Page 9 - Fujifilm Exposure_10 Longitude_ok

“We’re making two big costume feature films for the price of one Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.”
Charles Sturridge, Director
Leavesden Studios’ D Stage, “we’re here recreating six different 18th Century voyages on six different ships. Finally we go to Antigua for five days of loca- tions which will stand in for Jamaica.”
That’s a total of more than 100 settings and a speaking cast of over 116, including Ian Hart, Anna Chancellor, Samuel West, Brian Cox, Peter Vaughan and Stephen Fry. Co-star Gambon - once dubbed ‘Great Gambon’ by the late Sir Ralph Richardson’ - is particularly in his element because he just happens to be a rather keen amateur engineer... with an inter- est believe it or not in horology.
“We’re making an epic for non-epic money,” said experienced producer Selwyn Roberts, whose own film industry roots go way back to the days when he started in the cutting rooms before becoming an
assistant director at 26. Typical of the kind of cost- cutting ingenuity being employed by Sturridge and his crew was gun-deck mock-up. To have put that huge set on a gimbal would have cost £65,000. Instead, DP Peter Hannan, one of the director’s long- time collaborators, is using an ambitious overhead lighting rig to simulate rocking - lightly for port and hugely in a storm.
Hannan is a die-hard fan of Fuji stock having used it on many of his films - from Withnail & I and A Handful Of Dust to, most recently, Milk - and 95 per cent of his commercials: Yes, I prefer it. I particularly like the colour saturation. It has lovely rich blacks. Here, we’re using 16mm but I’m not pushing it too hard because it would be too grainy. I have used all four stops and had no problems at all. This produc-
tion had been a tremendous challenge because we’ve had to do things fast, setting up and shooting more than 30 set ups a day sometimes .”
With a transmission date already pencilled in for the nights of December 13 and 14, Sturridge’s mind is perfectly concentrated: “We’re going to have a very fast post-production. The idea I can make the film I want, in a hurry and on a budget is a bargain which, from my point of view as director and writer, is almost perfect. I’m happy to accept the discipline in exchange for the sort of freedom I’ve been getting.”
Appropriately for a film so rooted in time, odds are that Longitude could be one of the last great tele- vision dramas of the Century. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Longitude is originated on Fujicolor Motion
Picture Negative; portrait of Harrison by Thomas King
used by permission of the Science Museum/Science &
Society Picture Library, London; LONGITUDE by Dava
Sobel is published by Fourth Estate (£5.99)
Photos main: Michael Gambon and Ian Hart, as the Yorkshire clockmaker John Harrison and his son William in Longitude; top right: Jeremy Irons as Gould.
cover story