What it’s like on the set of a Disney teen musical

A half hour drive from the appropriately named Holywood in Northern Ireland I arrive at the Montalto Estate. It’s a beautiful series of buildings, all old stone chambers, imposing beams and vibrant flowers. The flowers are luminous in fact, making the estate look as though it was given a light seasoning by a fairy, and it’s only when I get close to them I realise they’re completely fake, because today, and for the past eleven weeks, the place isn’t a wedding venue but the HQ for Disney’s new teen musical, The Lodge.

Official synopsis as per Disney:

‘Disney The Lodge is a life affirming emotional rollercoaster about 15 year old Skye’s journey of self-discovery following the death of her mother, as she moves from a big city to exciting rural life. Skye returns with her father to her treasured childhood holiday lodge, bringing a new lease of life, not just to the place, but the lives of those who live and work there. She reconnects with her family and discovers new friends and adventures, as they rock-climb, kayak and mountain bike their way through their beautiful surroundings, all the while making and breaking relationships.’

On the day I visit, there’s no kayaking and other formative, bucolic activities as it’s musical number day, and a big one is being prepped involving a stage and a ton of extras.

Various assistant directors, sound guys, grips, gaffers and camera operators beaver around, ducking in and out of a tent filled with monitors where the director is watching back takes. The cast of impossibly symmetrical teen actors bounce about the set having settled into their ‘having fun at summer camp’ roles pretty will by this point as that’s essentially what they’ve been doing, spending time with their peers in a beautiful and remote bubble.

The extras seems thoroughly undynamic in comparison to the efficient cast and crew, struggling to get into the ‘this is the best gig of my life’ spirit as all extras tend to, unused to being told to be excitable on command. This is where I come in, though, as I’m being drafted into a background role.

I’m to be a security guard for the scene, but a smiling Disney one who at the very worst would give you a noogie.

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My first stop is Costume, where I don a purple polo shirt emblazoned with the Lodge logo, before heading to Make-up. This is only to be a brief encounter, as I’m mostly in the background of shots, but overruns when they realise I have tattoos on my wrist, which obviously won’t do in kids TV. I should have thought of this really, but fortunately one of the industrious make-up artists has them so well concealed with a combination of spraying and painting that I snap a photo and send it to my mum, who will be delighted to see them even momentarily gone.

Heading to set, I was expecting a small speaking role handing out tickets to the kids attending the gig (I feel very, very old by the way, all day), but this ends up being cut down to a walk-on part. Ces’t la vie, or c’est le film, rather, which is always subject to production schedule changes, be it down to weather, shoots overrunning and myriad other issues that come up during the incredibly complex thing that is filming scripted content.

My two fellow security guards have been on board for pretty much the entirety of principal photography and are a quiet pair, either because they’re used to having to be silent and only pretend to talk during takes, or simply because they’ve exhausted all possible conversation in between them over the past couple of months. That’s not to say that they’re not perfectly friendly and welcoming though, playing noughts and crosses with me on the prop clipboard during filming (we’re pretending we’re making important security checks) and talking about their other extra work. Almost inevitably, it transpires they’ve both worked on Game of Thrones, as it seems 95% of people in Northern Ireland have, and these Disney roles are a little different to their GoT ones: a slave and a warrior locked in battle.

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We move through a series of takes, ranging from deep ones involving wide lenses and drones, to tighter, handleld ones capturing the cast doing their terrifyingly tightly choreographed dance on stage. My job, I quickly realise, is essentially just to walk up and down in a moderately authoritative manner. As the great Stanislavski once remarked, though, "there are no small parts, only small actors”, so I make it a goddamn memorable walk filled with nuance and possibly a back story involving a previous maiming, slow recovery and return to bipedal movement and a defiant career forged in child star safety.

It’s a simultaneously surreal and straightforward day, as despite all the mythos surrounding film and TV sets, everyone here simply has a job to do and a boxset to get back to, as we all do.

As filming wraps up at a respectable hour after several hours of walking, standing, then walking again, in the sun, I’m left with the impression that being an extra is easy money, so long as you have the patience of a saint and the legs of a Greek god.

Disney The Lodge airs on Disney Channel on Fridays at 5.30pm.