Page 15 - Fujifilm Exposure_14 Snatch_ok

Photos: top from left Mike Frift, Ted Deason and Writer/Director Denis C. Lewiston
Above from left: Denis C. Lewiston; Ian Holm; Tom Walsh and Laura Murphy; Crew from left: Denis C. Lewiston with David Lewis and Cedric James
EQUINE LEGEND
EQUINE LEGEND
with various theatre groups in and around Dublin.
Then, of course, they needed a Shergar-lookalike. More than 500 thor- oughbreds were “auditioned” across the British Isles before veteran horse- master and stunt co-ordinator, Roy Street, advised settling on four suit- able equine “doubles” to fulfil the requirements of an often challenging shoot, notably a cliff-top climax.
With their cast in place, Lewiston and his producers began to look for locations. Ireland itself was out because of veiled threats to the film- makers. With the Isle of Man Film Commission onside, there was no need to look any further than that ver- dant and versatile “stand-in”.
“The Commission,” said producer Jeff Geoffray, who together with fellow producer Walter Josten heads up Blue Rider Pictures, “bent over backwards to help us. We had to film before June when the island is overrun by motorbike enthusiasts for the TT races, and the Commission made sure we had every- thing we needed for that to happen.”
Lewiston – a 35-year industry vet- eran of films like Doctor Zhivago, Blow Up and The Rocky Horror Picture
Show not to mention TV hit series The Professionals, which he directed for two seasons – hand-picked his crew, including DP David Lewis, Welsh-born but long since LA-based.
Commented Lewiston: “The Isle of Man can be a real nightmare for a cameraman with its constantly changing weather and very high winds. But the island is also quite beautiful, even magical, with a strange, often dramatic, light that fil- ters through the clouds. I thought it perfect for Shergar and using Fuji stock with its pastel tones added much to the film’s mood.”
As if making the film wasn’t diffi- cult enough, getting in on to the big screen proved yet another series of hurdles. But with two awards for Shergar under his belt – Viewers’ Choice and Jury Selection from San Diego’s Temecula-Murrieta Festival – Lewiston then added “Distributor” to his burgeoning CV which began with humble “Clapperboy” at 17.
“My fear,” said Lewiston, “was that my film would follow many other independent tax
shelter movies that just disap- pear into a neverland.”
So, through his own Sun Chariot company, he arranged a limited Odeon release in the UK earlier this year with a short theatrical run to follow in
Belfast during August. Shergar has been invited to the Edinburgh Film Festival in the Video/DVD section and a wide cassette release is expected later this year.
At the end of a long adventure in film-making, Lewiston reflected with pride: “They say never work with children and animals – and I had both. But the youngsters we cast were a joy to work with and so were the horses.
“I also had the support of a tremendous crew that made the shoot an absolute pleasure, even though we had a very tight schedule and an ambitious number of locations, with rain, wind and more rain.
But the efforts reaped rich rewards and it was a fantastically satisfying experience.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Shergar was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
feature in focus