Behind the Scenes of Historic & Fantasy Films

After having started filming my coursework, I decided that I would like to have a look in more detail at behind the scenes footage of other films which might fit into the genre of my film.

I firstly started with the television series off BBC called 'The Last Kingdom' which are based off the books by Bernard Cornwell. Although this is set in Anglo-Saxon England during the Vikings invasions the aesthetic of the series is still similar to what I aim to achieve with my own film. I found the set locations very interesting as although the audience are meant to believe that the locations are in fact still in England the show was actually filmed in Hungary. The landscapes seem to be a key feature in the production of the series and I'm hoping that my choice of location for my film will also prove just as effective. Interestingly one of the men who worked on the series stated that the entire plot was about "two worlds clashing" which is similar to the basis of my plot between the Woodland Realm and the world of mortal men in which Sienna's character seems to be caught between.

I also looked at the behind the scenes footage of another historical television series called 'Vikings' which can be found on the History channel. This video was a lot shorter thankfully and I thought the comments on the design - especially hair - was very interesting in regards to the characters. One person mentions that they had to change the style of some of the characters to "freshen it up" in comparison to series one and although my film is not a series I thought this was key to creating different characters that are all unique and nothing alike.

I finally looked at 'Game of Thrones' which is actually in the fantasy genre, although it still a television series. I found Ramin Djawadi's comments on the importance of the soundtrack to be key and I would definitely agree with the choice of soundtrack for the entire series. This made me think more closely about the soundtrack that I plan to use in my own short film and to make sure that it fits to the action and mood of the film. Thankfully I will not be working with any animals on my film - although I found the animal training equally as fascinating - like they have done with the Inuit dogs and ravens in the television show. I did at a time consider having the Woodland Queen or the Guard enter leading a horse as my local stables is only a ten minutes walk from our filming location (and I know a horse who would have been happy to help) but I decided to put the idea aside as it would only complicate the filming and plot of the film. As well as this, I am fully aware of the saying "never work with animals or children" and my entire cast are all teenagers or young adults. Also, looking at the complex fight scenes it also made me grateful that I had taken out the fight scene that I initially put in my storyboard.