Winners and Losers: behind the scenes

Cast and crew of Winners and Losers will wrap a busy year at the end of next week.

This year the Seven drama ends 2014 with almost a full calendar year of shooting, as part of Seven’s massive output of 750 hours of local content.

Filming at Docklands Studios in Melbourne has been a hive of activity on both 2014 and 2015 episodes. The studio that was previously home to such shows as Satisfaction, 1 vs 100, and Australia’s Got Talent houses interior sets for the Gross family, and Frances, Sophie and Bec.

Next door they are shooting US sci-fi Childhood’s End for Syfy -could these worlds be any more different? Couldn’t help but wonder what might transpire if one cast member stepped onto the wrong set…

The studio is a bevvy of homely sets and domestic costumes and things were pretty relaxed on the morning of my visit. On set were Melissa Bergland, Sarah Grace, Paul Moore, Nick Russell and Katherine Hicks.

In the ultimate working relationship, Paul Moore (Wes Fitzpatrick) is married to Sarah Grace, who also plays his on screen partner, Bridget Gross. Both run an acting school studio in Geelong in their “spare” time. Moore, an avid reader of  TV Tonight was too busy asking me many questions for me to quiz him and Nick Russell (Gabe) about the machinations of making drama!

Amiable Melissa Bergland (Jenny) is so at ease with her scenes she makes it seem like second-nature. This is actually scripted dialogue, right?

Katherine Hicks, whose character Sam MacKenzie was at the centre of this year’s cliffhanger siege, wasn’t giving anything away about plot resolutions.

As they face a final week for the year, the challenge for any serial drama awaiting word of a renewal is to find satisfactory end points that could wrap a story or nod at new plots.

“Last year we finished shooting in July and we didn’t find out until December,” she recalled.

“I remember the last episode of Out of the Blue a gunman came into the wedding and aimed the gun at everyone, so that anyone could leave! End of episode. Isn’t that genius?”

But she did admit to getting itchy feet when she isn’t working and is looking forward to a renewal call sooner rather than later.
 
“We really have to be cleared before we can audition (elsewhere), because it’s such a tight turn around. We’d probably start in February, so unless it’s a play that starts in January and ends in February… But I hate holidays, I love working. I only need a week off and then I’m ‘Job! Job! Job!’”
 
But she is looking forward to a charity event with Giant Dwarf in Sydney.

“I keep asking for a script!”

 Winners and Losers returns in 2015 on Seven.

Photos: Seven.