The busy city was brought to a halt thanks to 1200 extras, zombies, yellow taxi cabs, explosions and car crashes which were all used to create scenes in the Scottish city. To add to the commotion, thousands of eager people flocked to the city to catch a glimpse of the scenes and for a chance to see Pitt and his brood.
But although World War Z’s producer Jeremy Kleiner praised the cooperation of Glasgow City Council for making the filming possible, Eagle Couriers director Jerry Stewart was left unimpressed with the effects the film shoot had on his delivery drivers and the consequent deliveries.
This movie was hugely problematic for Eagle, as journeys that would usually take 45 minutes to complete actually took a ridiculous 1 hour and 45 minutes when the camera crews were filming. Our drivers are already met with tight deadlines and feel the pressure of setting out how many deliveries per hour they should be completing.
The council should have been prepared and approved the use of taxi and bus lanes for certain vehicles during this period. For businesses such as ours this would have been a tremendous help in ensuring that we were able to get on with our daily work and not face such disruption.
Although we appreciate that major movie filming like this is beneficial for Glasgow and for Scotland in general, I still believe the council has a duty to protect the businesses that already operate in the city. As the movie work is finished, there is nothing to be done about it now, but I hope that if a similar situation arises in the future, companies and motorists that use the roads in Glasgow will not be as affected.