Production of Tribe Series 2 is now into its fourth week from Monday 30th August. The shooting schedule last week involved a significant amount of location based exterior scenes, with cast and crew traveling up to about 25 kilometers from the Cloud 9 Production Centre to the furthest location.
Location filming involves extra logistical planning and co-ordination. In the studio, interior scenes are somewhat easier to control in the sense that there is a constant climate and lighting conditions but outside on location, the cast and crew are at the whim of changing wind and weather and also different lighting conditions due to passing clouds. And location filming involves complex and precise movement orders to enable the crew to arrive and prepare for filming at a particular location – and the cast to arrive and start shooting once preparations are completed, with the maximum efficiency.
Powerful generators, camera equipment, lighting rigs, sound equipment, and cars and vehicles to transport the cast, extras, animals, production team, security and catering, must all move back and forth each day between the location and the Production Centre whereas for interior studio days, all the equipment is already based at the Production Centre. Even parking must be planned for so all the vehicles used to transport the cast and crew are conveniently based (so cast and crew have easy access to them) but also so they are not in the way of the cameras and do not appear on scenes that are actually filmed! And necessities must be provided for cast and crew on location – like catering and toilet facilities! Last week, the locations involved farms, fields, woods, rivers and streams, car parks, hills, the countryside, exterior buildings, and scenes shot in streets and the city.
Members of cast and crew must get up earlier on location days due to the extra travel time – sometimes cast members are picked up by chaperones at 05.00 am in order to go to the location. On studio interior days, cast and crew normally assemble to start filming from around 07.30 am. Upon arriving at the studio, cast members go into wardrobe where they are dressed into their character’s costumes, which may take 10 to 15 minutes. After wardrobe, members of cast then go for make-up, which can take about 20 minutes or so. Once costume and make-up have been finished (and hair styled) then cast are ready to go on set for shooting. When not involved in certain scenes (or while the set or location is being re-set for the next scene) cast members go back to the classroom at the production centre for schooling with their tutors.
Depending on the schedule, cast members will sometimes wait in the Green Room (on location this is a bus) which is where the cast relax and unwind between filming, spending the time having a break or rehearsing or reading through lines from the scenes due to be shot in the day. The cast are looked after on (and off) set by the chaperone and housemother team. The cast especially enjoy reading fan mail which is distributed regularly and are planning their time to ensure that they can answer as much fan mail as they possibly can. Staying in tune with the fans is very important for the cast as well as the entire Cloud 9 team. At other times between scenes, cast will go back to wardrobe and/or make-up (and hair) to have different costumes or make-up applied in readiness for different scenes in the day.
There is food and drink available for the cast and crew during the day with morning breaks, lunch, and afternoon tea. At the end of a cast member’s day, they “wrap” and finish shooting where they dress out of their character’s costume and leave the location or studio and head back home. This varies according to how early the cast start their day, but usually wrap is between 18.00 pm – 19.00 pm.
The weather in the third week of shooting series 2 (23rd August – 26th August) was:
There was no shooting on Friday for cast and crew last week because the cast and crew had worked the previous Sunday so had Friday off to replace the Sunday that they worked (on Sunday, exterior scenes were filmed in the quiet city and streets). Members of cast did get together on their weekend off for a special Karaoke evening and had fun singing songs together – and are like a Tribe off the set, as well as on the screen!