They started to arrive before the first light of dawn. Parking their trucks and pitching their tents like an amazing travelling show. Imagine lying in your bed in the quiet of an early morning just before you hear the sound of many people moving around the field and street next to your house. The sound of voices giving orders and directing. Getting up and seeing barrier tape and cones blocking roads and directing traffic to parking areas! ‘We have the permission of the local council’, they said, ‘We will only be here for a week – Monday to Friday, we will try not to inconvenience you too much’.
We should have realised that something unusual was about to take place when they started to build a strange water well just outside the village, when they put up a rough wooden fence along one side of the neighbour’s orchard!
Signs went up everywhere, directing the traffic around the centre of the village; telling the crew where the places they needed were located! You go left for hair, make-up and costume and right for base camp, catering and parking!
Arrows pointing one way
and then the other!
Showing you where to park and where not to! Telling you to be quiet and be careful about where you go!
People were walking around, some of them deep in thoughts others smiling and greeting the local residents. The location managers were rushing around trying to make sure that everything was ready and things were running smoothly. The people working in the wardrobe, hairdressers and make-up were busy preparing the actors for their roles in the movie.
It was early on Monday morning when the sand arrived, ‘SAND!!’ what would they do with sand – then they started to spread it out and cover the road, taking the scene back 50 years to the days before tarmac was used on village streets. What happens if it rains? All of that sand will be in my house! The sand covered the road for two days and then along came a group of workers, a tractor and a lorry, they took it all away and cleaned the street so if you hadn’t seen it you would never have known that such a transformation had taken place!
By Wednesday the biggest change to our small community had taken place, the village square appeared to have been hit by a tornado, or was it the aftermath of a war? Cars, buildings that had fallen down, bales of hay, broken furniture all set up to create a wonderful effect, the one we will see when we watch the final product on the big screen or even on the small screen in our living rooms. Wondering how real these scenes are, is this what it was really like or just a figment of someone’s imagination!
The ‘Production Base Camp’ was a hive of activity for the whole week – people were working on computers, drinking coffee, eating, discussing, planning, preparing, being directed and organised by others.
Friday arrived, and in the morning, everything was quiet, the crew were not there, the place was empty. They arrived later in the day for their final day of shooting at this location. They worked late into the evening. The generator working hard to give them lights so that they can carry out the tasks that needed to be completed.
Early Saturday morning as I headed out for my morning walk everything and everyone was gone, they had moved away late on Friday evening, the cones, signs and tapes were gone, the tents and trucks had returned to their home bases, the actors and film crew were no longer here! The only evidence that something unusual had taken place was what they left behind! Hopefully soon to be removed!
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