Like all the properties that the Worldwide Church of God originally owned, the Bricket Wood campus is being turned into a housing and wildlife estate. While that work is still in progress the property is being used for filming, just like the Pasadena campus is.
A new movie is being filmed in Bricket Wood called "Plastic." Part of it was filmed on the old Ambassador Campus. I also found it interesting in the news article that "A Clockwork Orange" was filmed in the local woods. I wonder if it was in the Ambassador woodlands.....too funny.
The spotlight shone brightly on Bricket Wood recently as production got underway on a feature film starring Downton Abbey’s Ed Speleers and Game of Thrones’ Alfie Allen.
Plastic, which has been described as a cross between Catch Me if You Can and The Italian Job, wrapped filming last month. Based on various true stories, the picture follows a gang of friends who manage to infiltrate one of the biggest credit card companies in the world and pull off “one of the biggest and most audacious diamond heists ever committed in British history”.
Producing the movie took its team and actors all over the world, with filming hotspots including Miami, Brunei and Manchester. But it was Bricket Wood which became the backbone of making the film and offered an ample canvas for a whole host of integral scenes for the fraud-based film.
Film crews set up camp in Hanstead Park – the site of the old HSBC training centre – which proved a fruitful location for production, with woods, an office block and a university-style building readily available. This is not the first time Bricket Wood has been on the silver screen; a scene in A Clockwork Orange is said to have been filmed in woodland near the village.
It is interesting that most of the movies being filmed on both campuses involve criminal activity in their film subjects. I don't know much about life at Bricket Wood, but there was certainly enough criminal activity in Pasadena over the decades that would put these films to shame. What a legacy we have left behind!
For more information on the redevelopment of the Bricket Wood Campus and it's future check this site out: Bricket Wood Portfolio.
8 comments:
Very interesting!
So far let's go over the filming list at the AC campuses that I know of...
Plastic - in production
A Clockwork Orange? (woods?)
King of the Nerds, TBS, 2012-13
(renewed for season 2, same place maybe?)
Commercial, Microsoft, Surface 2012?
Glory Daze, 2010
And probably many more I dont know of.
Well, looks like our tithe money built some great sets for Hollywood, folks. Can I at least be an extra?
I did not know GG posted above mine. The "Very interesting" was in regards to campus film use, not to appear callous to the first post.
If you believed in that sort of thing, you might just think that God was insulting Herbert Armstrong -- or at least the memory and legacy of Herbert Armstrong.
They need to put public restrooms on the property to make the analogy complete.
Wasn't the movie "THE GREAT ESCAPE" , starring Steve McQueen, which was about a prison breakout of World War II British and American prisoners, captured by the Nazi's, filmed at AC Pasadena?
LOL!
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
Actually , in all seriousness, the movie
"That Thing You Do"
about an early 1960s one hit wonder band, and starring Tom Hanks, had several scenes shot at Ambassador College Pasadena in it. Especially the part where they appeared on a type of "Ed Sullivan" type show, which was really the Auditorium.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
As well as some of Oliver Stone's "Nixon" - and the movie "A Single Man" starring Colin Firth, where a large part of the production was filmed, both interior and exterior scenes. Can't necessarily recommend the subject of the film, though I did watch it for the memories of the campus. The city of Pasadena aggressively courts the nearby movie industry and must offer good incentives, because when I lived there for 17 years you could see filming going on all over the place in various locales.
they could have come to Bricket Wood when I was there in the 70's and filmed the Stepford Wives. Wouldn't even need to pay actors.
Can I provide an alternate perspective here? In the day-to-day lives of the members in more far-flung corners of the world, the most we heard about Headquarters was at the Feast, and through the Envoys. (Which former students have rightfully said were so much propaganda.)
Really, the only impact HQ had on our lives was, more or less (depending on the minister) keeping doctrinal unity amongst the various congregations .Or trying to, anyway.
Members once asked me to pull up the campus on Google Earth for them. They had more of an attachment to it than I did, but they spent their formative years there, so. Although the huge banner hanging from the Auditorium, proclaiming "SUNDAY SERVICES" gave me a bit of pause, I was more circumspect about it all.
After all, if both Junior AND Six-Pack are right, and there are still people who (wrongly) worship(ped) the campus as the Temple....I say, let all of it be demolished! "Not a stone shall be left standing," etc.
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