3rd January Meeting – David Fairhead presented ‘Lancaster’
Film Directors Ant Palmer (above left) and David Fairhead (above right) were welcomed to Surrey Border Movie Makers January club meeting to discuss their new film ‘Lancaster’ which follows their amazing ‘Spitfire’ film released in 2018. They showed excerpts of the finished film and also discussed how the film was made.
David and Ant obtained approximately thirty-eight interviews, not just from the pilots but members of the whole crew including Bomber Command ground staff.
One of the pilots who was interviewed explained that although the Lancaster was large, they were very noisy, cramped and uncomfortable but they were also very powerful and as a pilot you became part of them. The interviews were very moving and conveyed the dedication and bravery of all involved.
An Operations Room was created for the film in Tilford Village Hall and the skills of an RAF Enactment Group were used to re-create the Operational Plotting Table scenes.
There are currently only two flying Lancaster’s in the world and a lot of aerial filming took place alongside one of them from a helicopter with the amazing camera skills of John Dibbs.
Some great animated after-effects were also used in the film, these were created by Andy Jones (left) a skilled Animator who was also at the meeting and explained to the audience how some of the scenes were created. Interestingly, a wind tunnel at Farnborough Airport was used to create a very effective ambience to the film’s music score.
The ‘Lancaster’ film took four years to make, the interviews alone taking approximately one year.
NEXT MEETING: Friday 3rd February
AGM followed by films made for the Christmas Challenge, Club Film re-edit footage, new member John Smith shows his recent film and if time allows a Training Film will be shown.