The new Last ATAK Pictures film, which has been in production for the last six months, has unfortunately had to indefinitely abandon its filming this week due to unforeseen circumstances.
Tuesday the 18th of March and Wednesday the 19th of March were the shooting dates for the majority of the action and was to be filmed at Churnet Valley Railway Station in Staffordshire, though when Director Andrew Davidson and Cameraman Tom Reynolds arrived at the set early to start preparing the first shot of the morning, they discovered that they train carriage that they had wanted was not on the platform. It was later found out to be under repair nearby, but totally unusable. There were no other carriages of the same layout available.
After a lengthy meeting with the owners of the station, Davidson made the difficult decision to not work that day and to send the actors home. Though the situation was having an effect on the crew, two of the cast who had not arrived at the set yet jumped straight in a car and drove the 15 miles to Crewe to a Heritage site that restores trains where they quickly arranged the use of a carriage. Unfortunately, by the time that Davidson and Reynolds had returned from Churnet and everyone got to Crewe it was too late to really get any significant filming done. So for the second time that day Director Andrew Davidson called a definite end to the day and the cast, who had very patiently waited around all day, were set home. 'It wasn't nice sending everyone away.' says Davidson, 'They were really good waiting for us all day and to maintain their high spirits was great. This whole thing was beyond my worse nightmare. I can't even describe it.'
The production team then had a crisis meeting to discuss what the next course of action was. 'We've got a few options,' enthuses the Director, 'I'm not beaten yet. It's gonna take us a little longer to do it than we thought. We're going to be running VERY close to the deadline. I think the next week or so is going to be made up of countless phone calls. The biggest problem is potentially getting the whole cast together again on any particular day. We'll see.'
Where the production goes from here is unknown, but for now there is no filming happening and with only two completed shots in the can, there isn't much to work with.
The production team wish to thank the entire cast for sticking by them.
