So, I said I’d tell you all about the filming that I’ve been doing but to tell you the truth it’s all a bit of a blur. Here goes…..
The idea was to film segments from all of the Matthew Bourne/New Adventures shows. They will then all be linked together for a programme that goes out on Christmas day!
The problem we had was lack of time. There was not a lot of time to teach new dancers so we tried to use people that already knew some of the work. The problem we then had was that everyone that knows the work was working on other jobs!
So began the enormous jigsaw of who would be in each piece and when all the people in that piece were all free at the same time to rehearse and film, all within a 2-week window! Easy! A lot of the work had been done before I started on it, which was good for me due to a complete lack of free time leading up to it.
We ended up with:
40 dancers performing 13 Segments from 10 different shows to be learnt in 9 days of rehearsals and filmed over 5 days and only 1 person not working on another job! Again, easy!
The commute from south east to north west on day one of rehearsals filled me with dread as I knew the start times would only get earlier once camera’s rolled. Rehearsal days flew by at an alarming rate, with most of my time spent on the 3.97 million phone calls and re-writing the schedule as priorities and availabilities changed. I felt by day 3 we were kind of all in the swing of it when I realised, that afternoon was the final rehearsal for one of the pieces! That came round quick! I think everyone involved felt a little on edge at that moment as we realised from then on, the next time we rehearsed each piece would be the last before filming.
Before we quite relaised what had happened it was the last day of rehearsals. Call sheets went out for the first day of filming: 7:15am on Friday 2nd December. I should mention at this stage that this particular day was my 30th birthday, and, being in charge (at least of the New Adventures side of things) I could not be late. So, on my birthday, I left the house at 5:30 in the morning. Delightful.
Isi had said I wasn’t allowed to open presents until the morning, but then l I told her what time my alarm would be going off, and she swiftly changed her tune and I got to open a few the night before.
Filming began with Swan Lake and I finally got a chance to have a proper look at some of the stuff we’d all been working on. I stood there, glued to the monitors behind the director. Put the iconic image of the Swan in front of an £80,000 camera and it blew me away.
The days passed slowly and quickly at the same time. The days we filmed three segments were absolute killers. I don’t want to relive that in a hurry. The process was made easier by the people, so many people I hadn’t seen in ages coming together to work on the show was great. It was also made easier by the on site catering! It was truly awesome. Considering at busy times in the theatre world you live on packet sandwiches and microwave meals this made a real difference! All the food was served to us by a lady called Jenny who would sing to you and greet you with more enthusiasm than I’ve witnessed at any point in my life. One of the girls wanted her to be in her mirror in the mornings to get her ready for the day, I’d say that would probably do the trick.
The end came around extremely quickly and our show is now “in the can” (don’t think I can pull that kind of lingo off). I can’t wait to see it and I feel that everyone involved should be very proud (I get to say these kind of things now I’m the boss). Thank you to Matt, Scott, Etta and all the cast members for being extremely flexible and understanding, and thanks to Gemma and Duncan for supporting me. I think we made a cracking team!
Look out for us at 9pm on More4 on Christmas day.
P.S. I have barely touched my bike for two weeks aside from a couple of trips to the station and back. Getting behind in the challenge so I’ve got some catching up to do! More about bikes next time, including one of my bike being stolen………
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