Nigel Stafford-Clark, Producer of BBC TV's excellent adaptation of Dickens'
Bleak House last year, said that trying to organise a filming schedule was like playing 3-dimensional chess. It's a question of balancing the priorities, availability of the cast and extras, locations and props, allowing for any difficulties there might be with filming each scene, and then everything goes wrong because of the weather. I think it's more like 3-dimensional chess with all the pieces having minds of their own! (Or as my Technology teacher used to say, "It's like organising ants!") It has sometimes been difficult to get everyone together to film one scene. (We don't have the luxury of being able to pay anyone! And many of our cast are also involved in several local stage productions at any one time, some work at weekends, and one or two even have a social life or go on holiday!) But everyone has worked really hard, learning their lines and always turning up - it's taken a lot of commitment, especially considering some people thought (rather optimistically!) that it would all be finished last summer...
The end of filming is nearly in sight now though, with just 7 shoots left to go. The next one is this Saturday morning (11 March), 9:45-11 am outside the Fort, followed by 11-12:30 by the pier. We're then hoping to film on the beach the following Saturday (18 March), 11am-1pm, and we need a crowd scene for that. Put it in your diary, and why not come along?
