Stroll along the seafront of Margate and the old cinema on the corner leading to the entrance to Dreamland has, for many months, displayed a simple message: "Thank you Margate".

For the uninitiated day-tripper, this may seem rather confusing. For the residents, it is a warm farewell from a film production company, the fruits of which, next week, will see the town hit the silver screen and usurp the big names who star in it.

For all Olivia Colman's undoubted talent, it will be the backdrop of the film - a multi-faceted production which is part love letter to cinema, part study of the main character's mental health - which most enthrals many in the county.

Pre-production of Empire of Light started more than a year ago, with crews first arriving in Thanet, to lay the groundwork for filming, in November 2021. Talks had first begun in the May.

"I was drawn to this particular place because it offered so much opportunity in the scale of the visual landscape," director Sam Mendes explained.

"It’s where JMW Turner painted most of his famous paintings - he went there because he said that the skies were the finest in Europe.

"There’s a breadth about the place, which gives it poetry and a cinematic scope."

Adds director of photography, Roger Deakins, a man who has been Oscar nominated a remarkable 15 times: "I grew up in a seaside town in the South West, so this brought a lot back for me.

“Margate brought a reality to this movie. I think Sam had a slightly different feeling in his mind for the town than some of the other locations we scouted – Brighton and Worthing and Eastbourne...Margate feels more like a Yorkshire seaside town.”

The town was identified as fitting the bill by production designer Mark Tildesley when he found Dreamland, complete with a former cinema, ballroom with an impressive art deco exterior attached to a seaside funfair.

When Mendes saw the location, he rewrote the screenplay to match it. Scenes that had been set in a disused balcony were rewritten to take advantage of Dreamland’s ballroom, and a scene at the funfair’s roller rink was added.

Margate brought a reality to this movie

For three months they crafted and constructed ambitious sets for the movie - then known by the working title of Lumière (French for 'light') - which would be filmed during three months in early 2022.

The theatrical auditorium, which had been converted into a pea green bingo hall, became the Empire’s cinema; everything inside, from the seats to the material on the walls to the proscenium arch, was installed by Tildesley and his team. Other aspects of the building were refreshed as well – the ballroom was given a much-needed facelift and the art deco ladies’ bathrooms were rebuilt – and then these sets were aged to be period-appropriate.

“There’s an extraordinary art deco glory to it – there’s a sense that it was built in the 1930s and now it’s 1980 and it’s beginning to creak and crumble,” says Tildesley. “It’s an analogy with the story – the lead characters are weathered and broken people, and they need care and healing and mending.”

Most notably, the neon 'Dreamland' lights which cascaded down the former cinema building were replaced - the word 'Empire' installed instead.

A vacant lot between a seafront amusement arcade - normally concealed by boards advertising Dreamland - saw a covered building thrown up. It was so convincing a permanent structure that those passing would have thought little of it unless they could see the temporary roof which kept the elements at bay.

It was here where the interior of the Empire cinema - centre of the action - was constructed. Outside, the classic cinema 'what's on' display proudly boasted of films such as Chariots of Fire, Blues Brothers or Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It was a case of a double-take strolling 50 yards further up the road, where the exterior of the old Dreamland cinema was also given a period setting almost identical to the specially constructed building.

Gabrielle Lindemann of the Kent Film Office, which helped facilitate the filming, explained: "When you come into the old cinema building in Dreamland the lobby was not suitable.

"They had a bit of spare land just down the road, so they built another frontage, this time with a proper lobby, complete with a sweeping staircase like an old-fashioned cinema.

"It allows them to have a glass frontage and look out over the street and to the sea. The vista from 30 yards down is not so different that anyone will notice.

"The actual cinema and upstairs area was built in Dreamland itself."

“The foyer is a centerpiece," adds Mark Tildesley, "it’s where all of the characters meet. It had to be visually captivating. The feeling you get is coming in from the seafront, which is cold and stormy in winter, into this delicious foyer with loads of sweets and popcorn, and then you watch a movie that takes you off into another world.”

Beyond the Dreamland cinema site, billboards advertising cars and products from 1981 were plastered, while at ground level, posters for contemporary gigs were advertised - among them shows by Adam and the Ants. The Clash, Thin Lizzy and the Buzzcocks.

Bright lights were erected and strung along the entire promenade - stretching from the Nayland Rock Hotel to the Turner Contemporary; almost dazzling in their intensity. They were essential to help with the production.

Explains Tildesley: "We took down all of the neon [the Dreamland lettering] and replaced it with our own, and we rebuilt the front façade – they call it the canopy. Then, Roger was wondering how on Earth we were going to light these night scenes, so at his instruction, we installed festoon lights along the entire seafront.”

The sets themselves were built within the Dreamland site and the vast temporary building it had erected. Period cars and buses - needed for street scenes - were parked up in the theme park and offering a sneaky peak to those catching a train from the town towards Broadstairs and Ramsgate who could peer over the park as they travelled past.

Snow is not the most frequent visitor to Margate, given its coastal location, but during filming stacks of fake snow were piled up outside the temporary cinema frontage and along the promenade - and scattered liberally when needed in a manner which was utterly convincing.

Given its early 1980s setting, everything needed to be just right - which meant working closely with the Kent Film Office and local and county councils to ensure the background suited the timeframe.

"It was a period piece," explains the Kent Film Office, "which means a lot of the seafront, the concessions, the lighting, the street furniture, everything had to be changed to make sure it was correct for the period of 1981 in which it was set.

"It was important as in this film they keep looking out over the road and across at the sea, and you couldn't have modern buses and lorries and everybody going past."

The logistics of the operation were huge. There were some 150 production crew involved in the production while local residents sometimes had their patience tested when temporary road closures were put in place in order to film scenes.

"For a film production that was here for three months," reflects Gabrielle Lindemann, "the amount of complaints I had I could count on the fingers of my hands.

"The people of Margate have been incredible and the location team were excellent."

Schools were notified in advance of road closures in order for parents to adjust their journeys, while ambulances and other emergency services were also kept well in the loop.

On a chilly midweek night in March, the seafront was also illuminated with fireworks for a key scene in the film - which pulled in crowds of onlookers.

Ms Lindemann adds: "I was quite pleased we achieved to put Margate under snow, but the most spectacular thing to arrange with everybody was the fireworks.

"In the film Olivia Colman and Michael Ward [who plays Stephen] stand on top of the roof at Dreamland and the fireworks were live - they had to be the same every single time - and it was quite a trick to arrange that because they needed to be launched from a certain point, the tide was coming in and you had to protect the people who were on the promenade. For us to be able to achieve that after various tests in various locations was quite amazing."

For those watching, rather than one grand display, the fireworks were a rather intermittent affair - firing into the sky as and when the cameras rolled.

Filming was not just confined to the area in and around Dreamland, however.

Crews also shot scenes around Fort Paragon - close to the currently mothballed Winter Gardens - as well as the Lido, Ethelbert Terrace and Cliff Terrace in Cliftonville, which is where Olivia Coleman's character Hilary lived.

The Mayor's Parlour in the Old Town doubles up as the interior of a doctor's office, while the imposing Arlington House - the block of flats between Margate railway station and Dreamland - is home to the character of Stephen.

Various shops and cafés also feature - notably Café Darcy as an old chemist while Sands Café, Marina Café and Wildes can also be spotted.

Inside Margate's mainline railway station features while scenes featuring a period train were shot at the East Kent Railway, near Dover.

Further afield, Broadstairs' Lillyputt Mini Golf, the promenade and bandstand feature when the characters have a day out, while Cobtree Manor Park in Maidstone appears at the very end of the film.

The currently empty Manston Airport also played a key role.

Sets including the interiors of both Hilary and Stephen's flats were constructed in disused hangars, while the old passenger terminal was transformed into the front desk of a hospital A&E department. The projection room with scenes featuring Toby Jones - star of hit comedy Detectorists - was also constructed there.

It was also at the airport that moped riders used in one of the key scenes practised their parts before heading down to Margate seafront.

The result is a movie which, while receiving some mixed reviews so far, is expected to be a contender for the Academy Awards - with Olivia Colman already nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.

"I'm very proud of what was achieved," says Gabrielle Lindemann, "it was a big ask.

"If it wasn't for the residents, businesses in Margate and their support we would never be able to do it.

"Initially it meant a lot of disruption to the poor people of the town. It's not easy to introduce all sort of closures and transform all types of businesses and seafront areas, but hopefully on the flip side, we know the production spent £4.8 million into the local community while they were around.

"It also means the promotion now might make a lot of people look at Margate and hopefully when the season starts - or even before - jump onto a train and come and visit the town."

As to what they will be able to see? Well, the fake frontage on the old Dreamland cinema remains in place - but the temporary building has long since been carefully taken down.

Likewise, the neon light proclaiming 'Empire' is now no longer there, replaced with the Dreamland sign, ditto the old advertising posters.

The lights which were strung along the promenade were gifted to the town by the film producers after they received such a positive response. However, it transpired they would not be able to withstand the elements and Thanet District Council made the decision to take them down.

The sets at Manston's passenger terminal are still in place - the owners of the site admitting they looked better than what was there before.

But the key landscape of Margate - so prominent in the film - remains there, in all its glory, for all to see.