Newham has seen an upturn in filming over the past year, and going into the new decade the borough has seen some great projects that The Newham Film Office, managed by The Film Office has worked on. Check out the best of the bunch and to see what else is going on in the borough below!
McDonald’s
As part of a new campaign awareness video to highlight the vast amount of McDonald’s stores being open 24 hours a day, renowned production company Rogue Films shot various scenes across London of “invisible” night workers going about their daily jobs to highlight the jobs across the country which keep it running, while the rest of us are sleeping. The production contacted the Newham Film Office looking for a closable section of road that would suit a scene of a cone delivery truck dropping off cones off the back of the truck. The chosen location for this was Royal Albert Way Underpass. This 2 lane dual carriageway runs underneath Connaught Bridge roundabout up to the Excel roundabout and provided the production a fantastic controllable section of road for their driving scenes. Check out the commercial below!
Hitmen Comes To Newham
Staring Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, Hitmen is a new six-part original comedy about two best friends trying to make their way in the world with only each other to rely on. They also just happen to kill people for a living. Having stumbled into a career in contract killing, the series follows misfits Fran and Jamie (Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc) as they try to carry out their latest hit, inevitably derailed by incompetence, bickering, and inane antics. As each hit goes south, our (anti)heroes are thrown into one bizarre misadventure after another, each full of oddball characters and unexpected dilemmas.
The production filmed across multiple locations in the borough including a long stint in one of our private locations, Millennium Mills, one of our most popular locations in the borough. The Millennium Mills site is a derelict turn of the 20th century flour mill in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Newham featuring stripped back walls, a mixture of bare concrete walls, floors and pillars and Decaying architecture. The production filmed various scenes across the site of their ever involving plethora of hapless killings, to extreme comedic effect. All the episodes drop on Sky One on the 25th March, in the meantime check out the trailer below!
Newham Film Festival
Now running into its second year, The Newham Film Festival, gives a platform to creatives within London to showcase their films to industry professionals and get more young people involved in film making, and is now accepting applications! Awards include Best Actor Trophy, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Script. The Newham Film Office, managed by The Film Office has recently been assisting the festival with some of its own shooting, as filming commenced at the underground cells located in Old Town Hall Stratford for their promo video. The prison cells (used to be the old courthouse area) and corridors offered the perfect police cell location with a dark and gritty feel. We manage filming in Newham to maximise benefits for the council, its residents and businesses to provide community benefits that extend borough wide – not just in the areas that filming takes place. We were more than happy to assist production who shot scenes for a promo video for the festival at this location.
Jesse Ayertey, the co-founder and festival director commented “I would like to say a massive thank you to you and your team for your generosity and support for the Newham Film Festival. It is always beautiful to have organisations such as The Film Office supporting and promoting the arts!”. The second edition of the Newham Film festival is due to take place this December at Stratford Picturehouse, for more information follow the link to the main website here. Submissions must be a maximum of 10 minutes long and entry only costs £10! Please follow the link here to apply and good luck!
We can’t wait to see what the new year is to bring the borough!
