As with all industry sectors its’ been a tough year for the Film Industry, however we’ve been proud in playing our part in a unified approach to support production restart safely to aid economic recovery and get people back to work! Here are some of our wintery highlights to get you in that Christmas mood!
The year started with a bang, Vauxhall Corsa shot their latest ad early in 2020, making use of the beautifully restored Forty Hall House and surrounding grounds to recreate the wedding scene featured in the commercial.
Highly anticipated Apple TV Series Ray James shot scenes around Church Street in the heart of Enfield Town and the picturesque Enfield Market; We can’t wait to see the results on the small scene.
Antiques Roadshow
A British television institution, the Antiques Roadshow has been running since 1979, travelling to some of the most beautiful locations in the country to appraise the publics antiques and is broadcast to millions every Sunday. The BBC got in touch with the Enfield Film Office, Managed by The Film Office, enquiring about using the Forty Hall Estate as a location for their latest series. Involving multiple departments within the council as well as the local police, and after a number of planning meetings later, the foundations were laid for a fabulous weekend of filming and we were delighted that it eventually came to fruition.
Paul Everitt, Head of Culture, at Enfield had this to say.
“In the most challenging of environments we successfully hosted the filming of the Antiques Roadshow at Forty Hall Estate on 3 beautiful days in September 2020. Following the disappointment of having to cancel the initial plan to film in May as the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak, the Film Office, BBC and Forty Hall teams made contingency plans for September not knowing what would be possible. A new concept for the show was designed and a new socially distanced programme was planned and finally filmed in September. The filming was a huge success and subsequently 3 progammes were filmed at Forty Hall Estate with one of those programmes chosen to launch the new series on January 3rd 2021. Thank you to the Film Office for helping is make this enormously important event for us happen”.
Tesco
This years Tesco commercial filmed all over the borough including locations at South Ordanace Road and Albany Park. Working closely with local residents and The Canal & River Trust, then production worked hard to ensure a complicated shoot ran smoothly on the day.
Filming involved Christmas dressing, road closures, traffic management and footpath closures and it’s testament to good planning and communication that filming went without a hitch.
Areas that accommodate filming benefit from significant ‘local spend’ by productions – through use of cafes, restaurants, hire of properties, accommodation providers, parking and green room hire, so it was great to see local businesses benefit from a shoot of this scale, especially ones that have been impacted so greatly by COVID19 this year.
Other highlights include:
Music video for Submotion Orchestra filmed interior scenes at our atmospheric Disused Clothes Factory. Samsung shot content at Grovelands Park – ‘the jewel in the crown of the parks’ in the Borough of Enfield this park is a Green Flag heritage oasis of tranquillity nestled in suburbia and features a large lake, golf course and grade II listed house. M&S shot scenes for an Easter commercial at one of our schools and a new TV Drama made the most of the atmospheric Edmonton Cemetery in October. Dancing on Ice, BBC Countryfile and ITV’s Long Lost Family concluded what was a surprisingly fortuitous year for Enfield.
Since the first lockdown in March of this year, an incredible amount of work has been done by the Film and Television industry and various bodies in drawing up a wide range of practical and safe guidelines for filming and photographing across the industry. From regular testing, to face coverings and inter-departmental bubbles the industry reacted quickly to the pandemic which meant that when filming was cleared to continue in June, productions were able to get restarted at a rapid pace.
Film London CEO, Adrian Wootton recently commented “Filming is permitted for productions in London and across all four UK nations who are operating within appropriate industry guidelines in COVID-secure settings…I remain fully confident in the UK screen sector’s ability to restart production safely and support our country’s economic recovery”.
We already have lots of exciting projects coming up in the new year, so we can’t wait to get started in 2021. Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas from the team at Film Office.
