Oh my lord what a crazy experience. Three filming days, two kids and one crazy mother. I was filming two children given a surprise challenge of becoming Tudors for a week. They would slowly adopt the ways of how people lived during Tudor times, firstly finding out things they ate, monarchy in power, ways of punishment just as a way of picturing the era.
The boy and the girl (who will remain nameless) were taken to a small village near Bristol totally Tudor. When I arrived I heard that the boy had already dropped out because it was too difficult. It was smelly, people were weird, the food was horrible. He just 'didn't want to do it'. I parked my van up in a field and picked up my camera. For 20 minutes I followed the crew over steep muddy fields, through fences and avoiding cows and sheep to eventually arrive in a small village. A few outhouses were built some years ago in Tudor style, surrounding a communal court area. On one side was an open barn, on the other little plantations and small brick house called a 'privy', an outside toilet... It stank to high heaven.
Sitting around the buildings were several people, all dressed in common tudor clothing, looking at us as if we had come from the future and didn't belong here. It was as if we had travelled back in time. And there was our 12 year old girl, the remaining survivor of the two children, sweetly dressed in her little brown tunic with a modest white bonnet on her head to hide her hair.
The location was really photographic. The only artificial light was from candles. So everything was always lit from the windows or doors, and often created a highly atmospheric one-sided light. I kept saying how much like Caravaggio's work it reminded me of, and tried to imitate that mood.
We filmed her being taught how to make bread, and the funniest moment was in the bread oven - a tiny room with one small window and a hot oven with a stone table next to it - when the oven was hot enough for the bread to leaven, she was asked to fetch manure to seal the plate-cover that closes the oven. So out we followed her with her bucket to collect very smelly dung and take it back to the bread oven. Then it was butter next, and we filmed her churning a long wooden tube and struggling to move the big pole up and down to mix the milk so it would churn into butter; very hard physical work.
She was very clever, and continually surprised us with her intelligence, sharp observation and courage. At one point she was laughing at us, the film crew, because the 'boom' (the microphone on the end of a pole that records people speaking) kept getting in shot and the director would shout it out to us. As the girl shared the story to the butter girls they couldn't stop laughing, her laughter was contagious. Then she said, 'Do you always laugh?' The two 18yr old girls couldn't believe it! They were being intellectually challenged by a 12 yr old. They stammered a reply but didn't quite know how to react.
The last day was not such smooth running. I found out this wonderful girl had lost her father when she was nine. Her mother was a little odd, and they both argued and shouted at each other often. And often enough, the daughter would win. 'No mother, they're waiting for us, come on!' And she would follow. The rain wasn't intermittent and bareable as it had been the day before, it was constant, and demoralising. The fields got muddier, the climb to the village was harder, the equipment felt heavier. But the girl never moaned. As the day wore on a mist descended, and I filmed a wonderful Jane Eyre moment of her walking towards us in the mist, beginning as a small figure in a mysterious field to entering a muddy wet gate.
The last challenge was sleeping in a tudor house. We filmed her making her bed by stuffing a sack full of hay, with a few herbs and spices to put off the rats and insects getting close. Then we said goodnight. The director and assistant were to sleep nearby in a tent, and of course mother HAD to be nearby in case the girl shouted for help. But firstly we went back across the fields for several reasons. I was finishing, along with another crew member, and we had to take our equipment back to the vans. The other two came with since we were to have a quick meal together before we seperated. The girl's mother came with us to collect some items from her car which was next to our crew van. And there lies the first error. We left the little girl asleep on her own. Even though the tudors were nice people, she was OUR responsibility. But our second mistake we didn't get away with.... (read part 2!)
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