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Article, about chef Giorgio Locatelli – I can’t remember the magazine, but possibly the Observer.
In 2001/2 BBC Pebble Mill made a 15 part cookery series, which was Giorgio Locatelli’s first TV cookery. I was lucky enough to be the series producer. Even though we had a tiny budget, of around £22,500 per half hour – I seem to remember, we loved making this series. The self shooting directors were Paul Vanezis and Paul Newman, who recorded the show on the Sony DSR 200. We used a professional sound recordist. Julie Richards was the researcher, and it was the first series that Ant Smith edited. We hired a terraced house with a beautiful kitchen in Kentish Town (fortunately the owner was abroad, as we rather took over the whole place), and recorded one show a day for three weeks. Giorgio was great to work with, and there was always good food to eat! Giorgio seemed to know everyone who was worth knowing – and even lived next door to Kate Winslet!
The motorbike, shown in the photo, was a mixed blessing. During the production period Giorgio had a bit of an accident on his motorbike – fortunately he was ok, but it shook us all up.
Vanessa Jackson
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Joolz Richards: ‘It was, by far, the best programme I ever worked on. Hard work, very short turnaround time, great fun and incredible opportunities. Vanessa had to go into the edit after the first week of filming leaving me to direct Giorgio which was a challenge!!! Plus Federico, lovely Federico who made us lunch every day. Great memories.’
BigScreen Birmingham (Paul Newman): .’….and Steve who prepped the food and ate everything afterwards. I still make a couple of Giorgio’s recipes – the shoot was quite relentless but great fun – and our visits to markets and restaurant kitchens were unforgettable.’