HOLLOWAYS GARDEN - North Yorkshire shoot

  For the main bulk of the fantasy film, we went away to North Yorkshire to film, as we found perfect locations for the fantasy world, in a place called Hackfall Woods, and Druid Temples. We travelled down to Yorkshire on the evening of the 10^th April, where we stayed at Beth’s mums house in Skipton, which was an hour’s drive to Hackfall. We got up early on the 11^th as it was our first and longest day of filming, and set off to Hackfall, where the bulk of Victoria’s quest would be filmed.

  I was nervous about this shoot as we were very reliant on the weather, as I wanted there to be a nice sun set, and if it rained the look that I wanted would be ruined, and this was the only day we could film this part as we were on a tight schedule and only had the fairy actors for 1 & a half days. When we got to the location, the weather was quite sunny, but very windy. The first shots a captured were the shots of Victoria making her way through the woods to the first fairies home, Eva. These consisted of aesthetically pleasing shots of her walking, in different locations to make it look like she had been travelling for a long while. We had originally planned to shoot the parts where Victoria first comes into the fantasy world, as she looks over the whole land, but we were unable to access this location until 11:30am so had to wait.  At half past 11 when we were setting up the shots for her looking over the land, I found out that the ground was too uneven for the slow push in that I had originally planned, so I decided to get a static tripod shot from directly behind Victoria, showing the whole of the land in the background. This worked just as well to achieve the shot that we originally wanted. I also got a shot of her looking at Alia’s castle, which would be her final stop in this land before she enters the labyrinth.

  We then quickly travelled down into the forrest, to the location that would act as Eva’s home, the good fairy that guides Victoria through the forrests. This location was very difficult for sound, as we were located directly next to a river, with rapids. We managed to get it filmed and then moved onto the next location. Once we got this quick scene done, we they went up to Alia’s castle for the final scene of the day, where Beth did some set design, whilst I was waiting for the sunset. The sunset was not as nice as I wished for as there were clouds in the sky, but I still got the orange colour scheme that I wanted with the light I had.

  The second day of filming started early again, and in the same location. We only had a short scene in this location this time, which consisted of the fairies meeting each other for the first time in years, as the water comes back into the world. We then shot a quick scene for the other film that Jasmine is DP for, then had lunch and waited for the sun to lower for the shoot at the Druid Temple’s. In the final film this scene will be at dusk, but it would be too dark to film at that time so had to shoot earlier, and then change the colours etc in post via the colour grade to look like dusk. I managed to hire an 18ft Crane Jib for this scene, as there was a specific shot that I wanted to capture when Victoria first walks into the entrance, where the camera would track her feet and then rise up and above the doorway to reveal the whole area. I needed a big crane to capture this shot as the temples needed to look daunting compared to Victoria, and for the shot to symbolise how alone she is. The crane was also mechanical so that we could move the camera to pretty much wherever I wanted. The crane was made for broadcast camera’s ideally, so I had to hire a specific rig to attach my Canon 6D to the Jib, and then we also got a follow focus as there was so much movement in the shot.

  Simon, the man who owned the crane, arrived at 5, and then it took us an hour to set the Jib up, and then half an hour to practice the shot. We then started filming, the shot took 8 attempts to perfect but I am very happy with the outcome of the shot as it fore-fills the purpose of the idea and also ups the production value of the film. As we had the Jib for another 45 minutes before they had to start re-rigging it, I got some other shots, tracking across the rocks, following Victoria into each Labyrinth. I ideally wanted the crane for the final shot in this location when she walks into the main Labyrinth, but we were unable to achieve this, as the jib was too big to fit inside the druid temples. Once we had finished with the crane we were tight for time before it went dark, we quickly got all the shots we needed in time, and I am very happy with the outcome. The colours change dramatically from the early crane shots to the final shot I captured this night, but I should be able to correct this in the colour grade as I am using the grading software davinchi, which is professional standard.

  This was the last day of filming for the film which I was cinematographer, but I stayed for the other shoot to help Jasmine, by assisting her. For this film the location was in a log cabin, with no electricity, which proved to be an interesting experience.