We didn’t have many sets so it was so great when we were outside as we could move around
great for us. Saoirse is a bit more loose but I wouldn’t say that her stagecraft is not good, I’m just saying that Margot is more precise. “She would be asking me questions about where she should be moving when the camera was moving, those kind of questions. Saoirse not so much. It’s incredibly emotional some of it, especially for both of their characters who are incredibly tied up in knots by their respective men-folk. Elizabeth becomes more and more isolated and non-feminine but she came out on top after all that had happened to her, including Mary’s threat.” MOVING THE CAMERA In the movie there are various scenes in the court where the royal procedures of the day meant couriers are sitting and standing while the Queen does the same; this hindered John’s original idea of moving the camera. “If you address the Queen you stand, this was very symmetrical and rigorous. We didn’t have many sets so it was so great when we were outside as we could move around. I would have loved to shoot the streets of London or when she goes to Westminster Cathedral to pray or something, with all that entails. But to get that sense of scale and all those extras wasn’t within our budget and also that would’ve introduced more movement. I’m not saying you should rush around everywhere or start doing handheld for instance but I like movement, I like it when people ‘move through’. A big wide shot
collects everyone, collects the feeling of a place, Spielberg and Ridley Scott do that very well. We did move when we wanted to but again you are cutting between the two stories of the two letters the women are writing to each other. So you don’t have an in and an out in a scene, you’re crashing into it, you hear a voiceover and there you are. “We did overshoot so some things you will lose like your big crane shots, your developing shots and your wide shots; the film overruns and if those scenes are not script relevant and not really doing anything they tend to end up on the floor. That’s a shame so I often try and get people talking in a wide shot with any close-up coverage so they have to use it; as a DOP you learn how to manipulate the shots in this way by getting them talking beforehand or something else that is significant. “So you try and create the environment, the courts, the palaces. Yes we have some interiors and big places, but I would have liked to have gone through doors into other chambers that led to more chambers and really opened it up – that means you can move. We had a lot more successful movement with Margot than with Saoirse but that was just the way that fell.”
30 The number of hair and make-up artists on the film 1 Number of feature films Director Josie Rourke has directed
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