
How long can filming days last on soaps?
While Corrie’s episodes are just 30 minutes long, and scenes usually around two minutes long, Bolton FM radio show host Matthew tells us how he could be waiting around for 11 hours some days when he filmed the ITV soap.
“I was quite lucky on my last shift,” he tells us. “I was there from eight o’clock and had finished two hours later – and that was for three different episodes.
“But sometimes you can be there until seven o’clock at night!”
Professional qualifications advisor Chloe, 30, had a similar experience when she was working on Hollyoaks, explaining that you arrive at 8am, and sit around waiting to hear if they’ll need you or not.
“You’d be sat in the canteen with the other extras, chatting, and then producers will just call up random people for scenes, depending on who was needed,” she explains. “Sometimes they’d say, ‘We need a couple of girls,’ or ‘We need all of you.’
“Sometimes you could be waiting for a few hours, sometimes all day. It was really just dependent on what scenes they were filming.”