After the story dedicated to Theo and Celia and the race for the Vattel prize, here it all kicks off in summer mode with a new arc called “The High Competition”, which will take us away from the Auguste Armand institute for a few weeks. .
Centered on several emblematic faces of the series, such as Teissier (Benjamin Barochet), Greg (Mikael Mittelstadt), Eliot (Nicolas Anselmo), Anais (Julie Sasost) or even Salome (Aurelie Pons), this summer intrigue takes place in the series. Hotel Beaumont, which is none other than the restaurant of Chef Benoit DeLobel (Joseph Malerba) and follows the various stages of the finals of the National Pastry Championship.
The show features cooking, rivalries, mysteries and disturbing disappearances that promise to punctuate the coming episodes and turn Greg and his friends’ lives upside down.
Eglantine Sofianos, Here It All Begins feature producer, reveals the secrets of filming the intrigue of this new event, which promises not to be missed.
AlloCiné: What is the role of a feature producer on a series like This Is Where It All Begins? How does your work differ from the work of the series producer Sarah Farahmandi?
Eglantine Sofianos : As a feature producer, I am an assistant to Sara Farahmandi. We oversee a lot of things together, whether it’s writing, casting, confirming episodes in post-production. We share these tasks.
And, at the same time, I take care of shootings for HMC validation (dress, make-up, hair) every day. And I manage to cast small roles. Because the customers of Double A, or the owner of the house of Gaissac – I say this because I just saw him in the episode – we shot them locally. We have a casting director in Paris for recurring roles and guests. And another casting director on site that allows actors who live in the South of France to find work. It’s easier to do it on the spot and therefore I’m supervising this casting.
Finally, I can create new credits. For now, we stay on the rhythm of two different credits per year.
As you can see, this is quite a lot of work. Every day is different. Although I am on the set as much as possible to answer any questions the teams have about the artistry.
Summer Arch takes place in a new setting, the Hotel Beaumont, run by Benoit DeLobel. It all starts with Joseph Malerba’s arrival here last year, did you have it in mind to introduce you to his restaurant at some point in the series?
We didn’t necessarily think that far ahead. The idea there was to leave the institute. So the writers thought about that with the characters we wanted to feature in this Ark, like Greg.
And that’s how the idea came to bring Greg’s father’s restaurant to life in the series. So that we associate it with our heroes and that it is not a 4-star hotel that comes from nowhere. By attaching ourselves to our characters, it was easier to care about him. And since we also brought back the character of Noemi (Lucia Passanitti), it really made sense from a writing standpoint that this hotel belonged to Benoit DeLobel.
This new decor is beautiful. Where did you shoot the scenes that take place at the Beaumont Hotel?
We had a hard time finding this place. First of all, because it was the summer period and many establishments were already booked. And also because we needed a long period of availability for the scale of our shoot. So we shot this summer arch and this unique location of Hotel Beaumont in three different locations.
Much of what we see on screen, whether it’s the hotel’s facade, the gardens, the vines or the large glass roof where the championship is held, was all filmed at Domaine du Puech-Haut. Saint-Dreser, Hero. It’s a winery that sometimes hosts receptions, weddings, but it’s not a hotel at all. They have several rooms, but we have hotel rooms, we have not been transferred there.
The scenes taking place in the corridors and rooms of the hotel, where our technicians live, were shot on a farm, not far from Saint-Laurent-d’Aigues and the castle. We requested a bedroom and hallway to bring the decor of the Beaumont Hotel to life. Again, for reasons of time, we could not do this at the Puech-Haut estate. The hallway was completely renovated, the bedroom as well, to create unity and ensure that the magic settles and tell ourselves “it’s all happening in the same place”.
And as for the kitchen, the swimming pool and the scenes around the swimming pool, the scenes were shot at the Domaine du Grand Malherbes, located in Aimarg, a few minutes from the castle.
And what about the beach scenes? Did you also shoot these scenes in Saint-Dreser?
No, we shot these scenes near the castle on the Grau du Roi, on the Espighette beach.
All this must have been a real headache from a scouting point of view…
Yes, it was difficult. At first we spotted a place we liked, but it was too far, more than 50 kilometers from the castle. We have large teams, we had to relocate everyone, it was very difficult from a production point of view for a daily soap opera like ours. That’s why we chose to find the sets a little closer, even if Puech-Hout wasn’t that close.
It was a huge job for our set teams, our culinary teams, all the technicians because we are not used to traveling so much. And at the same time we continued shooting at the castle. We still had to shoot 16 scenes a day.
For now, we are following the preparations for the baking championship. What makes you sad about what lies ahead? Last summer, the actors talked about the plot a la I remember…
This summer arch idea is to get out of jail and play the summer postcard, with a new rather grand decor. It’s the holidays, we’re still working, but the wind of freedom is blowing our heroes.
But this will be quickly shattered, because we will explore a genre that we have never approached. Here it all begins: a thriller, with a plot like I remember last summer. By disappearing, threatening, always in the background of the pastry championship.
The kitchen will still be too much. This is an arch that will take place over four weeks, with a championship stage every week. It will be discovering new characters like Swan or Marius. And to find Noem returning during this intrigue.
We have four teams: the first led by Teissier and the second by Enzo and Salome as clerks. The second team, led by Noemi, who is now a pastry chef at Delobel restaurant, assisted by Greg and Marius.
Another team will be led by chef Cardon, who promises a great rivalry with Tessier. He is assisted by Swann and, at first, his clerk is a certain Arno. But he will soon be replaced by another character. I leave you a surprise (laughs). And finally, Chef Demir, who we saw in January alongside Michelle Saran, heads the last team. And he will be helped by Anais and Ruben, a new character.
It will be quite a rich plot, with beautiful desserts, beautiful duels, rivals and above all great secrets. Because all our students will be threatened. This will create a climate of psychosis that will cloud the Championship table and the arch this summer.
David Marshall is reportedly joining the series as Chief Bury. Is he a character that will have a role in the championship?
Yes, Chef Burr, played by David Marshall, is the president of the judging panel. He is there to control the championship along with two other chefs.
We get the impression that this is where everything starts, which has been spreading the most new faces since the beginning of the series. Was it difficult in terms of casting?
Yes, there was a lot of casting because each role is important and takes place. It was very important, both for TF1 and for us, to have a high-quality cast. We have Frank Liberty, Cyril Durrell, Damas Roy, who is lesser known but great. We can really suspect each character in this story, we don’t know who is hiding what, so the actors have to be on it.
Can we hope to find these characters at the beginning of the school year as part of the wizard?
Listen, you will have the answer on the ark (laughs).
And Lucia Passanite? Does Carr leave the door for another random return from Noemi?
Of course, the door is always open with Lucia. This is what was discussed when I went with him. He was ready to go back. And we’re glad we found him, because something special is going to happen to Noah during this ark.
The summer story is filmed in May and June, how about the episodes you are currently working on that we will discover at the beginning of the school year?
Together with Sarah Farahmand, we have been working a lot lately on new characters for Season 3. We were guided by costume designer Stephanie Bossard on the look. It is very important for us to work on the appearance of the characters.
The first image we have of them is what is imprinted on the viewer’s mind. We wanted to bring back the energy that we had in the first season and that maybe we lost a little bit in the second season and again. But here we really wanted to print very strong seals this year. So we worked with Sarah on the HMC of the characters. These are the characters that we will find on the screen at the end of August.
Source: allocine
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
