National Trust and Filming - Case Studies

What is the National Trust

• A charity whose constitution is governed by a act of Parliament.

• 250 historical buildings, 600 miles of coast and 500,000 acres of countryside

• Almost 4 million members.

• Covers the whole of the UK except Scotland.

Variety is the spice of life

Why Filming ?

•Fees

•Visitors

•Economic generation

NT authors links

• 24 Cheyne Row, London Thomas Carlyle

• Chartwell, Kent Winston Churchill

• Nether Stowey, Somerset Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Hughenden Manor, Bucks Benjamin Disraeli

• Hardy's Cottage, DorsetThomas Hardy

• Max Gate, Dorset Thomas Hardy

• Lamb House, Sussex Henry James

• Malham Tarn, Yorks Charles Kingsley

• Bateman's, Sussex Rudyard Kipling

• Wimpole Hall, Cambs Rudyard Kipling

Pride Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Otherwise known as Ohh Mr Darcy! (Lyme Park and Lacock village)

Pride and Prejudice case study

• The house was closed to the public for six weeks in September of 2004 to allow filming to take place at the front of the house and in four of the show rooms. It was an intrusive shoot, with 200 extras on site for much of this time for a ball room scene plus 100 crew members and a huge unit base parked up in the grounds.

Pride and Prejudice case study

• NT were keen to maximise the opportunity for publicity

• House Manager appears on the DVD talking about the property and the shoot.

• An exhibition was opened at the house on the film’s release as Working Title had agreed in the film’s contract that they would supply costumes and other items for this purpose. This exhibition was promoted in the local and national press

The P & P effect

• 76% increase in visitors.

• Restaurant takes £10k in one weekend.

• 2006 went on to be a very successful year with 77,770 visits. In 2002, 2003 and 2004 visitor numbers had never moved above the 48,000 mark.

• 2009 saw 80,884 visitors.

The Duchess

The Duchess

• 4 properties involved but only one marketed.

• Competition with Chatsworth home of the real Duchess.

• Film released in Sept almost the end of the season

The Duchess Effect

• 2007 figures showed 16% rise

• 2009 on back of costume exhibition a new record of 139,009 visitors.

• Most of the visitors domestic.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility

• BBC drama using Ham House.

• As a London location difficult to calculate the reason for the visit.

• Ham also appeared in other TV and films so hard to say which show provoked the visit.

Sense and Sensibility

• This BBC drama was shot at Ham in 2007 and was shown on BBC1 from the 1st January 2008 for 3 weeks. The exterior of the house was visible. A link was placed from the Sense and Sensibility microsite on the BBC website to Ham’s page on the National Trust website. Visitor figures in January, February and March of 2008 were 107% higher than those of the same months in 2007.

Other Boleyn Girl

Other Boleyn Girl

• Visit Kent web site – a collaboration of film company, locations, tourism, screen agency and hotels aimed at the short stay market.

• 100, 000 OBG movie maps.

• 11,000 website visits.

• 4000 competition entrants

Other Boleyn Girl

• 500 people surveyed

• 42% visited Kent due to film.

• 48% stayed over night

• 21% extended visit due to campaign

• 98% would revisit Kent

• Value of stays £744,000

Alice in Wonderland

The only live location in the film

Alice in wonderland follow up

• Article in NT magazine with Depp on cover and quotes from Burton.

• Press Junket for DVD release at house.

• DVD extras.

• Website

• Themed garden for 2010

The Alice effect - 23k to 86k in 12 months

Alice in Wonderland

• 50% said that they were visiting because of the fact that Antony House was used as a location for Alice in Wonderland.

• 50% said that they had children accompanying them who were interested in the Alice connection.

Sell your own stories

The Mill

• Based on true history, this four-part drama depicts the lives of the Greg family and their workers at Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire, during the turbulent year of 1833

The Mill

• Shot at the actual mill location for days

• Fee

• Credit

• Website

• Fact or Fiction website.

Twitter – the Mill

• Welcome! I’m Quarry Bank Mill, the real star of Channel 4 drama The Mill…

• Follow me @TheMillSpeaks, and I’ll tell you all about a rich history that inspired the programme, and show you some fantastic archive, video and pictures.New tweets appear at the top. Use the menu to find material specific to each episode.

THE MILL – Fact or Fiction

• WARNING - this article contains spoilers• • William Greg and paternity• In the script, the father of Susannah Catteral's baby is William Greg, Samuel’s youngest son.• There is no evidence for this, but Robert Greg did inexplicably pay for the cost of Susannah Catteral’s

confinement in 1842. We will never know why.• Elsewhere, there undoubtedly were relationships between masters, their children and mill workers as they

lived in close proximity.

• Hannah Greg and slavery• In the script Hannah takes the stage in an emancipation meeting in Manchester attended by Mary Prince.• Hannah may have wanted to speak out on this issue, but there is no evidence that she ever did, as to do

so would have been an unacceptable public rebuke to her husband, who inherited slave plantations in Dominica.

• In reality, Hannah had died in 1828, some years before the growing emancipation movement had drawn out comparisons with the working and living conditions for mill children.

• Background• The Mill illustrates a crucial moment in British history, when militant reformers forced government to act to

provide controls on children’s working hours and conditions. • Some historical events referred to in The Mill took place and involved Quarry Bank personalities; others did

not. For the purposes of dramatic license, some timescales have been compressed.

THE MILL – free publicity

• It received blanket previews in all of the nationals, and there were six reviews in The Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Independent, Daily Telegraph and Metro. It got five stars in Mail on Sunday, Event magazine (Daily Mail), and Daily Star Sunday, and four stars in Daily Express and Daily Mail. It was Pick of the Week in Independent (Radar), Critic's Choice in Sunday Times, Choice in Observer New Review and Sunday Mirror, Pick of the Day in The Times Saturday Review, Mail on Sunday, Guardian and The Sun, and What to Watch in the Daily Telegraph.

THE MILL – phew, good reviews!

• "…this new four-part series is enthralling… This immersive presentation of history is utterly convincing, and with uniformly excellent performances and an emotionally engaging script, here is proof positive that period dramas can be educational without being arid and boring." Mail on Sunday.

• "…this four-part drama is powerful and engaging." Sunday Telegraph

• "Well scripted, beautifully lit and dressed. Recommended." Observer New Review

• "…this entirely credible depiction of the past is also utterly enthralling drama…" Event Magazine (Mail on Sunday)

• "A compelling opener that's impeccably acted throughout - this series won't be pretty, but it's going to be very, very good." The Sun

• "…there's real spark to these characters." Daily Telegraph

• "…this four-part, fact-based drama…proves compelling." Daily Mail

The Mill – viewing figures

• 3.8 million for episode 1

• Ch4’s biggest launch in 3 years. A 12% share and double CH4 average for that slot. Given it was against Countryfile (5.5 million) and Top Gear (2 million).

• Second series?

Results

• A 25% increase in visitors after 1st episode.  

• 60% after 3rd episode - 6079 visitors compared to 3731 last year. 

• All these extra visitors have spent money with us and we’ve done really well with membership sales.   

• Website hits grows from 800 per day to over 5000

Movie Maps

Movie maps

• 20,000 Copies. Gone in 3 weeks.

• Digital version most popular page on NT website.

Universal 100th Anniversary map

Costume Drama Movie Map evaluation

• 40,000 copies.• Press Coverage• Autumn/winter NT magazine 2012 (circulation

1.8m) • The Sun, 9 September 2012 (circulation

2.4m)• Daily Telegraph 15 September 2012

(circulation 560,398)• Period Ideas, November issue 2012

(circulation 38k)

Costume Drama Movie Map evaluation

• E-Marketing support• Volume sent ‘Movie Map’ article: 329,203• Volume that clicked-through on ‘Movie Map’

link: 553 (0.17% of total).• Social media support • Facebook posts reaching 71, 592 • Twitter tweets reaching 120, 120 (101, 378

(NT feed) 11, 217 (NT Mag feed), 7, 525 (NT press office feed))

Costume Drama Movie Map evaluation

• Digital Media support – homepage • Homepage story visible to 221,093 homepage views

(OTS), 124,564 unique visitors during that time (story on homepage for 1 ½ week)

• Digital media support- /movie map page • Page views 9,733 (entire period 8 Sept- 15 Oct)• Unique visitors 6,614 (entire period 8 Sept- 15 Oct)• Number of downloads 487 (entire period 8 Sept- 15

Oct)

Costume Drama Movie Map evaluation

• 6,000 visits to the film page and just under 500 downloads.

Costume Drama Movie Map = visitors

• Stourhead 23,864 (LY 22,568)

• Lacock 10,293 (LY 8,286)

• Knole 11,548 (LY 8, 081)

• Ham House 7,991 (LY 7,578)

• Petworth 10,428 (LY 10,122)

Costume Drama Movie Map = visitors

• Total increase in visitors in one month

• 7489

Don’t underestimate factual TV

To the Manor Reborn

To Manor Reborn

• 531 visitors on 1st weekend before show aired.  4000 visitors in first month. Overwhelmingly positive response from visitors. Reopens 2012 for 6 day week.

• Show averaged 3.87m (15.1%) over the 9pm hour.

• Based on cost of terrestrial TV advertising at £70,000 per minute (off peak) exposure for Trust in documentaries alone worth in excess of £100 million a year

Don’t underestimate Farne Islands

• the RDF series be on ITV,• the BBC will start running their “Great British Year” series on October

2nd the “Spring” episode features the Farnes heavily. • Autumnwatch are also planning to use our puffin burrow cam footage in

October and local news almost always feature newborn Farnes seal pups during that month.

• End of October: 'Robson Green's Northumberland'; a national series looking at Robson's Northumberland (he spent two days, one night on here) 

•  St.Cuthburt's Life (working title) by Tony Robinson; featuring Inner Farne and interview with DS

• As for visitor figures, we are about to break our 'all time' record as we currently stand on 50,632 (record is 52,000) which adds to our 'all time' membership record we have broken this year with a current total of 923 memberships.

Big Spring Clean

Big spring clean results - 2011

•Petworth – 23,000 extra visitors •£85k in extra revenue

Public reaction

• This series could be seen as straightforward propaganda for the National Trust, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and now have a far better understanding of what they do behind the scenes with our national treasures. It also helped me to understand the organisation's motives a little better (they aim for honest 'conservation', rather than artificial 'restoration'). It also gave an opportunity for the back-room workers, who spend hours labouring away to preserve our heritage, a chance to shine in the spotlight for a little while.8/10

Hidcote - a garden for all seasons (BBC)

Hidcote – a repeat

• The programme was repeated on 1 September and for that month alone payers were up by 83.6%, members up by 78.9% and others up by 79.5%  on budget.  This gave us an overall visitor performance of +79.9% on budget!  Total visitor budget for September was 16,009 but we actually achieved a total of 28,807 visitors.

Seen around the world.

• SALES OF BRITISH TV SHOWS AROUND THE WORLD IN 2012 ROSE 4% TO £1.2BN, BOOSTED BY PROGRAMMES INCLUDING DOWNTON ABBEY AND SHERLOCK.

• THE US REMAINS THE MOST LUCRATIVE MARKET FOR BRITISH SHOWS, UP 11% TO £475 MILLION IN 2012.

FIGURES FROM TRADE ASSOCIATION PACT STATED• OTHER DRAMAS WHICH BOOSTED EXPORTS WERE PARADE'S END, MIDSOMER

MURDERS AND COME DINE WITH ME.

• SALES TO CHINA ROCKETED UP 90% TO £12M, WHILE EXPORTS TO INDIA WENT UP 42%.

• EXPORTS TO SOUTH EAST ASIA ARE UP 26% BUT AUSTRALASIA IS THE UK'S SECOND-BIGGEST MARKET WITH SALES OF £103M IN 2012.

• SCANDINAVIA SPENT £63M ON UK CONTENT IN 2012 - A 2% INCREASE.

• SALES TO LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES ARE UP BY 24% AND THE BRAZILIAN MARKET HAS GROWN BY 21%.

RISKS

RISKS

• Conservation issues.

• Time scale - Yesterday and tomorrow.

• Staffing and costs.

• Credits.

• Blink and you will miss us - the jigsaw effect.

• Surviving the edit.

Do we want to do this?

• Closing down – Can we do that ?

• Reputation - fly on the wall or spy on the wall?

• Image - crime, security, satire and good taste.

• H & S - regulation - kids, guns, animals and nudity.

LEARN YOUR LESSON AND SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Filming: Recce Checklist for all drama filming

Property:

Hughenden Manor

Film Title:

Desperate Romantics

Film Company:

BBC Drama (to be broadcast on BBC2)

Dates & Times:

21 April only

House & grounds public opening times, if applicable:

Closed to public. Regional staff elsewhere in house and car parks.

Crew size:

40

No. of artists:

about 6

No. of supporting artists, if applicable:

1

© National Trust

It’s got a recipe for success

Combine ingredients:

• Planning

• Risk Assessment

• Protection

• Supervision

• Communication

• Team Work

• Positive Attitude© Stuart White Photography