severalls - ditchingham maltings | inside out
03-04|06|06

Inside Out: The Shoot - Continued

It was an absolutely glorious day as we tramped through the high grass and weeds around the Severalls site. The first shooting took place around Ivy Villa: low shots of walking through grass, others of me peering through the windows of the dilapidated villa, further film of hiding behind trees and scanning for potential security guards.

We then reached the fence and the crux of the whole day’s shooting. If we couldn’t get through this, then the Severalls part of the film would be severely curtailed and wouldn’t give a representative view of the complex at all. Luckily there was a hole and Martin was quick to set up shots of me squeezing between the bent slats. “We’ve got to prove we gained access without breaking or damaging anything” he said. I agreed, although became a little bit twitchy when I had to repeat the exercise several times as Martin got the shot from several different angles.

From no man’s land we observed the hospital. There was the small matter of crossing the road, which security patrolled occasionally. To be caught now would have been impossibly unlucky and would scupper the film. Therefore I suggested we ran across. "How dramatic!" said Martin who then directed the action: "Pause at that point there, look around, and then run. We’ll follow. This will look excellent." He was clearly enjoying himself.

The dash into the main buildings of Severalls thankfully only took one take. We were now inside and I relaxed; we’d get the film we wanted and it would look excellent.



It was a glorious day and the sunlight streamed into the wards. However, as I was being filmed, I took hardly any photographs. This shot is from the bay window of one of the eastern day rooms looking south across the ward buildings..