'Line of Duty' Director Douglas Mackinnon Preps Edinburgh Paramedic Drama 'BurnTime'

"Line of Duty" and "Good Omens" director Douglas Mackinnon will present "BurnTime," a 6 x 60' paramedic drama set in Edinburgh, at Rome's MIA Market, running Oct. 19–23. The series anchors a growing slate at his newly launched production company, Rugged Island Films.

"BurnTime" plays out over six consecutive night shifts during the Edinburgh Festival, the month-long arts celebration that fills the Scottish capital each August. Its protagonist is 35-year-old Kylie MacDonald, a newly trained paramedic on her first shift in what Mackinnon calls the "blue light cavalry" — the UK's emergency response services. A mystery from a tragic episode in her past threatens the life she has built.

Why 'BurnTime'?

The title comes from the chronic burnout that hits emergency workers. Mackinnon has a hard number to back it up. "The amount of time that paramedics last in the U.K. on average is 18 months…because it's so stressful and so chaotic and so messy for their lives," he told Variety ahead of the market.

The show pairs dark comedy with the propulsive energy that marked Mackinnon's two-year stint on the BBC's "Line of Duty." "Pain and laughter is the world that we're in," he says.

The Edinburgh Festival itself drives the storytelling. "The festival is like a character, not just a backdrop," Mackinnon says, crediting "the weird and the wonderful people" it draws each year. He channels George Clooney to explain the format's narrative freedom, paraphrasing the actor on the classic hospital drama: "'The great thing about "E.R." is that you could be walking down a corridor, open a door and there's a Polish choir singing [in the room]. Then you just shut the door.'"

"I kind of wanted that spirit to be in this, because that's what Edinburgh's like during the festival," Mackinnon says. "I wanted to put a paramedic drama at 3 o'clock in the morning in that environment."

What does this change for Scotland's production industry?

Mackinnon launched Rugged Island Films to reverse the usual flow of big-budget television. "The idea is to use my experience with huge shows like 'Sherlock' and 'Good Omens' and 'Outlander' and 'Line of Duty' and 'Doctor Who' and build shows of that scale from Scotland," he says. "Instead of having them come to us, we're going to be looking outwards. I know how to make these shows, and I want to make some of my own now."

The company, backed by slate funding from Screen Scotland, currently has roughly 10 series and five feature films in development. Mackinnon plans to expand the outfit in the coming years.

He points to momentum: "Dept. Q," "Good Omens" and "Outlander" all shot in Scotland. "For a small country, that's punching above our weight, and that's where all of us in the industry want to keep it going," he says. "We want to keep punching above our weight, not just making shows for ourselves; we want to make shows for the world. And we've got the skill set to do it."

Political will is part of the picture too. Mackinnon cites Lights, Camera, Capital, a new initiative from Screen Scotland and a consortium of Scottish business angels connecting producers with angel investors. "There's so much going on. It's very exciting," he says. "I think in the U.K., outside London, we're the most exciting spot to be."

Can 'BurnTime' travel?

Mackinnon thinks so, and he's pitching it as a format with international legs. "what's exciting going into MIA is we're at the beginning," he says, adding that he's "looking for partners to build the series with me on an international level."

"MIA is amazing for seeing people's eyes light up at a project and going, 'Oh, we could do something with this,'" he says. "Because I do think that 'BurnTime' can travel as well as…[be] a returning brand. It can exist in other festivals in other parts of the world. It could go to Brazil or Germany or South Africa and have its own version. I think it's going to work anywhere."

The 12th edition of Rome's MIA Market runs Oct. 19–23, where "BurnTime" screens in the Drama Co-Production Forum — the first test of whether Mackinnon's outbound model for Scottish television finds international buyers.