| Noah and Saskia | |
|---|---|
From left to right: Noah, CGI and real Max Hammer, real and CGI Indy, Saskia |
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| Genre | Children's |
| Created by | Patricia Edgar Chris Anastassiades Paul Nichola |
| Directed by | Pino Amenta |
| Starring | Jack Blumenau Hannah Greenwood Cameron Nugent Maria Papas Adrian Fergus Fuller Emily Wheaton Alex Yates |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom Australia |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Patricia Edgar (ABC) Elaine Sperber (BBC) |
| Producer(s) | Patricia Edgar |
| Running time | 24 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBBC ABC |
| Original airing | May 4, 2004 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Noah and Saskia is a 13-episode children's television program co-produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and British Broadcasting Corporation. The show explores a situation in which two teenagers meet in an Internet chatroom, using personas that are very different from their true selves. They become friends, but both fear having the other discover their true identities.
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Noah and Saskia is about an internet relationship between two teenagers and its effects on their lives. Although the teenagers deceive each other with "false personas", their relationship is shown to be positive and important.
Saskia finds that her alter ego, Indy, allows her to express aspects of her personality that she is uncomfortable with or unable to express normally. Indy is confident and sexy where Saskia is nervous and shy. By asking herself "What would Indy do?", Saskia learns to be more assertive and, in some ways, become Indy herself.
From the ABC website: "'Noah & Saskia' is about a little lie that leads to a bigger truth - that who you say you are is usually who you want to be." [1]
Many novels, films and books that deal with internet relationships depict them as dangerous, especially for teenagers. The more balanced view put forth in Noah and Saskia has been welcomed by many people who have experienced internet friendships firsthand. [2]
Noah and Saskia is an international co-production produced in Australia by the Australian Children's Television Foundation in conjunction with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and in the United Kingdom by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Each episode of the show follows one of the main characters in their home country - Saskia in Australia, or Noah in England. Each country has an independent cast. As a result, the two main characters never met before or during the production. Moreover, all of the Australian footage was filmed before Jack Blumenau had been cast as Noah. Furthermore, the two halves are very different stylistically; Saskia directly addresses the camera and has flashbacks and daydreams, while Noah's side is shown objectively.
Noah and Saskia meet on the internet. These scenes are either depicted as a 3D chat room or as a fantasy sequence. In Noah's fantasy sequences, Noah sees Saskia as a human version of her persona, Indy, usually in a stylised setting. Saskia's fantasies show Noah as his character, Max, projected onto reality. As Max only appears in Saskia's fantasies, he is a part of the Australian cast, despite being an imaginary version of an English character. Likewise, Indy is a part of the English cast.
Noah and Saskia meet in person in the last episode of the series. However, the scene was created digitally after filming Jack Blumenau and Hannah Greenwood separately. In the final shot of this scene Noah and Saskia are standing face to face. When Hannah Greenwood filmed this shot, Noah had not been cast. To ensure the two characters appeared to be looking directly at each other, three different versions of Saskia's half of this shot were filmed, with Hannah Greenwood looking at Noah stand-ins of three different heights.