Lighthouse has landed a starring role in a new feature film made for the Lifetime channel. I Was Honey Boo Boo, which airs on Saturday 17 May, tells the story of child beauty pageant contestant and reality TV star Alana Thompson as she looks back on colourful life.
It was filmed by Dorset-based HBB/BH_Movies with a crew spending two days using various locations in and around Lighthouse.
Next week a student film crew from AUB will be shooting a documentary-style feature about the kanklės, a Lithuanian instrument.
But all this cinematic activity is nothing new to Lighthouse as in-house press and media person Nick Churchill recalls…
It was Friday 1 June 2007, my 41st birthday, and egged on by my then 12-year-old son, I was practicing rushing into the Concert Hall in a state of high excitement – something I had done many times since I was his age in anticipation of seeing a host of different bands.
Once inside we had to throw our hands in the air and look like we were having the time of our lives. And the reason for all this giddiness?
We were among a thousand or so extras assembled at Lighthouse to fill scenes for the feature film Morris – A Life With Bells On, a low-budget mockumentary about a team of Dorset Morris dancers struggling to evolve the tradition.
You may well have missed it – many did – but it starred Derek Jacobi, Harriet Walter, Ian Hart, Naomie Harris and Greg Wise and featured several other scenes filmed locally including Bournemouth University, Branksome Bowlplex and Sandbanks doubling, somewhat improbably, for Venice Beach.
That summer was one of the wettest on record, which did little to help the film, but the day at Lighthouse was sticky and hot with a good deal of waiting around and precious little sense of what was going on. However, if you watch the movie there’s a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ moment when the lad and I are seen rushing into the Concert Hall.
Emotionally, I think I was going for excitement as instructed, but may not have made it past looking bored and thirsty!
