Lights, Camera, Lancaster!

In this week’s Lancaster Guardian, an article about a new Netflix series starring James Nesbitt being filmed in Morecambe. This is separate to the filming of the TV series The Bay and also Peaky Blinders being filmed up at the park, plus let’s not forget Paddington 2 and Get Santa were filmed at the castle and there’s been a few antiques and ghost things filmed at The Judges’ Lodgings too. Oh, and there was the Prunella Scales documentary along the canal. Gosh… Seems to be film makers are swarming all over the place round here. I’m surprised you don’t need to join Equity just to go fetch the milk in.

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Film Crews in the Lancaster and Morecambe Area

“Apparently in the Lancaster and Morecambe area, you’re never more than six feet away from a film crew.”

Whilst possibly a *slight* exaggeration to suggest that film crews are as plentiful as all that, it’s certainly true that there seem to be an increasing number of them in the area lately.

Whilst up at Williamson Park they’re filming scenes for Peaky Blinders, down on the shore they’re filming for a TV series called The Bay as well as a new Netflix original series starring James Nesbitt and featuring, amongst other notable names, Eddie Izzard.

In the city itself they’ve played host to film crews from Most Haunted, the Antiques Roadshow, a documentary on castles, Paddington 2, Get Santa, a documentary about the slave trade and a documentary about canals. I seem to recall there was also something with Rupert Grint in it, but goodness knows what it was.

There was one notable occasion when I bumped into Gordon Ramsey in a nightclub that has since been knocked down (probably for unrelated reasons). He was as unashamedly offensively vocal as you would expect him to be, particularly after a few drinks, in front of a small audience of his friends/colleagues on a night out after filming. Ah… memories.

Morecambe Carnival just days away.

One of the three peep boards created for the Morecambe Carnival

Fingers crossed for perfect weather because it’s the Morecambe Carnival this weekend in it’s second year. It was fantastic last year and the organisers are hoping to better it. Knight Time Creations was hired to add a touch of colour to the festivities with some traditional sea side peek boards. The three boards, each measuring four foot by eight foot, took over 16 hours to design and paint. We kept the costs down by just buying five tins of paint, red, yellow, blue, black and white and mixing the colours together as and when needed.
All the black line work was completed using a Letraset marker pen, which I bought from the lovely Studio Arts on North Road in Lancaster. My trusty colleague Jon Bailey and I worked tirelessly to finish the three boards in time for the big weekend.
One board is a typical sea side poster design of a curvy lady and a skinny man, the second board is a Punch and Judy show in full swing and the third is a tribute to Morecambe’s favourite son, Eric, in his well known pose from the statue on the sea front.
I’ll be attending the carnival on both days offering hand drawn temporary tattoos from my stall in the retail area near to the Midland Hotel.

The tattoo stall at the Morecambe Carnival