When Channel 4 commissioned Clerkenwell Films to make their popular TV show Somewhere Boy, they asked Freehand to produce EPK and Behind The Scenes Materials for the show.
Somewhere Boy - the story of a young man suddenly dragged from his safe/cosy life into a world (the real world) he knows nothing about was filmed in and around south Wales. It stars Lewis Gribben, Rory Keenan and Samuel Bottomley.
Freehand Worked closely with Executive Producer Emily Harrison and Producer Gavin O'Grady, and undertook two days of shooting - one day of on-location shooting and one as part of a press day.
Day One
Freehand travelled from our base in Surrey to the production's unit base on a farm in south Wales. Here we met the production team, producer and cast. We immediately set about filming behind the scenes shots (b-roll) of the crew hard at work and of actors reheasing with the director. After a couple of hours of this, some of the actors started to become free to do solo in interviews with our team.
On this occasion Clerkenwell had decided that they would write the questions but would have our experienced interviewer actually pose the questions to the cast and crew. We went on to speak with several of the key cast and crew before moving to a second location to get more b-roll and interview more actors while the crew got on with one of the days trickier set-ups.
The day ended with us setting up on the set of a party scene which was set in a barn. We were starting to lose the light but it was important that we got our interview with the director Alexandra Brodski.
We left the cast with a phone for a week that they could use to shoot their own more personal behind the scenes material which we could weave into our own.
Day Two
Again, liaising closely with Clerkenwell and BBC Studios, we did an important second day of filming during the show's press day at a studio in London. Freehand took over a second studio next to the photography and set up a cosy interview area with 4 cameras and intimate lighting. Here we conducted our main interviews with an extended cast plus producer, writer and an exec.
Post
Once these days were completed it was back to the edit suite to put it all together. The process took a while as, at the time, there was little material - in terms of finished episodes - with which to support the editing that we were doing.
We produced several intevewis and short BTS sections each with different angle or theme. As there was plenty of time before broadcast we were also able to assist in creating extra clips and pieces which the team could use for marketing purposes at various trade events.
