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Photos top left: the Leavesden complex with its 100 acres of backlot; top right: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson and Jake Lloyd in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace; centre: Leavesden’s MD Daniel Dark; above: Famke Janssen and Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye.
studio facilities
wardrobe facilities, dressing rooms and gym. Outside there are some 100 acres of backlot - reput- edly the world’s biggest - boasting the added advan- tage of 180 degrees of clear horizon.
“It’s probably the best place I’ve ever made a movie,” purred Phantom Menace’s producer Rick McCallum. “We were able to shoot and build at the same time, effortlessly and seamlessly.” The facility’s huge square footage was converted to 10 stages and 60 sets, plus extensive areas for floor effects, special creature effects and costume manufacturing. It even had its own rigging and fire departments.
As well as Goldeneye and The Phantom Menace , Leavesden’s roll call includes Titanic (pre-produc- tion design work), Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Onegin (a key exterior sequence of ice skating on the River Neva outside St Petersburg) and An Ideal Husband along with television productions like Alien Love Triangle, Touching Evil II, The Alchemist and Silent Witness - not to mention music videos (Jamiroquai and Smashing Pumpkins) and commer- cials (Carlsberg Export, Nestlé Gold Blend etc).
Much more recently it has been host to two ambi- tious new productions - Channel 4’s true-life drama, Longitude, and Tim Burton’s all-star period fantasy, Sleepy Hollow, co-starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson and Christopher Walken. Nose about inside a former hangar at one end of the aerodrome and you’ll suddenly discover a remarkable man-made forest more than 200 yards long where some of Burton’s storybook characters come to life. Elsewhere are exterior recreations of old chandler and sailmaker buildings set in ye olde New York.
Dark explains: “The big shows have wanted to come here because we can offer them exclusivity, security, privacy and a huge amount of flexibility. What’s been added since 1995? There’s been a con- tinuous programme of improvements. Because we’ve got these huge areas we are able to create stage space without having to build state-of-the-art stages, certainly on shows that can be looped for sound afterwards.
“We are within half an hour of anything required by the industry. We can offer things at a very cost effective rate because we don’t insist producers use all our stuff. It’s like giving someone a clean canvas on which to do whatever they want.
“What do I want of the place? There’s a long term plan which calls for the creation of brand new studio facilities across the board. Where we need to make improvements to the existing facility we do. But as far as big investment is concerned, that’s part of an ongoing programme we’re working through at the moment. I think there’s a real commitment to a long term future for this place. In fact, I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t think that was the case.”
Suggesting the kind of scope of future develop- ment envisaged at Leavesden, there have been a cou- ple of top level appointments made during Dark’s five years at the studio. Bob McTyre, who produced Disney’s Beauty And The Beast on Broadway and was in charge of marketing at Disneyland for five years, is now executive vice president and executive produc- er. Norm Doerges, a former executive vice president of Disneyland, is Leavesden Developments’ president and chief operating officer.
A hint of his brief came in the press release announcing his appointment back in autumn 1997. It stated: “His thirty years experience with the Disney organisation will have a tremendous impact on the direction that Leavesden is heading - to be the leader in Europe for film studios, studio tours and family entertainment.” So watch this space.
Meanwhile Dark gets on with the day-to-day busi- ness of attracting new production to the studio. Yes, he admits, losing the next Star Wars film to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox studios Down Under was “a big disap- pointment... but not a big blow. They’d been 100 per cent happy here doing Episode 1 and even came back here to do re-shoots. Who knows what the future holds?
“I come from a pretty traditional but very profes- sional filmmaker’s background and can look at it all through a filmmaker’s eyes. The key is flexibility. At the end of the day, it’s really all about getting the magic up there on the screen.” ■ QUENTIN FALK