.
Another milestone was setting up the team, the directors and all the people who are at their side, it was very impressive, the affection and dedication with which they joined, the team was very committed.
The last big moment of the series was when the it came to life with the musicalization and sound design, that was like seeing a stunning montage again, where everything that had been done looked three times better: rain, sounds, thunder, police beacons, the voiceover of the people, we saw the work that was done there flourish.
Gunther: When we had 3 weeks of pre-production the government announced total and absolute quarantine in Santiago, we had 3 days left to do anything. It was crazy, we had to turn to the streets to produce everything that had to be produced here in Santiago, had to make superhuman efforts to get the results we see now on screen, it was very challenging for them and for all.
Ángela:Since the story came to us, we gathered talents, to give a point of view to this story, in this case Claudia Huaiquimilla and Gaspar Antilo, to work together with Rodrigo Fluxá, we then added Rodrigo Videla, to work on the scripts of this story and thus give it a universal, interesting and sensitive content.
When Claudia and Gaspar arrived, Netflix was already involved and we proposed these two directors. That was really nice because Netflix thought it was a good idea that two young directors, who had never directed a series before, could take up this challenge and transform it into something original and with a lot of identity, that was the way Netflix got involved.
Gunther: It was a huge milestone for us to be in the top 10, we were ranked 7 in number of hours in the world within the non-English-speaking series, because there we competed against Turkish, Danish, Korean and mainstream content series.
Ángela: It was delightful to see that the series reached such different places in the world, that means that many people could identify with what they were watching, with the sensitivity that the story had. We were very focused on visualizing how audiences receive the content of the series and the effort that we had put because this story had a look and a point of view that will generate thinking.
Gunther: Having two directors, we had two units working in parallel. There was a job of department heads who were overseeing more than one scene at a time. We had two simultaneous locations permanently, it’s one of the challenges and hits, which worked in the production design.
Ángela: These were not difficulties, it is like working with platforms, with enough information, reports, details, downloads, analysis and evaluations.
For every person you see on the screen performing there are four others who are working behind
Ángela: There is a system of work that is respectful and where creative freedom really comes first. It’s a virtuous relationship, both with Netflix and with all platforms. We very early became partners with a common interest: to develop a quality product that reaches as many people as possible.
Gunther: Today more than ever we have a chance to be on top and not be at the end of the world anymore. One of the advantages we have is that the Chilean audiovisual industry, has talented professionals in the whole sense of the word, the quality of Chilean content is high, despite the fact that we are not a super old or hypermature industry, I believe that today the borders are erased and we have all the tools to continue deepening it.