"Trouble at Woolpack" - Emmerdale!
Fairly
late on in the year 2003 Ossett Mouldings Limited schemed, made and
installed some very unusual components necessary for a disaster in the
popular and very long running Yorkshire Television drama serial
"Emmerdale".
To state the very obvious, Commercial Television inhabits a very
commercial world. One that needs viewers, very many viewers to exist.
To
chase, or better still "beef up" the crucial Christmas ratings, it was
decided to have a terrible storm, an absolute deluge complete with
destructive lightning and thunder. This was to visit this very Yorkshire
village at Christmas - in style!
On this page we will describe as interestingly as possible for you our
small part in this event - described at the time as "Emmergeddon" or
"Storm in Emmerdale".
The
storm was to damage much of the village, however our work was confined
to the front face of the village pub, The Woolpack. The story, as we
were told was that a "thunderbolt" would strike the pub roof,
immediately vapourising the water contained in the loft tank. This in
turn would "blow" a large section of the pub face off - having first
bought the chimney stack down, through the roof.
Other people dealt with the "falling stack" and the partial roof
collapse. We were to construct the "collapsing face" part of the
disaster.
Initially we met with Sue, one of the Emmerdale Designers (Art
Department) who stated very specifically what was needed and in which
order. The order of action (for us) was that after the stack fell
through the roof - our stone face would blow out as if propelled by an
internal explosion.
The
Woolpack exterior is actually one of a number of recently built timber
framed, stone faced structures standing in private grounds, away from
public access. We took many photographs for a record so that we could
reproduce the external features in plaster. Onto one such photo (here on
left) the extent of the damage and the approximate crack lines was
imposed to serve as a guide.
Now for the practical work, first we took a plaster impression from the
existing stonework. From this "squeeze" a production mould was
eventually produced from which many matching, massive "stone" blocks
were produced cast in very thick, coloured plaster.
Also using our photographic references we accurately reproduced the
stone window mullions, cill and lintels. While we made the components,
builders were busy ripping a hole in the front of the Woolpack.
Back
on set, our first task was to thicken up the rim of the hole thus
created. This was necessary as all the buildings on this set you see
here are merely "scenery", timber framed structures with relatively thin
fascias of stonework.
Traditional stone
buildings have an inner and outer stone leaf, separated by a rubble
infill. This we imitated to the circumference of this newly created
hole, using material from the demolition.
Our heavy imitation cast plaster "stone slabs" needed to be carefully
installed to match the remaining stone face, to remain safely in place
for 2/3 days before filming yet be sufficiently fragile to fall away
when required.
These were eventually completed, despite some practical difficulties.
The rear was weakened to ensure the slabs broke up in a convincing
"stone" pattern as they fell.
The film industry jargon for a piece of scenery that falls off or
smashes is "breakaway". And this is was a very large breakaway indeed!
For this reason, it was just as well one of the cameras to record this
event, from below in the pub "beer cellar" (underneath some armoured
glass and very heavy duty timber protection) was unmanned. Because,
believe me - a lot of weight fell onto it!
The "storm" made a terrible mess of the village Christmas decorations,
upside down Santa's, broken sleighs - that sort of thing. But you really
should see just what happened to the rest of the place!.
These photos show some of what "the morning after" looked like. Village
tree down, bus shelter knocked flat, seat tipped over, pub sign hanging
on a thread.
Circular bench squashed flat, muck and rubbish swept down the road. One
hundred ten thousand litres of water flung down in one huge lump!
We are waiting (hopefully) for some more photos of the pub and
particularly this effect to show up. If they do, please be sure they'll
turn up here for you to see. As you now know, we just love to show our
work off!
This special effect - for that is just what it was, driven and executed
by Ian Rowley, who I believe is the best Special Effects company in our
region was "trailered" very heavily in the 10 days or so prior to
Christmas 2003, parts of the story line carried into the year 2004.
Sadly I never saw the event, but I'm told it "went very well indeed". I would have liked to attend the big "shove out", but considering it took place at 03.00 or 04.00 in the morning, I'm actually quite glad I was not invited!