World War Z

2011 was a big year for film in Glasgow and the fact that not only Brad Pitt himself came to shoot a movie here in August, but so did Halle Berry with “Cloud Atlas” a film also starring Tom Hanks and Susan Sarandon. I found the fact that these films chose to shoot in Glasgow, although surprising to me, really brilliant for the city and for myself as an avid celebrity follower. "World War Z" transformed Glasgow into a post-apocalyptic Philadelphia and I ventured into George Square, mostly to see Mr. Pitt, but also to see the amazing changes that took place! Here are a couple of photos I snapped from my (not-so-high-tech) phone!

The amount of attention to detail that went into the set design was amazing, they even had old-school American newspaper machines and in my opinion, George Square looks a whole lot better like this!  

Everyone was pretty fascinated with these zombies!

  




The film also hired 100 extras to act as zombies in the film, not only creating job opportunities but involving Glasgow’s citizens directly in the film, rather than just using our streets and buildings. Here's a pretty cool video I found on YouTube, solely of the extras.

The American sets and staged car crashes brought tourists into the city centre every day of the shoot which would obviously be a positive for local shops and businesses and the leader of Glasgow council Gordon Matheson suggests that, from filmmaking in the city alone in the past decade, over £150 million has come into the Glasgow economy. In my opinion, this can only be a good thing but apparently others felt differently during the World War Z shoot.
The city council received complaints from taxi drivers about traffic diversions and from commuters about extended journeys. Although these are valid and admittedly annoying things to deal with, should they really stand in the way of further possible films shoots in Glasgow? I definitely think the pros far outweigh the cons, and Glasgow is developing a reputation for shooting films, as the co-producer of “Cloud Atlas” Grant Hill said “Once a film goes somewhere and has a good experience, word gets round”. Apparently the World War Z team was highly impressed with how co-operative Glasgow City Council was, and this is exactly what film crews are looking for- a location to suit their needs but also the ability to shut off streets and to be able to create whatever set they can.

In the same Guardian article as above, they wrote that a local Glasgow writer claimed the whole thing was sad because, "We used to be a city that made things, and exported them. Now we are a raddled old drag queen, dressing up in someone else's clothes". The fact is, Scotland and Britain as a whole aren't as self-sufficient as they used to be, and the majority of films we go to see in the cinema nowadays are big-budget American movies. Why complain about Glasgow being given the opportunity to do something and be involved in something like World War Z? Times have changed and if this is all Glasgow is good for, I think we should cling onto it and not let it go!  These shoots are needed for the Scottish economy and tourism, but mostly just for the film culture in Glasgow itself. It got people excited about making films; it no doubt encouraged people with an interest in set design to pursue a career in film production and to me, that’s really exciting. He may have caused a few traffic jams, and yeah maybe some dedicated university students were late for a lecture, but in my opinion, last summer Brad Pitt definitely brought the film scene back to life in Glasgow.