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Proof of its quality may be gauged by some of the cast and crew who signed on to the project including DP Jason Lehel and production designer John Ebden.
The acting talent includes rising Irish stars Jonathan Forbes as ‘Daniel’ and Jason Barry, as the dogged journalist who uncovers the story at the heart of the film. The supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Brenda Fricker, Hugh Bonneville, John Lynch, Jim Norton, Sean McGinley and Hugh Quarshie.
Not everyone will be thrilled by it of course. The decision to shoot the film in Cornwall and London instead of in Ireland was more a nod to the obvious sensitivity of the subject than a conces- sion to inevitable budgetary constraints.
In the event the unit found the good people of Callington in Cornwall delight- ed at the presence of a feature film on their streets, even though it occasional- ly interrupted their daily lives.
“I don’t think anybody could tell just from looking at the film that we weren’t shooting in Ireland,” smiles Deery, “because our production designer, John Ebden, has been very meticulous and done lots of research.”
“The locals absolutely do love it,” adds Stanley. “Callington, they tell us, has never been used for a film before and they’ve written articles saying how impressed they’ve been with the crew and how delighted they are to be in it too.
“The town doubles for the main town in our story, Galcranagh. When we started the shoot the whole town was literally involved because we
went through on a low loader so everyone was stopped from what they were doing. Rather than resenting that, they were incredibly helpful.”
For this particular producer-direc- tor partnership, forged in the crucible of heated debate and infectious enthu- siasm for a challenging British film it has been a long haul bringing Conspiracy of Silence to completion. But Stanley is in no doubt that it has been well worth the effort.
“We jumped into the deep end after six weeks of knowing each other,” she nods. “It happens to have worked out really well. Of course it’s been exhausting, but the fact that it’s coming together visual- ly on that screen in the way that both of us hoped makes it all feel worthwhile.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Conspiracy Of Silence
was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
THE DP VIEW
JASON LEHEL
W
College’s Painted Hall at Greenwich, for example, double for The Vatican. But our approach to that was slightly different to what you might expect.
I decided that because the film was exposing the dark side of the church, as it were, every image of the church would be illuminated by artificial light.
Then where the other, more sym- pathetic, characters were lit with natu- ral daylight it was as if they were being lit by God... almost. That’s really where I came from. I tend to go from the story. The way I light is influenced by that, I’m trying to tell the story pho- tographically not necessarily make everything look real.
It was a terrific challenge to be able to play with shadow to the degree that I wanted to. There were lots of things that were incredibly dark and that was exciting to me... being able to take the metaphor from the film and put that into light and shadow.
I’m not particularly religious myself, nor am I Irish, but we had a lot of fun with that energy and John was very sup- portive all the way down the line, allow- ing me great creative freedom.” ■
e shot mostly on the Fuji 250T stock with some 500T. One of the chal- lenges in the script was to make Royal Naval
Photos from top: Jonathan Forbes and Harry Towb; Gay Byrne; Director John Deery (right) with crew on location; below: John Deery with cast and crew in a relaxed mood on the set of Conspiracy Of Silence;
Conspiracy Of Silence