Page 16 - Fujifilm Exposure_48 Tamara Drewe_ok

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
“...THE CAMERA NEEDS TO BE VERY FLEXIBLE AS DOES WHAT THEY RECORD ONTO.
AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED 35MM FILM IS STILL THE BEST WAY TO RECORD HIGH DEFINITION.”
complete in a short space of time, the camera needs to be very flexible as does what they record onto. As far as I’m concerned 35mm film is without doubt still the best way to record high definition.
“Philip, however, was very nervous at the outset about shooting on film. He’d made Wallander on the RED camera and it’d done very well. He was very conscious of his shooting ratio and that thought we might shoot miles too much film. In fact we didn’t and, in the end, I’m happy to say he was totally converted.
“What I also knew going in was that I couldn’t have shot the end scene with anything other than film. The train is static, it’s night and there’s no power so the whole denouement bit is done with candles. In fact I probably put in too many candles because, in the end, it
looked a bit overlit to me. However the naturalistic way we did it in the very small space allowed with all those actors worked well on film.”
The actual shooting was a mix of studio and locations. The production laid track amid an avenue of pine trees in Black Park behind Pinewood and brought in a train with some carriages to simulate exteriors of being caught in a Serbian snowdrift.
Footage of the Orient Express in motion was captured on the Nene Valley Railway near Peterborough, while snowy landscape morning and evening light shots for later integration into the action were filmed during a week in and around St Moritz. Finally, for the Turkish opening to the thriller, the Maltese capital of Valletta was – echoes of Midnight Express – craftily utilised as a double for Istanbul.
Christie’s book has been adapted by Stewart Harcourt who, according to Suchet, has “created a really exquisite script. His attention to detail is impeccable.”
Matthew Pritchard, Chairman of Agatha Christie Ltd and grandson of the author, adds: “I’m delighted this new production has attracted so many well-known names and starts with such a wonderful script.” All aboard! QUENTINFALK
Murder On The Orient Express, to be transmitted on ITV later this year, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573, ETERNA Vivid 160T 8543 and ETERNA 250D 8563
d“ifficulty doing with Hi Def cameras because of all the gubbins that goes with those things - the monitors, the cabling, the checking.
THE DP VIEW
ALAN ALMOND BSC
We ran two cameras practically all the time which again was something we’d have had great
I was able to light and operate the A camera while Steve Murray really got stuck in with the B camera. In the confines of a sleeper carriage accurate to scale, we were able to get two 35mm cameras running very efficiently most of the time.
In the main I used the ETERNA 500T, which is really good stuff. I also used the ETERNA Vivid 160T for Day exteriors and some ETERNA 250D for Malta and Switzerland. Philip didn’t want any diffusion on the camera so it becomes quite a hard look.
The train goes from being a very warm, very expensive, very plush piece of kit charging through the countryside to a freezing hulk of steel with a dead body in it. It turns
into an interesting and quite dark place where Poirot has to go, too.
”
Photo top: on the set of Murder On The Orient Express; above l-r: David Suchet as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot; working on location with snow machine; Director Philip Martin; a scene from the 1974 version of Murder On The Orient Express
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