guardian.co.uk Shank and the perils of shooting on location Ahead of the release of Shank, which was met by protests from locals during filming, a look at some other location shoots that went bad aca ‘The Cumin, Saday 20 March 2010 Avsetsmne Alley oop: new Bui fick Shank, which saw ing located after compas rom Kesh Towa eden ‘Question: if you peaked out your window, and noticed a ragiag gang of knife-wielding teens ‘storming past, what would you do? Call the police, of course. That's exactly what residents of the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Caste did, only to find their estate was actually the film set of dystopian thriller Shank, where knife-wielding gangs roam free staring Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins), Kidulthood’s Adam Deacon, and oddly, Tim Westwood, "I can see,” offered the director Mo Ali, “how residents might get the wrong impression". ‘Shank Production year: 2010 Country: UK Cert (UK): 15, ‘Runtime: 90 mins Directors: Mo Ali, Simon Pearce Cast: Adam Deacon, Alice Payne, Ashley Bashy Thomas, Colin Salmon, Jan Uddin, Jennie Jacques, Kedar Williams-Stiling, Marc Laurent, Michael Socha, Tom Bott, Wayne Virgo ‘More on this film Long gone, of course, are the days of parking your entire film in the MGM lot and making do with a plastic tee and the contents ofthe fire bucket to make Elvis look like he's in Hawaii, But with the credit crunch, more places than ever are eager to take the film companies’ dollar. David Boice ~ ‘who runs BeforeTheTrailer.com, a fansite that racks location shoots ~ points out that previously unlikely locations are now tripping over themselves to give generous tax breaks and entice film crews, with Michigan leading the way. The result? "In the past year te city of Detit has filled in for Washington {for Red Dawn]. Rather than filming ‘on location’, they just film where there's thebest incentives.” Last April, the LA Times reported that LA-based location shoots had fallen to their lowest level since records began. Put another way: everywhere is anywhere now. But with more locations, ‘come more problems. The films that have been protested about because of the nature of the film are to0 numerous to mention ~ from Brick Lane due to perceived prejudice against the ‘Bangladeshi community to Basic Instinct, which, wel, take your pick ~ anti-woman and anti-gay ‘were the main ones. ‘But, like Shank, what about the effect on the locals? And what, more importantly, about the house prices? You can forgive the residents of London's Kentish Town (Zone 2, tube, nice pubs), for instance, for being concemed when filming commenced on Nick Love's hooligan film The Firm, as they prepared for a brawl scene involving 140 actors, stuntmen, extras, and with dire wamings of “noise and swearing". That wouldn't do, That wouldn't do at all. With Timmy listening! The locals protested, and filming was soon moved to Hackney. "Residents of Hackney were happy for the fighting to take place on their streets,” reported a London freesheet, who declined to mention if the residents actually noticed the difference. Lost In La Mancha, Photograph: Allstar Stil, brawling in the UK is one thing. When location shoots go global, it can be far worse. Of course, we all know the foreign shoots that went south ~ Terry Gilliam's aborted crack at Don ‘Quixote, Coppola going cuckoo during Apocalypse Now — but at least those two can say one thing: they didn't bar people from the Almighty. Last September, Julia Roberts was on location near Dehli filming the Brad Pit-produced Eat, Pray, Love, in which she plays a woman who finds God via food and Hindu spirituality, Al well and good. The only problem was, no one else could {find God, as their temple was shut. Villagers hoping to celebrate the beginning of Navratri nine-day Hindu festival of worship and dance ~ found their temple sealed by Roberts's security team, which featured the small matter of 350 guards, bulletproof cars, and a chopper. It was a security detail that essentially said: We have your God now. He's shooting a movie, And he's not available for comment. One villager threatened a break in: "I am going to barge in forthe evening ‘aarti [ritual]. Let's see who stops me. What is it that they are shooting that we cannot even enter our own temple?" Of course, upsetting the faithful is one thing. But won't someone, please, think of the dangerous ‘timinals. Not, it seems, Mel Gibson. For his latest, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, in which he'll star as a career-criminal sent to a harsh Mexican prison, 300 real-life inmates were made to relocate from their prison in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz this January to make way for the film crew, causing not just demonstrations by relatives, angry at having to wave further to vist their incarcerated ones, but a full-scale prison rot. "Mel Gibson, i's your fault they want to take away cour relatives," read a banner of one of protesters, who clearly wasn‘ big on irony. ‘Yetif you can find itn your heart to feel for the muggers and murders crushed under Hollywood's unfeeling foot, at east spare a thought for the prostutes. When Ed Hants-staring drama The Third Miracle was filming in Ontario, Canada, in 1998, they unwittingly became the third consecutive production to shoot in the red light districts of Sherbome and Carleton, causing out-of-pocket street workers to protest about lack of eamings.