Newham has played host to a wide range of shoots over the past few months. We’ve picked out some of our highlights below.
Zombies and Vegetables
Millennium Mills has in the past played host to a wide variety of shoots, and over the past 6 months it hasn’t been any different. Firstly it played host to a short zombie apocalypse film. The production filmed the final scenes of their film at the site, of their main cast member attempting to evade a zombie horde. The post-industrial factory has a mix of stripped back walls, decaying architecture, broken windows and wide open-plan floors and overgrown shrubbery and dirt roads on site, which worked perfectly to give that post-apocalypse feel. Check out the short below, and sensitive stomachs, please be aware!
One-third of primary school kids in Britain are overweight or obese. There are all sorts of different things that should or could be done, but here’s a really simple one that’ll have a massive impact – convincing kids to eat more veg. 80% don’t eat enough and 50% of parents say they have given up trying to get their kids to eat 5-a-day. Veg Power is on a mission: to turn around vegetable consumption in the UK. The mission: to get every kid in the UK eating one more portion of veg each day.
Back in 2018 Veg Power in conjunction with ITV filmed scenes for their advertising campaign which aimed to inspire kids to eat more healthily and help tackle rising childhood obesity. The production filmed a variety of scenes at Millennium Mills then, and this year they returned, bigger and better than before!
If you haven’t seen the first film, check it out here and their latest one below. For more information about their campaign please go here.
Trying
Streaming services have boomed over the past few years, with Apple TV+ giving the big boys of Netflix and Amazon a run for their money. With shows like Ted Lasso, filmed across London, The Morning Show and Trying, television streaming has never been so popular. Returning for a second series, Trying stars Rafe Spall and Esther Smith and Jason and Nikki respectively, a couple who really want to become parents but struggle with conceiving a child. In order to have the baby they want they decide to adopt, only to face a whole list of new challenges that come with the adoption process.
The production contacted the Newham Film Office, managed by The Film Office last year looking for a municipal building to double as an adoption office. The East Ham Town Hall was chosen as the perfect location to film both interiors and exteriors. The magnificent, Victorian red brick building with a clock tower is still a working Town Hall and has a variety of period rooms and a large hall that made it the perfect location for filming their scenes. Jacob Hughes-Rodgers, the film officer who worked on the job commented “As a working town hall, East Ham can be a tricky location to facilitate, however during the past year as a majority of staff had transitioned to working from home, the location were able to accommodate a production of this size and scale. A large TV Drama comes with a lot of moving parts so detailed planning with both the location and nearby businesses was key to achieving a successful shoot. It was great to see first hand on the day the shoot in full swing and we hope production can return for a third series in the borough!”
The second series is out now on Apple TV+ and check out the trailer below!
Cillian Murphy Comes to Newham
Filming scenes on a long winters night last year was the short film “All Of This Unreal Time”. Starring Cillian Murphy the short immersive film has been written by Max Porter, directed by Aoife McArdle and with music by Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Jon Hopkins. Focusing on Murphy walking through various locations across London, the short filmed in an underpass in Manor Park last October. Striding through the empty lockdown streets of an anonymous city at night, the character reflects on a wide variety of topics such as shame, guilt and masculinity, and poetically speak outloud to the audience and himself for not having treated other people, and further, the planet, with more care.
Check out the trailer below, or to watch the full film please follow the link here.
Audi
Fresh off from appearing in the hit Netflix show Bridgerton from last year, Regé-Jean Page starred in a commercial for Audi in a variety of locations around the docks. Firstly the production filmed in a private road located in a spare business district opposite City Airport. The mixture of residential and commercial properties and the fantastic controllable road suited the production perfectly as they were seeking to have full control over and area that also offered a sleek look and feel. The production additionally filmed scenes outside the front of Newham Dockside.
Check out the ad below!
Changeling
The brilliant new short “Changeling” from writer / director Faye Jackson is out now and available to watch. This creepy short film shot with the Newham Film Office back in October 2018 in Star Lane Park for a variety of scenes. Filming the opening scenes of their main character sat on a bench the production juxtaposed the idealic look of the park set against the increasingly heightened and intense atmosphere of the film as the narrative progresses.
Check out the whole short film below.
It looks like it’s going to be a bumper summer for the Newham Film Office, and we can’t wait to get cracking on our next shoot!
