Brooklyn – Enniscorthy

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January 14  2016, a glorious day for Irish Cinematography –  Lenny Abrahamson’s Room and John Crowley’s Brooklyn have been nominated for Best Picture at next month’s Academy Awards.

Our beautiful Saoirse Ronan is nominated for Best Actress for her starring role of Eilis Lacey, while Brooklyn is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. This is Saoirse’s second Oscar nomination. She was previously nominated for the Best Supporting Actress in  Atonement in 2007. Way to go, girl!

Brooklyn is facing competition from The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room and Spotlight.

I won’t write any review here, it is not my forte. I advise you to see the film regardless of your age or gender. I enjoyed every bit of it.  A very good quality film, a simple story – but are not the simple stories the most moving and true?

You can watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/15syDwC000k

As I said, I haven’t intended to write a review. I will speak about the time when the film had not existed yet. Well, except for in John Crowley’s head.

Brooklyn is based on a novel by Colm Tóibín, and you can read this very interesting interview he gave to The Guardian. The story begins in a small Irish town of Enniscorthy.

In the end of March 2014 I met an old acquaintance, and he proudly told me that he had been recruited for Brooklyn as they were looking for hundreds of extras. We agreed that I would come over and take some pictures of him. It was arranged for Friday, but on Thursday, I woke up before the sunrise with a strong feeling that if I want to see Saoirse Ronan, I have to go now. So I did, and I was right, because she left for the US the following morning.

I didn’t know the town well, and I had no idea where exactly the filming would take place that day. After struggling through the narrow one-way streets I finally found a big parking lot. ( Advice: when you park in an unfamiliar place, take pictures to show the locals if you happen to get lost).

I walked around the town and spotted some activity in the Court Street. So that was the place!

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I took some photos of preparations. The street got  new ( vintage) looks: houses were repainted, windows replaced.

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The markings on the asphalt were carefully covered. ‘One worker two supervisors’.  😉

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More camouflage.

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Court Street has never seen so many vintage cars.

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I was getting comfortable, but then security guys came over and asked everybody to leave the set. After another half an hour there was a taxi  – Saoirse Ronan arrived!

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All these pictures are taken from a distance, and their quality is poor, but I was very happy to get a glimpse of our local favorite actress.

Hair stylist is adding the last touch to her perfect hair.

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Most of the filming took place inside the house. This is all I have got.

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A few seconds of acting.

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The man with the props cart was really annoying – he was in front of everything! 🙂 In this photograph you can also see Jim (Domhnall Gleeson), one of the main male characters. As you see, there is no chemistry between Eilis and Jim on the set – no wonder it didn’t work out for them in the movie 😉

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Another surprise – Canadian actress Emily Bett Rickards, Felicity from the Arrow, was on the set! Props cart in front of my camera, of course!

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Waiting was long, filming lasted about half an hour ( mostly inside the building). Actors left,  barriers were removed and I walked through the movie set. Local extras remained standing in their positions, unwilling to return back to reality.

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I suddenly realized that I had no clue where  my car was.

After a long search and five minutes of embarrassment asking a local by-passer where he thought my car could be, I finally left the town.

I am really glad they have made a good movie.

 

Marje from KYROSMAGICA nominated me for a Girl Love Blog Challenge. Thank you Marje! We girls have to stick together and support each other!  Marje is working on her YA fantasy book, and her blog is a fun and magic place 🙂 Please visit and follow!

Here’s what you do for the #GirlLove Challenge:

  1. Tell your followers who inspires you, a famous woman who may be dealing with negativity on a daily basis. 
  2. Tell your followers who inspires you in real life, a woman you always interact with.
  3. Tag five women bloggers who you love. Compliment them and tell them why you love them, and comment under their latest post with the link to your #GirlLove post!

Add the tag ‘Girl Love’ to your post, so we can see them all! Let’s start 2016 with LOVE for each other!

My answers:

  1. Audrey Hepburn is undoubtedly an inspiration, but there is a less known woman, a blogger Stephanie Nielson, a mother injured and disfigured after a plane crash when she was only 27. Here is her blog.
  2.  In my real life, there are many women who inspire me. Some of them are young, some not really. They are mothers and grandmothers who are living their day-to-day lives not knowing that they are special.
  3.  There are five ladies bloggers I nominate for this challenge. (No obligations – I only want to share your blogs with others )

Poet and author Ellie 

Artist Mihaela 

Author Teagan

Holistic wayfarer Diana

Author Shehanne

I love what you do!

Have a great week ahead!

97 comments

  1. A lovely post, Inese. Enniscorthy is a great town, I always think, and you’ve shown it in a totally different light here.
    Let’s hope Brooklyn does well at the Oscars. I saw Room the other night and loved it too. Great days for Ireland!

  2. What a great experience (except for losing your car). I loved Brooklyn – great movie that really sticks with you.

    1. Thank you Jan! Glad to hear you have seen the movie and loved it. Made me think about life and difference between temptations and challenges.

  3. Oh, now you’v done it….I showed the trailer to my wife and we have to see the film. I’ve been tasked with getting the DVD in the near future. It looks great. What an adventure to visit the set. Cheers

    1. Thank you! Definitely see it! A very well made movie. I have never used these pictures, except in Twitter, and only remembered of them because of the nominations.

    1. Thank you for your comment! The picture doesn’t open? I will check it out. Yes, I love Arrow, and the actress is such a sweetheart 🙂 I don’t know what she was doing on the set in Enniscorthy – she was not engaged in the scenes filmed there. I think that she was simply taking the opportunity to visit Ireland.

            1. She was not engaged in filming, she just came to visit Ireland. Very nice young lady. In this movie, she has a role of Eilis’ Brooklyn friend Patty.

      1. My husband knew it. When we were choosing names he mentioned it and then I was just hoping for another girl so we could call her Eilis. I thought it was so pretty and unusual xx

    2. Thank you Inese. Large parts of my husband’s and my won family left Ireland in the famine so we have a sort of heritage there. I am away to put up a blog which is also doing this challenge. x

  6. Oh my. I have read this post several times. I just love seeing the whole mechanics of film making like this. It is so different from stage acting. Your pictures of the extras are stunning. All your pictures are stunning. Such a brilliant way to introduce us to the film itself. Congratulations on the award my darling. So well deserved And thank you from the bottom of my heart for the nomination. I will well be blogging this. Or rather the dudes might be donning skirts to pinch it.

    1. Thank you so much! It was so fun to be there, with all these extras hanging around dressed in vintage style 🙂 I have never been on a movie set before. Pity they shooed photographers away behind the red tape 😦

      1. A huge pity when you see the wonderful work….certainly by you! But I guess directors want shots in cans, actors have to think. It is all on a schedule. If it runs over then that’s a prob. Still a fascinating post and amazing to have ben there. x

        1. They only allowed a guy from a big paper to take a few shots, but he had to remove himself before the filming started. All fair. I loved the atmosphere, all that vintage look, and I was happy to see Saoirse Ronan 🙂 Glad that the movie came out this well. xx

  7. continued…props cart fascinating! I saw the movie and read the book and loved both. Part of the movies was shot in Montreal, Canada, probably some of the Brooklyn street scenes.Do you know where the ‘Irish’ beach scene was shot?

    1. Oh that’s wonderful! Isn’t it a great movie. I don’t know if they get an Oscar – too strong competitors, otherwise the movie deserves all the nominations. Will see in the end of February. You have great actors in Canada. I love Emily Bett Rickards – she is such a sweet young woman. I was very sad to learn about the passing of Alberta Watson.

      It is the Curracloe Beach, probably the longest in Ireland.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curracloe
      Thank you for your comment! 🙂

  8. You got some great shots even at a distance and despite the rips cart. As a many-time property master for amateur theatre who has never been around a movie set I found the

  9. Hi Inese! What a fun post you’ve made. Thanks for the recommendation on this movie. I enjoyed the “on set” photos. (I didn’t think any of them were “poor quality” at all.) When I lived in New Mexico the state gave tax incentives to to movie and TV groups. So there were often calls for people to be extras. I never did it, but a friend’s daughter did. To me it sounded like long boring days for hardly any money. But I can see how with the right sense of fun and interest in film making it could be fun. I really enjoyed your photos and commentary. Mega hugs!

    1. Thank you so much Teagan! I am not sure I like the idea of being in a movie 🙂 I guess some movies require quite a crowd, and it must be a fun way to earn some pocket money for youth or whoever has plenty of time on their hands. Another possibility – one can start career this way 🙂
      Sorry I didn’t visit your blog last week. Got sick, had to travel to see my doc, and, as usual, got a load of work when I needed some rest.
      Many hugs!!!

  10. It was fascinating to see the secrets of the filming Inese, your photos of the ways they turned back time and the local extras. I was at my local beach the other month when they happened to be filming the TV series Vera there, so it was quite interesting to watch for a while.

    1. Thank you Andrea! Isn’t it fun, a glimpse of a dream world. It was my first time, it is why I was so excited. And I love Saoirse Ronan 🙂 She is our local girl, so famous and so talented. The author of the book is a local man too. Very proud of them.

    1. Thank you Francis! It was so surreal. Also I never knew that so many people are involved in movie shooting, in simple street scenes. It was all very different from what I expected to see 🙂
      Thank you for stopping by!

  13. Such an interesting post, enjoyed seeing the pictures of the film set of Brooklyn very much Inese, It is so long since I’ve been to the cinema must go soon. How exciting that a friend of yours is an extra. Thanks so much for joining in The Girl Love Blog Challenge, and for pointing my way to some new blogs to explore. Have a lovely Sunday. 😉

    1. Thank you so much Marje! It came out that the old gentleman wasn’t selected after all! 😦 I don’t see why, because he is such a character. I was so glad that my intuition sent me there a day before, otherwise i wouldn’t see neither Saoirse nor him!
      You might try the book, Marje if you have no time for movies. It is a lovely book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brooklyn-Colm-T%C3%B3ib%C3%ADn/dp/0241972701/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454264108&sr=1-3&keywords=colm+toibin

      Sorry for taking too much time with the challenge. It didn’t fit well with my previous blog, but here it fits nicely – nominations, Oscars, all these things 😉 Thank you again! The bloggers are ‘hand picked’, and I am sure you will love their blogs.
      Have a wonderful week!

  17. I loved the movie, Brooklyn! Thank you, Inese, for posting the behind the scene shots. Perfect photos. Saoirse Ronan was beautiful as she was talented. What a lovely adventure for you! 🙂

    1. Thank you! 🙂 I love her, and couldn’t miss this chance. Besides, it isn’t like they are shooting movies in Ireland every year. It has been a while.

  19. Congratulation on being nominated for an award

    Saoirse Ronan looks like a lovely girl. I love props. I should’ve have made my career in props. Thanks for taking us with a tour behind the sceness of what goes on before filming. Be well my friend

    1. Thank you! 🙂 Saoirse is a very talented girl – I have seen all her movies.
      Thank you for wishing me well – I am not really well lately, it is why I neglected wordpress last week 😦 I will catch up and visit all the blogs I have missed. Have a nice, safe week!

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