Daniel Brookes' filming experience as an Extra in Death Comes To Pemberley (Part 2)

This past Monday, I posted here part 1 of Daniel Brookes filming experience as an Extra from Pride & Prejudice (2005) movie. Today, I'm posting here, part 2 (and the last part) of his filming experience in a TV or film set. This time, he was an Extra on BBC1/Masterpiece Mystery's Death Comes to Pemberley starring Matthew Rhys (as Mr. Darcy) and Anna Maxwell Martin (as Elizabeth Darcy...née Bennet). 

See some DCTP on set and BTS photos of Daniel and read his filming experience as an extra below...

Following on from the Pride and Prejudice film in 2005, I got the opportunity to work as an extra on Death Comes to Pemberley, which was on BBC 1 over Christmas 2013. I was a guard one day and a drummer the other day, along with other people from my reenactment group, the 33rd Foot. Filming locations were Fountains Abbey and York. There were 6 of us, plus our Sergeant at Fountains Abbey, again using a lot of our own kit, the costume department remarked on how good our uniforms were and said, wear as much of it as we could get away with. We had to borrow some items such as, the hats as ours are later in the period. We were suppose to be having a 13.00 till 01.00 in the morning. We went to Location where there was a make shift Prison whilst waiting for the crew to set up we had a chat among ourselves thinking what we may be doing. We were hoping to go and arrest Wickham, excellently portrayed by Matthew Goode, unfortunately we did not get to do that.  

The shoot consist of Matthew being walked back and forth by our Sergeant along a prison corridor, with us closing and locking gates where necessary. We were amazing that by 5 pm we were finished and allowed to leave. Matthew was a great guy and we were able to talk to him in between takes, which was a great bonus. The second day of filming was in the centre of York, we had 16 soldiers, a sergeant, 2 officers, and me, as a drummer. We arrived early with the crew, using us, rather sparingly in the morning, so we did lots of drill practice and it allowed the public that we're around, there were loads of them to take photos and ask what we were doing. After lunch, we had a bit of a play with the fifers and me drumming, which went down well and we got a dance going with the other extras, which was great fun, then we were called to set. It was a fantastic set gallows horses, carriages, soldiers, geese chickens, carts barrels, soldiers peasants, and general people.    

The main cast that were around included Matthew Rhys (Darcy), Matthew Goode (Wickham), Anna Maxwell Martin (Elizabeth Darcy), Trevor Eve (Hardcastle), Tom Ward (Colonel Fitzwilliam), James Norton (Henry Alveston) and Jenna Coleman (Lydia Wickham) to name a few. We, as a group of soldiers marched on to set and waited. The director came over and told us what he wanted to do. He asked if the fife and drums could play as we were marching across. I said the drumming is not a problem but the fifer is our officer and he would not play as he is commanding us. I said you can record it and put it in, if you think it fits. He said, yes do that and within 30 seconds that was done. We marched about and marched about, even marching back to first positions which everyone on set was amazed at... 

The last scenes we shot was the [spoiler alert] hanging scene of Wickham. We formed a guard of honour for him to march down with our Sergeant and Officers who get excellent shots and me beating the drum as he approached the gallows. No doubt you will have seen the scene. It was quite late at night but everyone were in great spirits having a great laugh, especially Matt Goode, Rhys and Anna. When the day was wrapped, we formed up, did a general salute to the cast and crew, which went down amazing. We then marched off set to an amazing round off applause from them. Two very different days of filming, but an amazing experience. 

Now, here are some on set and BTS photos...

Death Comes To Pemberley

Screen cap of our officer and Sergeant in a scene 

with Matthew Goode (Wickham)

I'm the drummer at the far end...

 

 

Playing the music...

The 7 who were at fountains abbey...

A couple more on set photos...

(Source: All on set/BTS photos courtesy of Daniel Brookes. Thanks!)

Once again, thanks to Daniel Brookes for sharing here his amazing filming experience as an extra in both P&P movie and DCTP TV mini-series.