Action on local movie

CAMERAS started rolling this week on a 1 million feature film being produced in and around Uckfield by people with local roots.

Kevin Markwick who runs The Picture House in town has dreamed of making films all his life and if all goes to plan he could be premiering his own work, at his own cinema, by the end of the year.

He has written the script for a teen comedy with Phil Lott and brothers Stephen and Graham Pidgeon. Stephen, who has spent the last few years making television documentaries, is going to direct Neil's Friend.

Phil, a director, came originally from Hailsham, Graham, who writes novels, and Kevin both still live in Uckfield and Stephen, who used to live in town now lives at Elstree.

In addition to raising the funds to make the film the four have also interested a UK distributor in the script and, if they manage to make the film they are promising, wide release of it should follow.

They are breaking new ground in UK cinema by using state of the art high definition film technology developed by George Lucas for the Star Wars film Attack of the Clones

Local actress Sarah Cannon, making her film debut, has secured the part of Neil's mum. She has often been seen on stage in pantomimes at St Philip's Catholic Primary School in Uckfield and at the Community College.

The rest of the cast of 20, fresh out of drama college, are all professional actors.

The four scriptwriters see their work as filling a gap in the market. 'There have been many very successful teen comedies, like American Pie, about American High School kids and we thought British kids might want to see a comedy about themselves.

Sweet story

'This is a nice, sweet story, based on our own experiences as 18-year-olds growing up in a town like Uckfield. Usually films are about life from either end of the spectrum, either the very poor or the very rich, but not people like this and there is a lot of comedy and drama to be found in this area,' said Mr Markwick.

Shooting began on Tuesday and is due to take place at Uckfield's West Park Estate, in the High Street, at Di Marco's restaurant, in the cinema, at The Griffin Inn, Fletching, and in one or two other rural locations round and about.

'We don't want to disturb anybody or make a nuisance of ourselves. We have a very professional crew, good location managers, good unit managers and we want to make filming as a painless as possible for everyone,' said Mr Markwick.

This is only the start of what the foursome hope will be a successful film career. 'We are writing all the time. This is a good starting point because it proves to people in the industry that we can do something,' said Mr Markwick.