Still – what a movie line-up
FILM FAN’S HOBBY HAS BECOME AN INSTAGRAM SENSATION – WITH FANS FROM ACROSS THE FILM INDUSTRY
LONDON-BASED film fan-turnedexpert Thomas Duke has had a busy lockdown.
Accumulating over 240,000 followers - and counting - on his iconic Instagram Stepping Through Film, in which Thomas travels across the world to match up film stills to their location.
Yet, Thomas, who sits opposite me over Zoom in a hotel room in Italy, is somewhat bashful, and even a bit reluctant to take credit for the juggernaut that Stepping Through Film is slowly becoming.
“I was so surprised that people took to it and really liked it,” he tells me.
He says the popularity of this Instagram account is what surprises him the most about the whole process, which has been growing for years now.
“I guess the interest people have, that they want to follow me… I started it as a hobby, with just one follower,” Thomas says.
“I never dreamed I would do it as even a bit of a job, that actors and directors would see it.”
This is a modest way of acknowledging his account is followed by the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Patrick Dempsey; it is recognised by The Academy and BAFTA, the latter of which has previously collaborated with him.
“It’s been really fun,” he adds. The concept is simple: Thomas goes to the location in which an iconic scene from a popular film or television series was shot – think Paddington Bear’s arrival at Paddington Station in the 2014 film Paddington, or Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing’s trip to London in Friends – and recreates it.
He simply holds up a printed-out still from the scene, matching it up perfectly to its surroundings.
“I’ve always been a film fan,” Thomas answers when I ask him what inspired him to launch this project.
“Film has always been my life. It’s just a way to escape, enjoy a different world. Why not go travel, and incorporate my passion with that?”
He credits his years at university he studied Film at Brunel University in London – for giving him the ability to pursue this vision with such success.
“If I didn’t go to uni, I’m not sure I would be able to do it, you know, have the time and go out there,” Thomas explains.
“It kind of felt obvious I guess. “You watch it in the cinema, where it’s already a flat thing… I feel like it’s just a fun thing to do, it’s universal, anyone can do it. It’s quite easy.”
This is classic of Thomas, who throughout the interview is never quite ready to acknowledge the distinctiveness of the Instagram that puts it a head above other film fan accounts, and the richness of his readable excitement in the comments to be there, right where the scene was shot.
“I go to a location, and see how its changed,” he explains.
“Or even how real it is. A lot of places, I’d look at go, well that isn’t real. And I go, and it was real… Those specific films are always great to visit.”
“Like Marvel,” he elaborates. Thomas is a Marvel fan, and counts the franchise amongst his favourites, including other Londonbased classics like Harry Potter and James Bond.
“Though they use green screen, it’s amazing how much is just a cathedral, or just a building in London,” Thomas says.
Marvel, Harry Potter, and James Bond are all colossal film series that feature a sizeable amount throughout his page.
Yet he also gives airtime to a wide variety of popular film and TV, from romantic classics like Atonement and Bridget Jones, or popular TV shows like Sex Education.
Or even About Time, the 2013 romantic comedy largely based in North West London.
“I was so surprised that people took to it and really liked it,” he says, referring to his post that recreated the About Time kissing scene in Maida Vale Underground station.
“It’s not as big a film as the others, so it’s so nice to hear that people loved it.
The film that is,” he clarifies, hurriedly.
“Not my post!”
Since he’s the movie expert, I ask what his favourite film of all time is.
“Pixar’s Wall-E”, he replies – and what his favourite London-centred film is.
“There’s so many, I can’t think,” he says, and I watch him mull over the answer across my laptop screen. “Harry Potter, I love Harry Potter.” As an overgrown Harry Potter fan myself, I find this answer makes the already very endearing Thomas even more likeable.
“Dr Strangelove, too,” he adds. “They shot it by a Costa Coffee – they were over in Whitehall – and I love how they blended this magical world with real life London.”
We circle back to discussing lockdown, and the impact that had upon new content for his account.
Thomas is currently in Italy, where he was capturing stills from the set of the new Bond film, No Time To Die; but what about the past year or so, when he couldn’t fly across the world to various international film locations?
“With the pandemic last year, we were all stuck with where we lived. And obviously the UK was where I was stuck, but there were so many options,” Thomas says.
How many options? “Basically every film had at least something in the UK, and it’s kind of amazing,” he answers. “We have Wales, Scotland… So many different landscapes.”
“It’s amazing how big the UK is. We’re so lucky. Compared to the US, they’re much more spread out.
“The UK almost feels like all of the US, but in a smaller area.”
I tell him I agree completely, and we discuss how the international limitations of travel this past year have made a lot of us re-examine the natural beauty across the country.
“We’re so lucky,” he says, cheerfully.
“There’s just so much.”