Film star Sean Bean, centre,
with the film's co-writers, Jeff Pope, left, and Terry Winsor
Picture: LUAN MARSHALL
No, not Las Vegas but the Golden Mile - the gangsters gather for a seafront meet
13 July 2000
Source: This is Essex
Essex Boys are back with a bang!
The Echo goes behind the scenes of the latest gangster blockbuster
to talk to the director about how the film was made
Brought to you by the Evening Echo
Glitz, glamour and gangsters have been rife
in Southend with the gala premiere this week of Essex Boys - a
movie inspired by the Rettendon Range Rover murders. The film
tells the story of a group of Essex gangsters who fight to gain
control of the drugs trade and nightclub security contracts.
Sean Bean plays the lead "baddie". Directed and co-written
by Terry Winsor, it looks destined to be a big hit. We find out
why...
Jeff Pope, the producer-writer of a £3million
thriller movie due to open nationwide tomorrow, was in no doubt.
"The word Essex is going to be a selling point for Essex
Boys."
Jeff was talking at the London press preview of the film. He and
director Terry Winsor are hard-headed film-makers. And they feel
that Essex equals big box office.
"There is a buzz about all things Essex," Jeff said.
"The term has become fashionable in all sorts of areas. But
nobody has really used Essex locations until now. Partly this
is because the film industry, at the moment, is concentrated on
the west side of London."
For Jeff and Terry, the road to Essex Boys began on the morning
they picked up the newspaper and saw photographs of the Rettendon
killings.
Jeff says: "I was caught up by this central image, of three
ultra tough, very scary guys - but they were victims. They'd terrorised
so many people, but they were the ones lying dead."
Jeff and Terry both knew the Estuary area as a result of childhood
visits to Southend.
Terry, indeed, insisted on an obligatory Rossi ice-cream every
shooting day. But they were struck by the changes that had taken
place.
"Essex has a real sense of new identity," Terry says.
"It's an impatient sort of place that doesn't have a sense
of history like London. It only really came into its own in the
Fifties and Sixties, and in many respects it's similar to Australia
or America.
"It has these huge American-style malls, like Lakeside, and
as in the States, the car is very important."
The style of Essex creates a unique landscape.
"There are roads everywhere, and you also get this strange
awareness of brash new towns and buildings rising up out of old,
green countryside," says Terry Winsor.
The unusual locations proved a selling point when Jeff and Pope
sought funding. Pippa Cross, head of the backers Granada Films,
said: "These are locations that we haven't really seen on
film before.
"They provide a really striking backdrop, and really put
the characters in context, so that you are completely absorbed
by this world."
Despite the logistics of filming so far from studio bases, Terry
and Jeff decided that the film would be shot entirely on location
in the county. The one exception is the early, brief scene in
London's Billingsgate fish market, in which Sean Bean's character
beats up an informer.
Terry and Jeff drove round the county choosing sites that dovetailed
with the mood of the story. "They weren't difficult to find,"
says Terry.
They also sat in restaurants, watching "the unique way that
people in Essex walk, talk and move."
Having absorbed themselves in the county, they then set up their
base at the old Bata shoe factory in East
Tilbury. This forms the setting for the interiors, notably the
night-club scene where the Essex Boys are at their most outrageous.
The actual killings were filmed, not at Rettendon, but in Dedham
Vale. The beach-house scenes, supposedly in Canvey, were filmed
at Jaywick. For the rest, however, south Essex locations predominate.
Southend's Golden Mile is unmistakable, as is the shabbier end
of the Pier, setting for a low-key but crucial scene between the
central character, Billy, and Alex Kingston's memorable anti-heroine.
The final shoot-out (not to be confused with the Range Rover killings)
takes place on the marshes in front of the Coryton refineries.
The Bulphan motel, scene of the final betrayal and twist, is transformed
into the "Shangri La" by means of a garish neon sign
specially made for the film.
The "Welcome Home Jason" party scene, which the script
sets in a £500,000 Billericay house, was filmed around just
such a property in Priest Lane, Brentwood.
"Although the story revolves around criminals, we don't think
Essex people will feel we've shown them in a bad light,"
says Jeff Pope. "The film should go down well in the county."
|
Picture: LUAN MARSHALL |
No, not Las Vegas but the Golden Mile - the gangsters gather for a seafront meet |
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