How we shot our drama scenes
Attempting to re-create the Spanish Armada’s invasion attempt of 1588 is challenging at the best of times, let alone on a documentary budget. Bringing to life over 200 Elizabethan warships fighting at sea, with action below and above deck, along with scenes set in the royal courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King Philip II of Spain, is quite a tall order.
We knew that computer graphics would have to conjure up the great battles at sea for us – and Fluid Pictures set about building 3-D CG warships and setting them in realistic seas. But that was only half the picture. To bring the battles to life we needed to film close-ups of the fighting raging on and below deck. The problem here was that there are very few re-creations of Elizabethan warships in the UK – two to be precise. Both are replicas of Sir Francis Drake’s ship, the Golden Hinde. One, in Brixham, is a museum filled with permanent displays, so that was out. The other is moored near London Bridge – this was effectively our only option.
So, over two very cold days in late November we gathered over 40 extras and a large cast and crew and got to work. Surrounded on all sides by tall office buildings, we had to be very careful with shooting angles. And, of course, we couldn’t really load and fire the replica cannon they have on board. Our visual effects team rigged the cannon so that they appeared to fire and recoil. Smoke machines added atmosphere. And pyrotechnics sent stuntmen flying through the air, amidst chips of balsa wood.
Because we had so much to film in such a short amount of time we had two crews filming in different parts of the ship at the same time, often in adjoining rooms. The cramped conditions also contributed to the general mayhem.
In order to re-create the royal courts of England and Spain, we needed to find one location that could give us a wide range of locations – Elizabeth’s bedchamber, her privy chamber, offices of state, various corridors, along with Philip’s office, bedroom and chapel, and a prison cell too. We found the perfect location at Penshurst Place, a beautiful Elizabethan house in Kent, where they’d recently filmed some of the BBC’s adaptation of Wolf Hall. We filmed there for four long but enjoyable days in early December, slowly moving round the house, as room by room was transformed into an Elizabethan palace.
Towards the end of the first day our leading lady took to the set for the first time. Our casting director, Liz Stoll had suggested Anita Dobson as Elizabeth I, and we jumped at the opportunity of working with her. Not only is she a wonderful actress but she looks strikingly like Elizabeth. And she was inspired casting, giving a wonderful performance as the aging monarch, heavily disguised by prosthetics, false teeth and wigs (see accompanying articles on ‘How to Build a Queen’). After 6 days, we’d shot all our scenes. It was then time to combine the location work with the CG – and slowly the Spanish Armada came to life before our eyes.
