After four extremely successful years for S Club - which have seen their TV series broadcast in over 100 countries around the globe, and many millions of albums, videos, books and magazines enjoyed by their fans - the time had definitely come for the group to embark upon their most ambitious project yet - their first-ever full-length feature film, 'Seeing Double.'
 
From day one, Columbia Pictures were incredibly enthusiastic about working on this movie with Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, immediately understanding the breadth and depth of S Club's appeal - both in the UK and internationally - and how this could be successfully translated onto the big-screen, in what would be a natural progression for a group who had already conquered every other entertainment medium.
 
But what could the band do that hadn't been done in their TV shows? Bring on Kim Fuller, S Club's lead TV writer, well-known for many TV and movie projects including 'High Heels & Low Lifes' and 'SpiceWorld The Movie.' "We never know what Kim and his co-writer Paul Alexander will have in store for us next," says S Club's Bradley McIntosh. "They're both geniuses when it comes to devising amazing storylines, although with their scripts I always seem to end up getting my bum chewed off by a dog, or in some kind of major trouble."
 
Kim and Paul came up trumps with a brilliant S Club caper that appeals to both the core fans and the family audience that the group attracts, while being topical at the same time - with its cloning theme - and giving rise to many hilarious on-screen misunderstandings and consequences. "We wanted a storyline that would 'feel' different from the band's TV shows," Paul Alexander explains. "We'd never really explored any sci-fi storylines in the TV series (besides a spot of time travel in 'Back To The 50s' a few years ago,) so cloning seemed to offer us that, as well as being topical. It also offered a fresh acting challenge for S Club, since they got to play not just the regular versions of themselves, but the clone versions too."
 
Having worked on all of S Club's TV series, the pair know the band very well and relished the chance to let them loose on the big-screen and show how brilliant they are at playing up the special brand of S Club humour in a very fast-paced, action-packed environment. To give the movie a very exotic look that would appeal to their worldwide audience, the movie was shot on location in both Los Angeles and Barcelona, where S Club had just completed filming their fourth TV series, 'Viva S Club!'
 
"It was great being back in Spain," recalls S Club's Jon Lee. "We all love working there as the climate's great and it's so close to home. But what really made the movie completely painless to film was that we were working with virtually the same crew who we'd just been working with on 'Viva S Club!' The only newcomer to the fold was director Nigel Dick."
 
Dick was precisely the kind of director 'Seeing Double' needed. S Club loved stepping up to the demands of movie-making under their talented director, who combines an
understanding of both theatrical and music projects, which was really vital to deliver what fans would want: S Club adventures with the special brand of S Club music direction.
 
"Our first acting rehearsal was a particularly important moment for me," says Dick. "I needed to show them who's in charge, but also gain their trust for the weeks ahead. To my delight, they all expressed their excitement about doing a movie and are refreshingly honest when we discuss who the characters of Hannah, Rachel, Jo, Tina, Jon and Bradley are and how they differ from their own personalities."
 
"It was great working with someone as directorially skilled as Nigel," recalls S Club's Rachel Stevens. "He completely 'got' what we were about and understood that our on-screen personas were very much exaggerated versions of our real-life selves."
 
The scenes involving S Club's clones - or 'Popbots,' as Hannah refers to them in one scene - proved incredibly complicated to film but the group took to their new 'imposter' selves with ease. "The clone improvisations we did during rehearsal started well, and just kept on getting better and better," says Nigel. "Among my favourite moments was Jon taking Clone Bradley to the video store - Brad wound up at the Adult section - surprise!"
 
Filming the clone scenes was no mean feat, as the first, where the group meet their other selves for the first time, involved all 12 S Clubbers (including doubles,) 40 extras, and Joseph Adams who plays the band's manager Alistair (in both regular and clone format!) But by using a motion control rig, and taking a tip from 'Austin Powers' that clones can be believable with over the shoulder shots, both cast and crew both got the hang of things.
 
"At first, we all found acting as our clones pretty hard," says the band's Tina Barrett. "We had to completely void ourselves of any emotion and constantly remember that the clones had very little knowledge of the real-world apart from what had been programmed into them. Needless to say, it was very hard for any of us to keep a straight face. My clone shower scene with Bradley was a particularly hilarious moment as we both got the giggles and just couldn't stop laughing. By the time we got to 'take 65' I think Nigel had had quite enough of us!"
 
The writers let their imaginations run riot when devising the characters of band manager Alistair (Joseph Adams) and Clonemaster Victor (David Gant.) "With Alistair we just wanted to write someone a bit different, a bit slicker - and smarmier, maybe - than any of the band's managers in the TV series. Alistair's character has to be a bit ambiguous for the story to work - the band need to believe that he's a good guy, who could become a bad guy." Says Paul Alexander. "And we just wanted to make Victor a bit of a creepy, mad scientist. Originally Victor and Alistair were going to be brothers, so there was an element of sibling rivalry in the unfolding events, but it all got a bit confusing, so we took it out."
 
Music plays an intrinsic role in any S Club project and several tracks were specifically written for 'Seeing Double,' including 'You're Never Alone When You're A Clone.'
"It was important to ensure that the music would blend the best of S Club's four album catalogue with the appropriate scenes in the film," says Executive Producer Gayla Aspinall, who has worked with S Club since their launch and directed their longform videos and two of their live shows. "The music had to be both meaningful and seamlessly integrated into the movie and we worked with the band to include many of their favourites."
 
The music was artfully chosen both to deliver a series of fantastic full-production numbers such as the Jail scene and the destruction of The Facility, and also to run through the movie, delivering that very special S Club experience. The biggest problem, musically, was deciding which numbers to leave out - as everyone has their S Club favourites. The movie's key theme song, and S Club's next Polydor single release, 'Love Ain't Gonna Wait For You,' and many of the movie's other tracks are featured on the band's current album, also titled 'Seeing Double.'
 
The only major problem faced by the cast and crew during the big production numbers was Jo's inability to dance, as a result of a serious back condition. "Those scenes were a real trial for us because of Jo's back," recalls Nigel Dick. "She had been in serious pain for some months and we had to exclude her from the big numbers, which was a bit like England playing in the World Cup Final, with Beckham making tea in the changing rooms. The band missed Jo, Jo hated not dancing, and I hated having to come up with useful solutions to explain her absence. Jo fought through the pain like the trouper that she is and the band rallied protectively around her like five extra brothers and sisters."
 
Humour is of course key to every S Club acting project and 'Seeing Double' contains its fair share of hilarious moments, delivering comedy on a number of levels and for all the family. From Hannah's puppet show for the guard dogs, to Rachel's unravelling sweater, to the missing bellybuttons and numerous shower scenes, making the movie an amusing experience for the viewer was always at the fore.
 
Filming had its fair share of humour too, Nigel Dick claims Hannah's endless scream in the 'waking up and tripping over' hotel scene to be the most hysterically funny thing he'd seen or heard for months, while the whole band found it hard to keep straight faces throughout filming the Popbots' ridiculous 'Roman empire' video shoot scene.
 
Making 'Seeing Double' was a fairly frantic and intense process for the cast and crew alike - S Club were used to far longer shooting schedules on their TV series - but the outcome is a light-hearted romp with all the traits that have made S Club so globally popular.
 
"When we started rehearsing in an ugly hotel room back in September 2002, I said to the band, 'This film isn't about making the critics happy and I can tell you now what the reviews will be like!'" Dick recalls. "But I'm intensely proud of our mini-epic which spanned the oceans and the seasons. We set out to have some fun and create a fine piece of entertainment that will appeal to S Club fans and non-believers alike. It's not 'Hamlet' and was never meant to be. I just wanted us to shoot a movie that would give someone the same thrill I had when I first saw 'Summer Holiday' at the Cromer Odeon when I was 10, and I truly believe that we've succeeded."