Codnor - Behind-The-Scenes Pics

Hello there

Day three of the Codnor extravaganza, and as promised, here are a collection of pictures from behind the scenes at that location.

Been ages since I've done a pictures post, and it always feels like a cop out, so I shall be waxing lyrical about them for your information/annoyance. I have no doubt my comments will be hilarious, so don't be scrolling past them thank you.

Shall we?

Yes, let's...

(in no particular order)

This was during the set up of a pick-up.  The way the footage plays out, there's no way we could have gotten this reverse shot of Barry reaching in for his head torch, but I had spotted it as an opportunity during the day time and we grabbed it after all the drama was over.  Obviously I reached through and grabbed his hand several times too.  At least three more times than it was funny.

So, next to the door that I went in at Codnor, there is another door (you see me walk passed it), which is an entire second building.  We didn't end up using it, but it features heavily in the recce video that Simon shot.  As I mentioned, I'm going to edit that recce video together when I get a minute (I am mainly looking through all this stuff for the extra features, but why would I not show you on here too?).

Another thing we saw during the recce was the "King Of The Castle".  He has lived there for hundreds of years, and it's very unusual to see him outside so blatantly.  He is normally furtively looking around the battlements for ghosts, but this is a pretty clear photo of him surveying his kingdom (a field).  Picture credit to the "Dirty Rascal".

That's the farm house as seen from the castle.  Anybody questioning my athletic prowess should just look how far I ran.  I'd have been even faster if I hadn't been holding my belt to stop my jeans falling down.

Another rare shot of the "King Of The Castle".  Here he is meeting his loyal subjects on common ground.  As is customary he will not make eye contact with commoners.

This is Nick (Director of Photgraphy), Simon (all the other roles), and Holly who was a runner for us that day. I believe this was them getting some colour shots for the intro to the section, despite the fact that the talent was behind them.

I think Karl's face here proves conclusively what a delight I am to work with.  Nick would be doing a thumbs up too, but he would often shout "WORM!" and drop immediately to the floor to film it.

I know this looks like a beauty shot, but if you zoom in you will see - way wayyy over there in the distance - Danny who did sound for the whole movie.  You will also see that there is nobody anywhere near him, so goodness knows what sound he was recording. Joking aside, he would have been recording a wild-track, which is atmospheric sound. Or texting.  Almost certainly texting actually.

I mean, he was over there for ages.  I wonder now if he just got lost.  I don't recall seeing him since.  I hope he's ok.

That's Rokia, the chairman of the Codnor Castle Trust, doing her talking head bit for the movie.  Simon is conducting the interview because the director was busy taking pictures of Simon doing the interview.

This sign is here just in case people think they have taken a wrong-turn into the local tip.

That's Karl and Nick filming some colour establishers, Simon filming the moon, and Danny texting again.

Beauty shot of the battleground.

And a beauty shot of the battleground as we finalised the lighting on the castle.

Genuinely glad we went to the fuss of lighting it.  I mean, it really was a fuss, but it was so worth it.

This was a camera lighting test, to make sure we were going to get away with not properly lighting the field (that was all filmed with the top lights on the cameras).

That was me filming the deleted talking head.  It was so late.  In fact, it looks like it was starting to get light again by then. What a stupid night it was.

Could be the Codnor Castle "Watcher" this...

Everyone present on the evening in question.

And finally, this is the selfie I took whilst waiting for Barry to find me at the castle.  I appreciate it's not a great picture, but I was gasping for breath after running (and I was meant to be concentrating as well...)

There we go, that's all of them for today.  Tomorrow there's some disjointed footage of the recce, set-up and filming.  Then we will have concluded our Codnor extravaganza for this particular week.  There are some more bits still to come (including the recce footage, but that's all for another day as it proper needs an edit).

Hope you are having a wonderful week, whatever you are doing.

Sending love as always

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx