Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Tim Walsh and Elliot Wolf are the creators of Prime Video’s drama series On Call. In this interview, the producers talk about the biggest challenges making the show, and about how was working in this adrenalized and visceral police drama. On Call, a thrilling new half-hour drama series from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, follows a rookie and veteran officer duo as they go on patrol in Long Beach, California. Incorporating a mixture of bodycam, dash-camera, and cellphone footage to create a cinema verité effect, the innovative series explores the morality of protecting and serving a community. Co-created by Tim Walsh and Elliot Wolf, the series stars Troian Bellisario (Pretty Little Liars) as hard-charging but protective veteran officer “Traci Harmon,” who struggles to find her place in the department while training the next generation of officers. Brandon Larracuente (The Good Doctor) stars as “Alex Diaz,” an ambitious rookie who grapples with holding onto his optimistic outlook as he realizes the challenges he’ll face in today’s climate. Additional cast includes Eriq La Salle (ER, Logan) as “Sergeant Lasman,” who also serves as an executive producer on the series and directed multiple episodes, Lori Loughlin (Fuller House) as “Lieutenant Bishop,” and Rich Ting as “Sergeant Koyama” (Tulsa King). Dick Wolf (Law & Order, Chicago, FBI-branded series), Tim Walsh (Chicago P.D., Hightown, Night Stalker), Elliot Wolf (Dark Woods, Hunted), Eriq LaSalle (former EP/Director Chicago P.D.), and Peter Jankowski are executive producers. On Call debuts on Prime Video on January 9th, 2025.
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00:00What inspired you to create a show like On Call that blends body cam, Dutch cam style?
00:07It's very simple. The question of who wanted to or who would be a police officer in 2023-2024
00:13when we were developing this was a fascinating question for me to explore. Everything else,
00:18all of the other bells and whistles, if you will, the cinematic cameras and that was secondary.
00:24But for me, what inspired me was getting opportunity to understand who gets up in
00:31the morning, puts on uniform and the badge and goes out and does an incredibly difficult job
00:36in a difficult time. Were there any technical or creative challenges in integrating these styles
00:46into the storyline? How long do we have?
00:49Yeah, a ton. Short answer is yes. I mean, from body cam alone for a moment,
00:58it has such a wide angle that you can't do traditional staging. It changes the production
01:03process entirely. Luckily, we had an amazing crew who was game to experiment with us and an
01:09amazing cast who was game to strap the cameras onto their body and deliver their performance
01:16while also filming. So it was truly a team effort in that sense.
01:21Well, I think the rookie is just naturally sort of fish out of water for the audience coming in,
01:27you know, a bit naive in terms of what it takes to be a police officer today. And Tracy Harmon
01:34is a 12-year veteran and has absolutely a different outlook on what policing is.
01:41Naturally for the audience, someone on the first day of their job is a little bit more accessible.
01:47As storytellers, it was really fun for us to balance those scales and look at, you know,
01:53any given situation from both officers perspective. It was fun and it was a challenge. Yeah.
01:59It was important for you guys to show the human aspect of the police work.
02:06So people understand a little bit more about this difficult task.
02:12Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, our characters are humans first who happen to be
02:18police officers. And we approach the storytelling that way too. You never go home with these
02:23characters, but you learn so much about who they are, not just what they're doing on a day-to-day
02:28basis, but who they are as people. I'd also add to that, that, you know, the criminal element too,
02:34we wanted to make that as three-dimensional as possible. We're not looking at anything as
02:39white and black. It's all gray. We're not judging these characters, even if they are
02:43getting arrested or they are the criminal element. It was very important
02:48to, for us to make everybody, see everybody through a human lens. Yeah.
02:53What was the collaboration process with the cast, with the whole crew to bring this vision to life?
03:00It was an amazing working experience. We love our cast and our crew and this show would not be
03:08what it is without, honestly, everyone involved. It was a true team effort and it felt like a
03:15family. Yeah. We had quite a few people who were perhaps in a transitional state in their careers
03:22and had a lot to prove and wanted to prove it and took this opportunity to do that.