My Belgian TV experience January 2013

Hi there, I just thought I'd drop you guys a quick update with regards to my week in Belgium for I was not blogging at all there. I have already told you the story about how I got my part in an earlier post - so I'm just going to tell you about my experience filming "Which Is Witch" in Belgium. Here's the trailer to give you a taste of what the series is going to be like - no, I am not in the trailer for it was filmed before I got involved.

I played the part of an eccentric and demanding talent coach (hence the crazy costume which described as "an explosion of colours") whose unorthodox methods help the protagonists as they enter a talent competition. Yes it's the kind of TV comedy that is very much aimed at the 'tweens' market, ie. 8 - 14 years old. So we're talking completely squeaky clean, family friendly comedy following the footsteps of Glee, High School Musical and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  As you can see from the trailer below, music will be a big part of the show and there will be a lot of music & dance routines (and yes I am in one of those routines).  We're still midway through the shoot,  it'll take them a few of months to do the post production and it will  make its debut around April or May 2013. It will be available in 3D.

Rehearsals with Sean, Zazou and Tim

The shoot was in the Pôle Image de Liège studios in Liège, Belgium. Liège is a small town (population 190,000) in Eastern Belgium - now I know what you're thinking, why Belgium? Well the production company is French, they wanted to create a programme with international appeal (hence an international cast) and there is a brilliant studio and crew available in Liège. Given that in the world of sitcoms (think Friends, The Office, IT Crowd, Will & Grace, Yes Minister etc) are often created in a completely artificial studio environment, it doesn't matter where you shoot it (unless you're reliant on a lot of outdoor locations, such as in CSI). Well, the  Pôle Image de Liège studios are enormous and the set only occupied a small part of the studio and within it, they created a whole school, a café, the homes of the protagonists and various other locations down to incredible detail. Now I can discuss my experience but I cannot divulge any more of the plot - so I'm sorry I cannot answer questions like, "tell me about your character in the episode." You'll just have to wait until later on in the year when it is ready!

Welcome to the Which is Witch Studios! 

Sometimes I had long days which started at 6:30 am and lasted all day, other times I was on set only for a few hours to do one or two scenes. There was a lot of waiting around of course and I spent most of my time either in the costume room, playing with the costume mistress' dog Zazou or in the dining room where there was always a good spread of food (fruits, sandwiches, chocolates, biscuits, cakes, sausages etc) and drinks - including a coffee machine. I was buzzing most of the time as it was too tempting to resist a very good cup of coffee at the touch of a button. I guess the caffeine overdose helped get me into character, though everyone was so friendly that I didn't really feel nervous at all.

With Sean and Gia preparing for the shoot. 

It was a really interesting experience as the crew were all French speaking but the cast were all English speaking. The crew were a mix of locals from Liège, some Brits and a small number are from the HQ in Paris - the cast were drawn from all over: mostly England but also Scotland, Jamaica, Luxembourg and of course, Belgium. Oh and Singapore - if you wanna include me I guess! Here's the thing, the French speaking crew all spoke English very well (albeit with an accent) but the English-speaking cast can barely string half a sentence together in French (well apart from me, I am fluent in French). It's quite funny to see the group dynamics - it's like when a group of us sit down, I would immediately look around the group and think, okay do I speak French or English?  If it is a mixed group, it would always default to English - if it is a French majority group, then it would be usually French.

Getting my hair done very early in the morning...

I was particularly thrilled to find out that the script advisor is in fact Welsh. I spoke to her in French and she replied, "Oh je ne parles pas Français, parce que je suis Galloise". (I don't speak French, because I am Welsh.) And I replied, "Ah, ond wyt ti'n gallu siarad Cymraeg os wyt ti'n dod o Cymru?" (Ah but do you speak Welsh if you come from Wales?) And it turns out, she is fluent in Welsh and is very enthusiastic about her mother tongue - so we would only speak to each other in Welsh on set and everyone was like, "what is that language you two are speaking to each other?" And we would be like, oooh aren't we clever, we can speak to each other in a language that no one else here understands.

During a script read through rehearsal with my fellow actor Sean,.

Part of the challenge with this industry is that you turn up on your first day and usually, you don't know anyone there - so you have to go around making friends really quickly, trying to remember their names. I got quite confused as everyone has two names: the name of their character and their real name and I have to think, aha that's Joanna ... or wait, Nicole ... what is the name of her character, which is which? Fortunately, everyone is very nice and sometimes, I can come across people who are unfriendly on such projects. Maybe unfriendly is too strong a word - it's like they can be so stressed from the very long days that they really can't be asked to be friendly and take the time to get to know you. It's usually the crew who are in that state - I remember one day when we had the full cast + 20 extras + 6 dancers for one scene and the costume mistress got really stressed and we were like, quick, get changed, move on, get out of her way, fast! For them, it has been like that everyday for weeks or even months so they cannot be bothered if some young actor has turned up and is a bit nervous - that's when the rest of the cast should really step in and help make the newcomer feel welcomed. Well, I would always do that, but not everyone does.

Here's how we looked on screen during the rehearsals.

I made the most of my time in Belgium - visiting a long list of places including Maastricht (in the Netherlands), Aachen (in Germany), Verviers, Spa, Pepinster, Ghent, Brugge and Brussels. Even on days when I didn't work, I woke up early and got on the train to go exploring! Belgium isn't that big as a country, at its longest (measuring from the NW to SE tip) it is 280 km. To give you some idea of what size that is, Singapore to Kuala Lumpur is about 315 km and to Seremban it is 250 km. So yes, even West Malaysia is more than twice the size of Belgium. I will write about my travels around Belgium soon as part 10 of my Travel Season as I have much to share with you.

Just chilling with my new best friend Zazou.

Once quirky thing about Belgium (and my readers around the world, please feel free to respond to this) is that they still had Christmas decorations up on the 13th January when I left Belgium! In the UK, we usually take them all down on Twelfth Night - so by the 6th of January that's it, we're into January, Christmas is officially over. But in Belgium, Christmas goes on into January - the streets, malls, hotels, shops are all still decked out with Christmas decorations and you can even hear Christmas carols everywhere. When do you take your Christmas decorations down where you are? Guess you must really like Christmas.  All in all, it was a brilliant experience that was over all too quickly - oh, if only I could do this full time but I guess I am very grateful to be involved in this project.  I now I have a play to look forward to doing in London and I have started rehearsals for that. Onto the next project!

Posing with some promo posters - coming soon!