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LONDON
ONDON
in production
that cinema is - light, dark etc.
A little over two years ago, Hunter and his pro-
ducer partners Mark Leake and Tim Dennison man- aged to find a private investor and were firmly into pre-production when the money evaporated.
“After the collapse,” says Dennison, “we dust- ed ourselves off and decided to punt the script round the industry. Someone suggested we send it to British Screen but we didn’t for a minute think they’d go with this kind of project. A couple of months later we got a call from Simon Perry asking us to go in and see him. He liked the script and wanted to get involved.”
To secure their backing, British Screen insist- ed that Hunter direct a short that was in “the thriller vein” to see if he had the right stuff for the genre. The film-makers were given some money which they then matched, and with further sup-
port from equipment and facility companies, including Fuji, they made Wired. It proved a suc- cessful calling card and with international sales agents Winchester Films (Shooting Fish) on board, not to mention cash from the National Lottery, Lighthouse was, to coin a phrase, greenlighted.
After touring Britain, France and Ireland, Hunter and his team decided that no lighthouse fitted his exact requirements. “There was nearly always something wrong with them. They were mostly too new. I wanted to have a Dickensian, almost workhouse type feel - rotting, old and low- tech where nothing really works.”
The decision was made to recreate every- thing for the film - beach, ocean, rocks and light- house - at the increasingly in-demand Three Mills Island studio at Bromley-by-Bow. A former dis- tillery by the River Lea where Carlton shoots its London Bridge soap.
To build a rusting Victorian lighthouse and surrounding island along with all the film’s visual effects they called up Roy Field who, using tradi- tional methods, first constructed an 18-foot scale model of the eponymous building, to house a tiny but powerful 1k light at the top.
The beach set features an enormous valley complete with large rock pools and cliff faces along with optical mist and beam effects. Large sections
of the lighthouse have been built full scale, includ- ing nearly 40 feet of exterior wall, an entire lamp room and balcony. There’s also a huge interior staircase consisting of matte painting with added elements such as dripping rain and lighting.
On yet another stage there’s been a huge blue screen where actors have hung forty feet in the air. After principal photography was completed, Field oversaw an intricate model shoot at Pinewood. The plan is to premiere the finished film at Cannes 99.
Says Hunter: “We were originally going to do the film for £300,000. Having the delay was, in the long term, a blessing in disguise though it didn’t feel it at the time when, for the next two years, one stared at the fax machine and had to scrape money just to keep life and soul together.
“If at the end of the day we can get across 80 per cent of what’s in the original script then we’ll be doing very well. The whole experience has been thrilling and gives one a real buzz. Yes, it would be nice to have huge waves crashing but the film certainly won’t look cheap. An intimate epic? Yes, that’s exactly what it is.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Lighthouse was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
Photos: top inset: director Simon Hunter in cool control of Lighthouse action sequences (main photos); inset below: Simon Hunter with Oscar-winning visual effects wiz Roy Field.