By David Moir
The post-apocalyptic horror novel, ‘World War Z’, by Max Brooks, has been adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt and Mireille Enos and directed by Marc Forster. It has started filming in Scotland. The set is mainly on the streets in and around George Square in Glasgow, with its open space and architecture, substituting for Philadelphia.
Road signs have been put up telling you 16th Street, J F Kennedy Boulevard and Ben Franklin Bridge are just around the corner so hopefully you feel like you are in Philly, certainly some of the tourists from the U.S. I’ve spoken to seem to give it the thumbs up.
The Brangelina bandwagon (or train as it should now be known) chartered an entire train for the journey north from London over the border to Glasgow for themselves, their children and cast and crew of the film. They arrived last week in a flurry of media attention (TV crews positioned, journalists lurking and photographers roaming) and blacked out people carriers and limousines sitting near by but with security so tight you couldn’t see a thing.
With that in mind, myself and colleagues all thought the access to the actual filming was going to be super tight, how wrong could we be?
With both Pitt and Angelina in the country, I thought it was going to be stepladders and long lenses every day. But with Angelina and the kids tucked away in a luxury estate south of Glasgow (its on private land so lets leave that to the paparazzi), it was hopefully Brad in the city center for me.
