Can A Film Set Replace A Real-Life Town Or Village?

Any film or TV production, unless it deliberately adopts a surreal style, will be more effective the more realistic it looks. This means that both indoor and outdoor shots need to look as true-to-life as possible.

If you are embarking on a production journey, our Manchester TV studios may make a great base, partly because they will provide a place to film indoor scenes, but also because the city region has enjoyed a strong reputation as a place to film TV and movies.

What Parts Of Greater Manchester Appear In Clayface?

A case in point is the Marvel film Clayface, which will be released this month. Several shots were filmed outdoors in the Manchester area. The first trailer briefly shows Stockport Plaza, while some scenes were filmed around the Castlefield area of central Manchester.

Other parts of central Manchester that have been used for Hollywood films include the 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger film, which used the Northern Quarter as the Bronx area of New York in the 1940s.

This was achieved by making a few adjustments to the area by adding signs and adverts from the era, while removing anything too modern, to create the impression that the red brick streets were from a different time and a place 3,000 miles away.

Such adjustments are a common means of producing a scene for a film, matching real bricks and mortar with props and imitations of signs and items from the place and time in question.

How Did Harry Potter Take A Buckinghamshire Village Back To The 1990s?

Another such case has been taking place in a village in Buckinghamshire, albeit only casting it back as far as the 1990s. The Harry Potter TV series has been filming in Latimer, with 1990s cars on the street and nobody carrying a smartphone.

Villagers may feel honoured by the filming, not least when they see their own streets on TV in due course, but there was some disruption as well, with some residents claiming they had been “cut off” for a time when roads were closed.

Locals also had to park in a field, although there was good news for some, as Warner Brothers subsidiary Plum Jam Productions did pay some residents for the use of their driveways.

However, the filming has been a temporary affair and will not recur unless there is another series in due course, which might require another couple of days of the village being ‘borrowed’.

The same may not be said of any location where filming takes place regularly. There are many instances of this, from the house and street in the Welsh town of Barry where Gavin and Stacey was filmed to stately homes frequently used in period costume dramas.

Why Does Emmerdale Have A Custom-Built Replica Village?

However, nowhere is going to be the site of filming as regularly as a place featured in a soap opera, due to its relentless schedule of shows multiple times every week throughout the year. This means that a soap like Emmerdale has made continual calls on its sites:

• In its early days as Emmerdale Farm, the show was filmed on location at the Yorkshire Dales village of Arncliffe

• The local pub in Arncliffe, the Falcon Inn, became The Woolpack for the soap

• From 1977 to 1997, shooting was undertaken in the West Yorkshire village of Elshot, with the Commercial Inn taking on the role of the Woolpack

• From 1972 to 1994, exterior scenes at the firm were shot at Lindley Farm near Esholt

• Since 1997, scenes have been filmed on a purpose-built replica of Elshot in the grounds of Harewood House near Leeds

• Harewood House has also been used for filming scenes in Downton Abbey 

The switch to a purpose-made site has had major advantages for filming. It means the villagers of Elshot do not have to put up with any disruption or excessive visits from fans.

In addition, the farm scenes can also be shot there, Lindley Farm having been sold for housing, while the use of a dedicated site enables the show to feature elements that might be somewhat disruptive to the normal life of a village, like the inclusion of lots of explosions.

At the same time, Emmerdale has interior shots filmed at the Yorkshire TV studios in Leeds, where, one hopes, nobody is playing around with explosives.

This highlights the fact that if you are filming a TV show or film that includes both indoor and outdoor shots, our studios can provide whatever set you need for the former.

A key point to note at this stage is the difference between what can be done in an indoor set and outdoors.

Indoor scenes offer more scope for variation as sets can be arranged as required, the light levels can be adjusted on the spot, the weather is not an issue, and special effects, including in post-production, can be used whenever necessary.

This fact enables you to plan your outdoor scenes accordingly, based on the requirements of the production.

What Are The Limitations Of Using A Present-Day Site For Filming?

Using a real-life town, village, or cityscape can create a sense of authenticity, especially in a modern setting, while adjustments can be made to make an area look like it is older than it is, just as the Northern Quarter was made to look like the Bronx from 80 years ago.

Not everyone will take such care with this. For example, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk was partly shot in the town, but no attempt was made to alter the appearance of the buildings, leading to a few panoramic shots showing some very modern-looking homes.

To an extent, this can be overlooked thanks to the authenticity of using the same beaches that the real evacuation took place from; after all, the sea and the sand still look the same.

Such a principle can apply in other productions, such as Gladiator, where the battle scene early in the film is shot at Bourne Woods in Surrey, a frequent site for filming.

That scene saw plenty of pyrotechnics in action, which is easy to accomplish outside a built environment. Clearly, that is not the case in a village, which is why Emmerdale’s regular use of explosives relies on having a custom-built set.

Therefore, when filming, it is always important to know what the limitations are on your use of outside sets, as well as what can be done to create new possibilities.