PRODUCTION. THE LAST KINGDOM
“It was a tricky balancing act, staying true to the visual DNA of the show while taking it to a level reflecting the demands of a feature film”
interesting image, so we were constantly using textiles to soften it, but with the remoteness of the location and the wind, we were fairly limited to the size of textile we could use. Our gaffer and electrical team did a brilliant job and we smoothed out any changes in the grade – I think we just about got away with it. “It was a tricky balancing act staying true to the visual DNA of the show while taking it to a level reflecting the demands of a feature film,” says Bryant, though he was happy with what the team achieved. “I’m also really proud of the way we balanced the cinematography of the battle scenes against the narrative scenes,” he continues. “You’re always looking for a sense of a narrative arc in a feature; you want the visual style to develop throughout the film as it mirrors the protagonist’s journey.” For example, during filming, Bryant gradually changed the filtration he
in a close-up with shallow depth-of-field, the way backgrounds are rendered is beautiful. I guess technically, anamorphic lenses are dual-node (where the light beams converge when going through the lens), whereas spherical lenses are single-node, and that gives anamorphic such a three-dimensional quality. We shot tests comparing the different formats and large format anamorphic blew us away.” HEAVY REIGN Good news on the tech front, but there was a major hurdle that presented itself – inclement weather. The final battle was shot over the course of eight days for the main unit, often with four cameras plus a drone, so maintaining lighting continuity over it all was tricky to say the least. “One day we had snow, wind, rain, sun and sleet all within a few hours,” Bryant recalls. “Obviously, front-lit sun is your enemy when you’re trying to create an
12. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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