2015 was a busy year for Newham Film Office with Newham Leisure Centre proving a popular location that hosted multiple film shoots including upcoming American comedy war film War Machine, directed and written by David Michôd, starring Brad Pitt playing a military general. 2016 has started with a bang with Newham welcoming a variety of productions and fast becoming the go-to borough in London for filming.
Productions are taking full advantage of the fantastic locations Newham has to offer – such as Newham Dockside (Building 1000) doubling for an airport in BBC’s crime drama NEW BLOOD. Since the scenes at Building 1000 involved fake police cars, uniformed police and SO19 officers with imitation firearms, we focused on consulting all relevant stakeholders and managed permissions so that filming ran smoothly for all parties involved.
Royal Albert Way & Royal Albert Dock has seen exciting and high-octane car stunt scenes including car chases, crashes and explosions! Newham Film Office provides a one-stop shop approach to production’s needs to support filming in the borough so that filming takes place in a safe and controlled manner, keeping impact minimised to the local area – in this instance including no disruption to service at City Airport nearby! We worked closely with the MET Police Film Unit (always a pleasure) to ensure the shoot was a great success. We thoroughly enjoyed having the production filming in the borough and working closely with the Location Department – excellent work by all.
New Blood is created and written by Anthony Horowitz and produced by Eleventh Hour Films (Safe House, Foyle’s War, Vexed). The drama series directed by Anthony Philipson (Cuffs, Our Girl and 24 Hours In A&E) will show a unique side of modern London, through the eyes of two outsiders. Mark Strepan and Ben Tavassoli will play the roles of junior investigators Stefan and Rash respectively, and these will be their first roles on BBC One primetime.
Charity Shoots
Newham has been working to provide locations for multiple charity shoots over the last year and recently worked closely with The Prince’s Trust charity. The charity teamed up with a creative ad agency to create a promotional film to support young adults in need. Last year alone, the charity helped 56,000 young people to turn their lives around. With a short turn around time we sourced and facilitated the filming at one of our flat locations in the borough.
Producer Stephen Johnson & production manager Marian Mikhail were impressed with the work ethic and outstanding support provided by Newham Film Office.
“It’s fantastic to be able to count on local authorities, especially when the purpose of the project is for a good cause and budgets are tight. We can’t thank the Newham Film Office enough for all their help.”
Dominic Reeve-Tucker (Director) says: We have management structures in place to support all types of production, including charity and low-budget productions, so that we provide a fully rounded service for the benefit of the borough.
Also filming in at Royal Victoria Docks was ITV’s MARCELLA, an original, multi-stranded crime drama written by internationally renowned screenwriter and novelist, Hans Rosenfeldt, and stars Anna Friel as the lead role. The scenes included a burning car on the wasteland and ‘dead’ bodies in holes; and as with any stunt scenes prioritising health and safety was at the forefront. It’s a pleasure having the production film in Newham and we’re looking forward to seeing the final crime drama on our TV screens!
Produced by Buccaneer Media and co-created by Hans Rosenfeldt and Nicola Larder (Sky’s development executive on The Tunnel, Lawless, Psychopath Next Door), Marcella is Hans Rosenfeldt’s first exclusively created drama for the UK audience following the global success of The Bridge, a Danish-Swedish co-production which achieved critical acclaim when it began broadcasting in the UK in 2014. The drama has been commissioned for ITV by Director of Drama Steve November and Controller of Drama Victoria Fea.
