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Light Party
This event is fully booked. If you have booked but your plans have changed please let us know as soon as possible so your places can be allocated to someone on the waiting list.
Living in Love and Faith - a Course Starting 5th October
Filming at St Michaels
From church to film set and back again, June/July 2021
Monday 28 June started with a small team from church, cleaning, clearing noticeboards, and moving the altar rails, altar frontals and other items into temporary storage in the clergy vestry in readiness for the film crew to arrive the following day. After Bible Bites finished, notices were put on the church doors notifying people that it would be closed for four days. In addition, notices apologising for disruption for those coming to tend graves were posted.
Emma was at the church on Tuesday to welcome the first arrivals at around 7:00am at the start of the set up day. Trackway was placed on the west lawn for the Spider (a caterpillar-tracked lighting rig) to stand on. With its legs extended, it was easy to see why it got its name!
Throughout the day the generator lorry, props wagon, lighting trucks, and many members of the crew arrived on site to start the transformation from St Michael’s into the church (dedicated to another saint) that features in ‘Inside Man’. We were amazed at the attention to detail as noticeboards and fittings were transformed to fit the identity of the fictional church. In these days of HD and the ability to stop frame, all references to St Michael’s had to be disguised.
Ben from Stained Glass Restoration spent several hours cleaning the inside of our east window.
Many lighting stands started to spring up around the church, and a scaffold tower was erected outside the east end of the church
On Wednesday the ‘video village’ (a series of pop up gazebos) appeared on the south and west lawns, and costumes were glimpsed being moved from their van.
The exterior of the east window was cleaned and we were able to see it lit from the scaffold tower and appreciate the brightness of the colours after the years of dirt were removed. Ben also removed the last remaining piece of metal grille from the outside as it was becoming unsafe and serving no useful purpose - in fact the window behind was picking up rust splashes when it rained.
The lighting engineers spent time focusing the lighting to give the desired effect, and interior lighting on a helium system was raised into the rafters.
At around 3:30pm (amazingly just as the Rector appeared!) some of us benefited from the bacon and sausage butties, and veggie sausage butties that had come from the catering wagon parked in one of Ryefield’s paddocks. As we were chatting, a shout went up around 4:00pm that filming was in progress.
Day 2 of filming was in the evening and night of Thursday 1 July. After choir practice (held in Karen Phillips’ garden), I wandered down to take some photos of the church with all the lighting. The ‘moon’ when lit and suspended from the Spider looked amazingly realistic from the far side of the church.
Some of the action took place in the choir vestry which is why there was a lighting ‘goalpost’ outside the windows. Filming continued until about 4:00am.
Friday was the day for the church to be returned from its moment in the spotlight back to its real life role in readiness for Rachel and Jon’s wedding on the Saturday.
The technicians had worked on after filming ended to take the lighting down, and the ‘video village’ vanished during the morning.
The choir vestry bin nearly disappeared off to the prop hire warehouse (just in case anyone wanted to hire a slightly unravelled wicker bin!) as the props were packed up, but was rescued. A few other things were left behind and were returned when found later.
We did a final walk through with the assistant location manager to check that everything was left exactly as it was found.
At 6:00pm our team moved in to put everything back ready for the Saturday wedding and Sunday services, following on the heels of our flower arrangers.
It was a fascinating week, and both Emma and I enjoyed it. Actually, Emma briefly got to meet David Tennant while I was at choir practice. We are still speaking... just!
We were hugely impressed by the organisation involved, and the care and respect shown to the church and churchyard by all involved. We made guidebooks and CDs available to the team as a souvenir of their time with us, and gave mugs to the key location team members.
As Emma and I were around for most of the time, we were able to talk to some of those who came to tend graves, which was appreciated.
The security team were courteous and polite when directing traffic, and even stopped a van driving erratically down Lower Church Road, and called the police who arrested the driver for drunk driving.
Over the summer we will be putting together a portfolio of pictures to list on several location agencies in the hope of being used as a location again.
Finally, until ‘Inside Man’ is aired sometime next year, we are still bound by a non-disclosure agreement, which is why we can’t
post any photos of the interior. You might like to keep an eye on Hartswood Films website for more information, including release dates.
Catherine Wilkins
CD By The Choir
The CD by the Choir as below is available at £10.
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Church Guide Book
Our History and Guide booklet was thoroughly revised and expanded in 2017. It is available at the back of church and the parish office for £3.00. This booklet provides a lot of information about our church, both past and present.
A taster of the contents is available on the History pages.
A taster of the contents is available on the History pages.