Recently, Tyneside Badminton Centre swapped shuttlecocks for cinema cameras, as the centre became the backdrop for an award-winning local short film project.
Earlier this year, a small independent film crew visited the centre to film scenes for It’s Not Racket Science, a short comedy created as part of Newcastle Film Club’s Deja View Film Challenge.
The film follows a couch potato who stumbles across a televised badminton match and becomes instantly obsessed, not with the sport itself, but with the prize money on offer. Convinced he can cash in, he launches head-first into his new-found ‘career’ in badminton.
Created by filmmaker Gary Aggett and starring Patrick Dowling and Mateusz Bałasz, the finished film proved a huge success when it premiered at Star and Shadow Cinema, where it was crowned overall winner of the film challenge.
While the production itself was small in scale, it was brilliant to see the centre transformed into a film set and to support a creative local project showcasing independent filmmaking in the North East.
We’re delighted to now be able to share the finished film with our community and finally reveal what all of the filming at the centre was for.
Watch It’s Not Racket Science.
Congratulations once again to everybody involved on a fantastic achievement.