DOING work experience is always an excellent week, but for two Lithgow High School students it was a week that they will never forget.
Jacinda King and Hannah Wolfenden were lucky enough to do their work experience at the Packed to the Rafters studio.
Packed to the Rafter has been one of the highest rating television shows for the past couple of years and it has proved a real winner with Channel 7 audiences.
The girls “worked” from 9am to 5pm each day.
Monday:
“On Monday, we arrived at the Channel 7 studios keen and ready to start our placement at 9am.
We were greeted by Sam Thompson who was in charge of us for the week and she is the line producer for Packed to the Rafters.
The very first thing we did was read a few scripts to get a background on what episodes were being shot during the week.
Then after we had finished reading the scripts, we were taken to different locations where they were thinking of filming the next lot of episodes.
After that we arrived back at the Channel 7 studios and Sam took us to the location where they were filming at for the day.
It was about half an hour’s drive away from the studios.
We got to have lunch on location with all the actors and crew.
On our very first day we even got to be extras sitting in a café - so hopefully you may see us on TV when Packed to the Rafters returns next year.
Then we went back to the Channel 7 studios and met one of the producers for Packed to the Rafters who also worked on Home and Away.
He took us on a tour of the Home and Away set that is next door to the Packed to the Rafters set.
We got to meet many people from Home and Away and even got to watch them shoot part of an episode.
Tuesday:
We got to sit in on a read through of the scripts and listen to all the actors read through their lines in a big group.
It was very interesting to watch and they all seemed like lovely people.
A special time for Jacinda was when she was introduced to Michael Caton who plays Ted Taylor, the grandfather in Packed to the Rafters. He was busy reading his script but was happy to stop and talk to Jacinda.
The girls were introduced to all of the cast of Packed to the Rafters and we were really impressed how nice they were.
After the read through we got to go down to the set of Packed to the Rafters and watch them shoot some footage.
It takes about two hours just to shoot three minutes of an episode.
We also got to meet the crew who work on the set and were then in the care of Nathan – the third assistant sirector – who was very funny and a nice person.
We both laughed because he looked a bit like Hitler.
Hannah and Jacinda got to sit next to the director and watch them film.
We had a real “heart flutter” when Hugh Sheridan, who plays Ben Rafter, came up and introduced himself to us.
He is very nice and handsome and he had a conversation with us about Lithgow – we were surprised that he even knew where Lithgow was.
Then Hannah Marshall who plays Loretta Schrembri (Carbo’s girlfriend) came over and talked to us.
Wednesday:
We got to go watch them shoot more footage, then lunch time came and all the cast and crew are provided with lunch and were invited to join them.
When we were eating lunch, George Houvardas who plays Nick ‘Carbo’ Karadonis came over and sat next to us – again we were star struck.
Thursday:
We got to sit in and watch how the editing takes place.
It is a long and relaxing thing to watch being done.
After watching editing we had to edit some scripts and add in new pages or cross out lines that the actors were not happy about or wanted changed.
Friday:
It was our last day for the week and we had been shown everything and seen everything so they just let us watch filming again for the day and we got to get in a photo with Hugh Sheridan.
Then as home time approached we went back up to the office and said thank you to everyone for having us for the week and we received autographed pictures and autographs off the actors.
It was a very good, fun and enjoyable week.
We learnt lots and got to see what it was like to film a TV series, and to even be on the set of a TV series.
We wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to such a place if it wasn’t for our entertainment teacher Mr Skinner who got the work placement there because he knows the person who writes the show. And we are very grateful for our parents spending the week down in Sydney with us who was equally star struck as we were.
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