Chloe Ward – Working with Peter Andre, Stormy Seas & More

Chloe Ward gives us an exclusive of what it was like to be part of the crew filming A Greek Odyssey and what it’s really like to spend five weeks on a boat sailing around Greece…

1)      What were your top 3 moments during filming?

Filming in Greece first and foremost, we visited such incredible locations from ‘The birthplace of Odysseus’ and the ‘School of Homer’ on beautiful Ithaca, to the stunning harbour towns of Spartochori, Kioni and Sivota. I’ve already seen some of the first edits and the locations look just as stunning on film as they did in person.

I’ve always loved water-sports and am a comfortable swimmer so for me, snorkelling and diving in such beautiful clear waters as well as experiencing things like Paddle Boarding for the first time, something I didn’t expect to take to immediately as i’m not known for my balance but I was actually pretty good! I didn’t fall in and i’d love to do it again.

Finally working with a really great group of people, it’s a strange scenario when you end up spending every waking hour with a group of people who most of whom you’d never met before.  I think it leads to becoming much closer than you would naturally so i’ve definitely made some friends for life.

2)      What was the funniest moment?

Obviously as we were away for such a short period of time, we had a pretty tight schedule to stick to, so any obstacles we faced we had to just work through. This lead to one Sunday afternoon attempting to suspend a tarpaulin from some trees on a beach in the middle a raging thunder storm. It wasn’t the smoothest process, everyone was soaked through and the sea was warmer than we were. You had to laugh at the situation, not exactly what we anticipated when we planned a shoot in Greece. Certainly a bonding experience and everyone was so happy with the shots that we got on the beach and also a little relived that the equipment survived its unscheduled drenching.

3)      Did anyone get given nicknames?

Despite the fact that we were living on a boat for 5 weeks, half of the crew hadn’t so much as stepped on a yacht previously. So learning boat terminology, a variety of knots and the secret to a great anchor line was a very steep learning curve. This lead to an inter crew competition for the title of number one shipmate and rivalry as to who could lay the best lazy line (a term I now know)!

4)      What was hardest thing about filming?

One of the hardest things about filming was living on a boat for 5 weeks, as fun as it was it’s very different to living on land you do get used to most things, but I was incredibly pleased to get back to my own bed and bathroom. Aside from that being away from from friends and family for 5 weeks is pretty hard.

5)      Did you ever get given near impossible missions?

We definitely had issues that came up pretty much on a daily basis, totally expected due to the nature of television production. One of the trickiest things was arranging filming permits for specific locations throughout the Ionian Islands, but luckily we managed to figure out a way to adapt and change any locations that we didn’t manage to secure permission for so it all worked out well in the end.

6)      Did you do anything that looking back you wouldn’t want to do?  Anything scary/adventurous?

We experienced a couple of pretty major thunderstorms during filming. One night we were moored out to sea and the boat was rocking incredible amounts, that was definitely the scariest aspect of the trip. Luckily we managed to keep the sea sickness at bay!

7)      What was your day to day role?

Day to day my role was to ensure that filming went smoothly, to organise when and where specific shots were taking place, prep the crew and talent ahead of this and liaise with the local people and locations that we were filming with.

I was also responsible for helping to come up with solutions to issues or changes that arose throughout filming, so ensuring generally that we had everything that we needed and we were running to schedule as much as we could.

8)      What are you doing now you’re back in the UK?

Now i’m back in the UK, i’m finishing some final bits for a Greek Odyssey and also looking forward to getting stuck into pre production on a couple of really exciting new projects but I can’t say too much about those just yet!

9)      What do you miss about filming and what’s nice about being home?

I miss the people and definitely the sunshine, i’m having quite a bit of trouble adjusting to the colder British temperature. But i’m loving being back home with my family and most importantly my dog, Marley.

10)   What was Peter Andre like to work with?

Peter was a dream to work with, genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Peter got on great with the whole crew and was happy to try his hand at anything even paragliding which was well and truly out of his comfort zone. We couldn’t have asked for a better person to film with.