Northern Ireland
‘Shooting’ space
Sharing filming space with the United States Secret Service ahead of President Joe Biden’s arrival is not ideal prep. But that’s what the team of action thriller, Old Guy, had to contend with when shooting in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“We were running about the top floor of the impressive Grand Central Hotel Belfast filming shootouts with guns and the Secret Service were coming up, checking and dismantling them,” laughs Martin Brennan, lead producer of the film, alongside Jib Polhemus.
President Biden’s team had taken over the top 10 floors of the hotel, including the one reserved for the production. “Initially, they were doing checks of every crew member’s name, and had about 20 vehicles outside on a small city street, which we were also using for filming a kidnap scene. But thanks to our good relations with the hotel [having filmed there before], the checks were dampened down, we were able to use the floor and film outside, and it all worked really well,” adds Gareth Hogan, location manager on the film.
The ambitious £6m project, directed by Simon West (The Expendables 2) and starring Christoph Waltz as ageing contract killer Danny Dolinski brought back on an assignment to assist newcomer Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), while wooing club manager, Anata (Lucy Liu), filmed all over Northern Ireland’s capital city for six weeks.
“The original script from Greg [Johnson] was set in Los Angeles, but we looked at the UK instead because of the enticing tax incentive and quality local crew, and chose Northern Ireland where I’m based,” explains Brennan. “It’s the same story, but starts off in London and moves to Belfast.”
Aside from the Grand Central Hotel, other filming sites included the busy St George’s Market, Drumbo Park Greyhound Stadium, the SSE Hollywood Bowl, Clandeboye Estate, and Ballywalter Park, an impressive stately home just outside Belfast that is popular for filming.
“You’ve got everything in and around Belfast – rural, coastal, urban, anything you need, and it’s logistically easy to go between locations, which can double easily for other places,” says Hogan.
This proved handy as they managed to double several locations for London, including the Kremlin bar (used for Lucy Liu’s karaoke bar) and the Harrison Hotel. “We also filmed an action scene with Christoph getting out of a car at the Chubby Cherub deli that nicely doubled for a London Soho Cobb shop, with a good back alley into it where you can see the City Hall, which has a London look and feel,” says Hogan. “It’s tough to film that kind of city stuff with big name actors, closing down streets, but we had good support from Belfast City Council. Years ago it took about 12 weeks for road closures, but we’ve now got it down to about four (arranging it early).”
Another major location was the abandoned Flagship shopping mall where a face-off scene was filmed. “It had been empty for years, so was in a bad condition, with no power or water (and a lot of pigeon mess), which required a humongous industrial cleanup, using generators, and the gaffer working hard with the lighting, but it worked well in the end,” says Hogan.
Everything was done sustainably too. “We complied with BAFTA albert (Sustainable Production Certification), making sure we reduced waste, used electric generators, LED lights, much less beef and compostable disposables in catering, rented rather than bought costumes, props etc, and everything was done digitally, so less paper,” says Janine Cobain, line producer on the film, who used to work for Carbon Trust.
Impressively, the entire script, financing, producers and cast for Old Guy were assembled in under a year. “We had producers join for different reasons. Dark Castle provided notes and helped set up distributors and sales, R.U. Robot Studios and Blue Rider provided financing, and Highland Film Group came onboard for sales,” says Brennan.
Northern Ireland Screen also proved invaluable, not only providing £400,000 towards the project, but also assisting with script development, locations and contacts. “They’ve backed every movie I’ve done, even when I shot one in Georgia in the States. They are fantastic,” enthuses Brennan.
Hogan agrees: “We used about 95% local crew on this film, thanks in no small part to Northern Ireland Screen. They have brilliant training schemes [we used some of their trainees on the film] and it’s testament to their efforts that these kinds of movies and TV shows are being made here on location and at the great studios [Titanic and Harbour] on a regular basis.”
IMAGES: Peter Marley