The secret TV shoot the Picton Castle has been working on for over two months is finished. “It’s a wrap,” as they say in TV land. There is still lots of work to be done, editing and so forth but the filming or video taping is complete.
Since mid-February the Picton Castle has been at the wonderful island of Dominica sailing as the “pirate ship” for a new reality television show by Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Burnett and company. Picton Castle sails under her own name in the show but like any actress she was well dressed and made up for the role as a magnificent and haunting Pirate Ship.
After endless 0330 calls, sailing in to sunsets/sunrises and moon sets, manouvering around rocks, many 18-hour days, dozens of 6-point moorings, trying to explain that “no, I cannot stop her under full sail and stay there for an hour…” and “no, we don’t need a dock, a barge and a crane to lift that, we can just rig a tackle to a yard…” and “yes, we can show the cast how to sail the ship a little…”, and also our learning a whole lot of new terms and team work with the production staff, sometimes stumbling into the camera’s view when we were not supposed to and much much more, the final day of the shoot is done. We then had just nine days to restore the ship before heading to Martinique to begin our summer sail training program but with the show’s tremendous Art team of carpenters and painters it all went pretty quickly.
I have to say that working with RED SKY NIGHT Production Company, has been excellent; professional, courteous, competent across the board. I think we all learned a lot, stretched ourselves and saw even more of what our great ship can do. For the trainees who stayed with us for the shoot, they say they learned tons as we served the requirements of the show and relished experiencing one island in more depth than possible when always island hopping.
We have seen some of the edited footage—extremely impressive and engaging, pulls you right in it does. I can’t wait to see the show on the screen. We are all very excited.
CBS has announced the show, PIRATE MASTER, to premiere Thursday, May 31 in the coveted 8 p.m.[EST] time slot. Do not miss it.