Concept and creative process
This promo was to promote a flagship multi-part BBC2 history series presented by Simon Schama. Appropriately for the history of a maritime nation, the sequence was filmed live action on a beach. A pacy montage of shots of sea and fire, with the camera running at different speeds, was the result. The lone figure walking the water’s edge beneath the horizon line led the camera to discover in the foreground of its shot a weathered wooden construction, reminiscent of the crosses of the union flag, which provided an atmospheric background for the superimposition of the series title. Mark Shirra recollects the making of this sequence. “The brief was to make history sexy. The idea and concept came from the Producer, and from Designer Stefanie Uter, who had done an initial treatment.
I sketched out a sword design and faxed it to an armourer. The excalibur sword and glove was shot in a water tank at the BBC special effects unit in West London. We had an armourer from the supplying company on set, as the sword was made for real, i.e. super heavy and extremely dangerous.
We shot on high speed 35mm, and the glassy water look was achieved through inverting the luminance in telecine. The type on the sword (Baskerville expert, my go-to small caps font) was set in Illustrator, printed on dry transfer film, like Letraset, and stuck onto the blade in order to capture as much as possbile in-camera. Cut & Run did the edit incorporating the production footage. The clouds and skies were composited at Condor using Flint.”