Sigginstown Castle

One Saturday in early April we filmed for one day in Connecticut at our house and surrounding areas of Southbury.  We had cleaned the house like mad and redecorated a bit, but we only filmed in two rooms. There were a number of themes involved, chose by Rene the producer. (alas, he did not get to come to any of our shoots so we hope to meet him one day.) Ethan was the Director and kept close to the schedule and basic storyline. The longest part was the backstory sitting in our two chairs. After that it was a series of short scenes, and we did a mini-SCA (medieval) event complete with changes of garb, archery and armor! We ended the day with our musical session friends coming over for a scene. (We really do play with them once a month.) Daniel was on Sound with Michael on camera. The crew was great - very calm and relaxed. Joel Wald from the Southbury Film Commission turned up also and took several of these shots... Thanks to all for a really fun time!

Fun Facts: Liz had made the checked wool garb 15 years ago and never finished it. So like any good SCA event, she was sewing up to the moment the crew arrived at 7:30 am! We do own bows and do archery, but have not practiced for a long time. Thank goodness the target was close! The armor is Gordon's - he fought in it for years. Ian took it over and went to high school in it one day! He also does throw axes...

A few weeks after the CT shoot we went to Ireland. We were going over for a castle conference,  so it was a good time to film the five days at several sites across Ireland. Helen Cassidy was recruited to be a lead as our auctioneer. This is actually true for all the castles we looked at before Sigginstown (Keane Auctioneers sold it to us). We had a great time with Helen (who we had only spoken to on the phone previously), and the crew was all new except for Val. They were a lot of fun, and Director LizL stuck to the schedule and again mostly to the story line. We got to see three castles (two to purchase and one for education), plus we visited Ashford Castle for lunch and got to attend the falconry school there! We also were able to squeeze in a scene with our two Student Design Contest winners, Adam and Margaux, and shot two scenes in Meyler's Millhouse Bar.  Ed and Noel were on camera and sound, and Sarah was our fantastic local "fixer". Thanks to Ballyhannon, Turin and Caherkinmonwee castles for agreeing to film!

Fun facts:  Liz had to wear the same shirt for four of the five days. We did not realize that until we had already chosen our wardrobes. We went to Tesco in Ireland and bought four of the same shirt for Gordon! We all had to wear no-logo clothes, which meant Ian needed a jacket all the time!  Helen had to wear the same clothes too - her lucky castle-selling garb. We hope she gets some more castles sold out of this episode!