Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
We have a lot of music in season four.
Dancing, set pieces, parties, events and so on.
There are a lot more locations beyond the castle, Highlere
Castle, which is Downton Abbey, And the village, and a lot of the
usual places that we go to.
We always have guest locations but in season
four we have a lot more.
We have one episode that is pretty much all guests in
London. It is very, very tricky.
With a show that is so well known now, if we try to shoot on
the streets then we attract a pretty big crowd.
Because we are filming this at the time we are about to have a
royal birth announcement, so many roads are blocked off, that
we can't park.
So, thankfully it's not my headache, but it is the poor
locations department's headache.
Shooting central London's a joy, but also difficult because
obviously central London is like every other city in the world,
a now modern city with - still some beautiful architecture -
but it has all the complications of modern London.
A lot of the design, within the location department is picking
the right location to start with, because like any major
city it's difficult and you can do it on Sunday or can do it
certain times of the day.
So the choice of location is very, very important.
We've done two nightclubs, which we've picked beautiful,
beautiful gentlemen's clubs in London.
So I think the selection process, before you take it even
to the directors because it's no good if you pick a wonderful
place and it just doesn't work logistically, there's traffic or
it can't be held.
So the selection process is vital.
All the locations are much more expensive and just getting
around is, you know, we're a big, big unit.
We're like a movie set.
We've got so many trailers, it's like a town.
We move around and to try and park it in the middle of a
capitol city, is not...it's not fun.
Needless to say when we do have interior London locations.
We make sure they're not in London, but just outside where
we can get to.
Of course, it's very hard for us to go and shoot anywhere in a
public area without being swamped by lots and lots of fans
who want to come and watch the shooting, so that can also make
it quite difficult.
Trying to recreate 1922-1923 in the middle of a modern, bustling
city, once again, its the selection process.
There are parts of London, still some of the Inn's of Court -
which are Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple - still have gaslights,
for instance.
So you pick those areas to use, as our streets, and you get more
freedom there.
But it's still a logistical nightmare.