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The Black Sails title card.

Black Sails is a television drama series created by Jon Steinberg and Robert Levine for Starz. It is written as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. The series consisted of four, fully transmitted seasons, comprising 38 episodes total. Production was primarily based in Cape Town, South Africa, in Cape Town Studios.


Plot[]

Black Sails tells the story of Captain Flint, the most brilliant and feared pirate of his day, who takes on a fast-talking addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver.  Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality[1].

Series Overview
Season Episodes First Aired Last Aired
One 8 January 25, 2014 March 15, 2014
Two 10 January 24, 2015 March 28, 2015
Three 10 January 23, 2016 March 26, 2016
Four 10 January 29, 2017 April 2, 2017

On January 24, 2017, cast member Toby Schmitz (Jack Rackham) released a graphic novel that he wrote about his character's backstory titled Rackham's Razor.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Production[]

The series was filmed at Cape Town Studios in Cape Town, South Africa with the local production company, Film Afrika. A previously existing Medieval town set was repurposed into Nassau Town, while a beach section and deep water tanks were added for Black Sails[2]. A team of 600 people four months to build Nassau Town. Other notable sets included London, Charles Town, the mountainous Maroon Camp, and wintertime Philadelphia[3]. For the iconic Skeleton Island location, filming was done at the Keursboom River near Knysna, roughly five hours east of Cape Town[4].

For Season One, one full and one half-ship were built for the set by a team of over 300 people, taking 4-5 months to complete[5]. For Season Two, a second full ship was built for the Spanish Man O' War, which took 50 people three months to build. For each vessel, there were 800 square meters of canvas and 26 kilometers of rope[6]. In Season Three, another set was built for a smaller, Sloop-like ship[7]. The ships were painted and added on to as needed in order to portray a variety of different ships. In 2016, a fire on set damaged at least one of the prop ships[8].

The series' production designer was Wolf Kroeger, and the supervising art director was Christophe Dalberg. In the first season, the costumes were designed by Romanian costume designer Marina Draghici. For the remaining three seasons, assistant costume designer Tim Aslam took over as the lead. Hamish Macleod served as the armourer and sword master for the series[9]. The swords used on the show were provided by his company, History in the Making. The firearms on Black Sails were provided by the companies Hire Arms, Access Heritage and Pirate Fashions.

After production on Black Sails ended, the prop ships and the set for Nassau were repurposed for another Starz production, Outlander. Much of Outlander's third season takes place in the West Indies, and Nassau was converted into 1766 Kingston, Jamaica, while the Walrus remained a pirate ship and the Spanish Man O' War became a British one, the HMS Porpoise[10]. The ships have since been reused again for the live-action Netflix adaptation of One Piece[11].

Trivia[]

  • The sets for Black Sails have been used in other Cape Town Studios productions, including Outlander and Warrior. A large number of Black Sails cast members have also appeared in those two shows.
  • A significant amount of Black Sails cast members have appeared in other television shows filmed in Cape Town, such as Of Kings and Prophets, Troy: Fall of a City, Outlander, and Warrior.

Videos[]

References[]

External links[]

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