Here's the third in the series of GW crew interviews.....todays offering is with Location Manager Ian Pollington.
1) Ian Pollington, you were the Location Manager on Green Wing. What
exactly does your job entail?
THE LOCATION MANAGER IS BASICALLY THE BUFFER BETWEEN THE PRODUCTION COMPANY AND THE LOCATION.
YOU HAVE TO BALANCE WHAT THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCRIPT AND SHOOTING SCHEDULE ARE WITH THE LOCATION OWNERS.
FROM THE BEGINNING; TRADITIONALLY YOU BREAKDOWN A SCRIPT TO ESTABLISH WHAT LOCATIONS ARE REQUIRED, YOU THEN MEET WITH THE DESIGNER, PRODUCER, DIRECTOR TO GAUGE WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY LOOKING FOR; USUALLY A LONDON LOCATION THAT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE LONDON, THATS NEVER BEEN FILMED BEFORE, THATS OUTSIDE THE
CONGESTION CHARGE ZONE, WITH SEA VIEWS AND THE TOWER OF LONDON OUT THE WINDOW!!
YOU GENERALLY SCOUT AND WORK THROUGH A LIST OF OPTIONS FOR EACH LOCATION AND THESE GET TRIMMED DOWN AS YOU PAIR LOCATIONS TOGETHER GEOGRAPHICALLY OR DUE TO SCHEDULING. ONCE A LOCATION HAS BEEN AGREED BY THE DESIGNER PRODUCER DIRECTOR; YOU THEN LIAISE WITH THE LOCATION OWNERS, LOCAL COUNCIL, POLICE, HIGHWAYS TO CONTRACT AND FACILITATE YOUR FILMING ACTIVITIES.
2) Location Manager sounds really glamorous, what time do you normally come
in to work on a shoot day?
ITS ALL REALLY GLAMOROUS CHAMPAGNE, FAST CARS, FASTER WOMEN, I TEND TO GO FROM ONE CELEBRITY BASH TO ANOTHER AND THEN STRAIGHT TO WORK AROUND 0600HRS IN THE MORNING! - VERY GLAMOROUS!
3) So how many people work with you in your Dept.?
ON GWII THERE WAS GENERALLY MYSELF AND A UNIT MANAGER - ALTHOUGH WE DID EMPLOY LOCATION SCOUTS
AS REQUIRED.
4) What was the hardest location to secure and why (bearing in mind
that some scenes have yet to be broadcast)?
A LOT OF WORK WENT INTO BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH HOSPITALS, AND FORMULATING A SHOOTING SCHEDULE THAT SUITED BOTH PARTIES AS THESE WERE WORKING HOSPITAL ENVIRONMENTS NOT SETS.
5) Did you have any really tough moments on GW and if so, what were they?
PROBABLY IN THE ..... AT ............!(DON'T PRINT THIS!) (Hope the cheque's in the post Pollers or the dot dot dots become letters!)
6) What was your fondest or funniest memory?
FLETCH.(He was one of the Unit drivers) / STATHAM - EVERYTHING HE'S IN.
7) Apart from on GW, what was the most incredible/glamorous location
you've filmed in?
I WENT OUT TO MOZAMBIQUE ON "ALI", THE MICHAEL MANN, MOHAMMED ALI FILM, STARRING WILL SMITH. I LOOKED AFTER THE STADIUM AND AIRPORT LOCATIONS.
8) Art Dept. and Locations always work very closely together. What
was it like working with the GW Art Dept compared to others?
I THINK WE WORKED WELL TOGETHER, EVERYONE WAS GREAT!!
PROBABLY THE FINEST ART DEPT IN THE LAND!
9) You must be on the road an awful lot, looking for places and
arranging recces to far flung locations. How many miles do you drive a year?
ABOUT 30000MILES
10) How did you get into the Industry and what was your first TV job?
FRIENDS WERE RUNNERS AND UNIT MANAGERS IN FILM AND TELEVISION, WHEN I HAD A PREVIOUS LIFE RUNNING MY OWN BUSINESS. AS I WAS ESTABLISHING THE BUSINESS I USED TO DO SECURITY / CONE WORK. AFTER ABOUT 5YEARS OF RUNNING MY OWN COMPANY I SOLD UP AND STARTED UNIT MANAGING, SCOUTING AND THEN EVENTUALLY LOCATION MANAGING. MY FIRST TV JOB WAS A TALKBACK COMEDY FOR VICTORIA PILE PRODUCER OF GWII. BEFORE THAT I HAD ONLY WORKED ON FILMS.
11) What TV show would you most liked to have worked on?
CELEBRITY LOVE ISLAND
12) What tools/items are essential to your work, and what luxuries do
you have?
A CAMERA, LAPTOP, MOBILE PHONE AND CAR ARE ALL ESSENTIAL TOOLS OF THE TRADE. MY LUXURY IS PROBABLY MY CAR!
13) Everybody on the cast and crew got on really well together. Is
that normal on most shows, and what do you put this down to?
SEXUAL FRUSTRATION, EFFECTIVELY BEING AT SEA, ON SUCH A LONG SHOOT - FAR FROM
HOME!!
Ian Pollington....thank you very much.
The blog about Channel 4's award winning TV Show Green Wing, by its Production Designer Jonathan Paul Green
10 comments:
thanks for posting this too. as I said, always nice to read these! :)
I believe it was called Los Dos Bros. A brilliant series with Darren Boyd and Cav Clerkin, which sadly never became very popular
It's always really good to read crew interviews. Thanks for posting it.
yeah i like reading them - it sounds like you all had a lot of fun generally when filming GW.
How much was that cheque for to keep the dots covered? And can we offer more? Lol!
Smashing "interview" Great to hear what the crew has to say as well as the cast!
Can I just thank you Jonathan, and all the members of the crew who have contributed to your great blog. We fans really appreciate hearing about everything to do with this brilliant show.
It's impossible not to feel the strength of team spirit that you all created. It radiates from the screen. And in a small way we like to think that the fans are also part of the GW family.
I hope you will all come along to the convention when it happens on January 13th.
Hadn't heard about the convention....
You can find all about the convention on their website: www.rockpulse.co.uk/greenwing.html.
Well organised and all being done in aid of Great Ormond St Hospital, which is lovely and very appropriate.
One of the main organisers goes by the name of waxed owl and she was responsible for one of the best unofficial fansites during Series 1.
I believe they have been in touch with Patrick Schulenberg so hopefully the team will find out about it in due course. Spoon of Destiny competitions might well feature, but I don't think the wearing scrubs will be compulsory. We're not as sad as Trekkies after all!
Thank you, Cello! Jonathan, I'm another of the organisers, and we do hope you can come along. You're excused scrubs though! Great series of interviews, thanks!
Thank you...more interviews to follow soon.
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