Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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and the researcher he had hired in England to collect material from museums, were
carefully applied. “Literally everything from nuclear submarines to Hieronymus Bosch
paintings and Cumbrian miners’ oil lamps and the tools that they used” were hung
around the walls of the Art Department during the film’s production. Not only the Art
Department came under his careful scrutiny, for Ward also “had very clear ideas on cast
and performance”. Simpson recalls that during the shoot, Ward “seemed to be pretty
happy with the performances after only a few takes”, which he attributes partly to time
constraints and partly to the fact that Ward had done a great deal of research to find the
actors he wanted. McFarlane spoke of numerous takes, but this may have been his
subjective impressions, or perhaps due to the fact that he had never acted before. 774
Overall, the Director of Photography enjoyed the process of working with Ward: “I
prefer to have a director who’s got some idea and then you find that the two of you
inspire each other and come up with something that’s great for both of you as
individuals […]. That combination of working with someone who has a strong visual
sense is terrific for a cinematographer. You can really push the boundaries and go
further and further”. During the pre-production process, Ward explained in detail what
he wanted by showing a number of images so that Simpson felt confident that he knew
what to do. On the actual shoot, however, he was allowed “a pretty free rein” in the
realisation of Ward’s intentions and in dealing with the practical day-to-day problems
that arose. The difficulties of working within a limited budget meant that “we had to be
fairly inventive and work with smaller toys and smaller tools than we would normally”.
One problem was the cost of the lighting required for the many night scenes and the
crew had to make do with relatively limited set-ups instead of being able to use “bigger
equipment and lighting bigger areas and getting more control and more subtlety”. 775
Visual Style
Although the film was shot in two sections - the medieval one in black-and-white and
the modern sections in colour - the footage for the medieval section was actually shot on
colour negative and a high contrast process used to desaturate the colour. The decision
to shoot the medieval sections in black-and-white was one Ward was definite about,
despite the advice of the editor, the producer and the marketing director not to do so.
774 Lynette Read, interview with Geoffrey Simpson, 29 September 1999.
775 Lynette Read, interview with Geoffrey Simpson, 29 September 1999.