{"id":744875,"date":"2026-08-21T07:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744875\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T07:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:16:19","slug":"hollywood-stars-in-north-east-to-film-farming-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744875\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood stars in North East to film farming thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">First assistant director Alex Challies is from Darlington and it is his first time working on a full feature film.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We want this to be a film of real quality, the fact that it&#8217;s made in the North East by North East people is just a cherry on top.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We want to be on the world stage not just a local one.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Camera crew member Katy Jenkins, from Durham, said she was &#8220;very happy&#8221; to be at home during the shoot as she regularly has to leave the area to find work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is a great project but you do have to move to find work in the industry, I&#8217;d love to stay up here forever but there aren&#8217;t enough jobs at the minute &#8211; but I hope that changes,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">MacDonald will be filmed over the course of a month around various locations in Northumberland and County Durham, including Hexham and Barnard Castle, before it enters the post-production phase. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As an independent film, it has not yet been commissioned but Vaughan has high hopes for the project. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve already had interest in it from some of our partners but we want to make the best product then we&#8217;ll send it off to some film festivals and let&#8217;s see what happens,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Follow BBC North East on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCNEandCumbria\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow\">X, external<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbcnortheast\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook, external<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3yyMYUI\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcneandcumbria\/\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First assistant director Alex Challies is from Darlington and it is his first time working on a full&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}