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or many, the fairytale wedding Fof Prince Charles and Lady
Diana Spencer on July 29, 1981 was one of those great “where were you?” moments. More
than 600,000 people of all ages packed the streets of London that day and celebrations simultaneously took place in all corners of this Isle.
What better time-warp than for a new BBC Two 90-minute single drama by double BAFTA-winning writer Abi Morgan (White Girl, Sex Traffic) called, simply, Royal Wedding.
Her tale is located far from the capital’s festivities in a small mining town in South Wales.
Explains Morgan: “The Eighties was my decade. It spanned from the start of my teenage years to my leaving home. It was a maelstrom of disastrous haircuts, awkward fumblings, teenage rebellion, heartbreak and pop.”
“The world was in turmoil and the long hot summer of ’76 seemed well and truly over. Britain was rioting. Maggie had taken on the miners and initially lost. We knew worse was to come.
“Royal Wedding feels like the final party before everything went wrong. It is the decade from which we have yet to recover and yet it is veiled in a warm nostalgia, an innocence that still haunts. For that one day in July, it felt like fairytales and happy endings were possible.”
Directed by James Griffiths, the film co-stars Jodie Whittaker, Darren Boyd, Kevin Bishop, Rebekah Staton
and newcomer Gwyneth Keyworth. For the drama, Griffiths called on his old friend and regular collaborator DP Magni Ágússtsson with whom he made the six-part comedy series Free Agents (which was also shot on Fujifilm) for Channel 4 last year.
Says Ágústsson: “James and I have worked a lot together including commercials but this was my first TV film. The script really appealed to me but with the time restraints, recreating the period and shooting entirely on location, it was always going to be tough and quite a challenge, none more so than the weather in Wales which would often change even as I was looking through the viewfinder.”
The cast and crew descended in early autumn on the former mining
town of Blaengarw, near Bridgend. “Amazingly,” notes Ágústsson, “out of the 18 shooting days, it only actually rained for about two and a half and on those days we needed rain anyway.”
With a new film, Brim, the story of a fishing vessel set in his native Iceland, also shot on Fujifilm, coming out in the autumn, Ágústsson paid tribute to Royal Wedding’s hosts. “The people of Wales were fantastic,” he says. QUENTIN FALK
Royal Wedding, to be shown on BBC 2, was originated on 16mm ETERNA Vivid 160T 8643, ETERNA 250T 8653 and ETERNA 500T 8673
THE DP VIEW
MAGNI ÁGÚSTSSON
As we had had on Free Agents,
there was, at first, a discussion “about shooting on HD. However, both James I felt that the cleanliness of high-definition wouldn’t really work for this sort of period film.
What we finally opted for was 16mm and to shoot on three different Fujifilm stocks. We used the ETERNA Vivid 160T for exteriors and then the ETERNA 250T for
our interiors.
For the film’s very few night
scenes, we used ETERNA 500T both inside and out. I also occasionally pushed the stock to make it look more mushy and older, and for the exteriors also used uncoated lenses.
I’ve shot all my films on Fujifilm.
On this, the Vivid 160T, in particular, brought out the retro style of the
piece because it plays so much with the primary colours and then in
post- we could further
manipulate it to give the film
more of an 80s ‘mood’. ”
TV IN FOCUS
APIECEOFHISTORY
HOW A ROYAL WEDDING SPARKED A NEW BBC2 DRAMA SET IN WALES
Photo top and above: Cast and crew on the set of Royal Wedding
26 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE