Carl at helm of Bard Winter
EDGE Hill University lecturer Carl Hunter has directed a short film retelling Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
The film and television lecturer directed Game of Thrones star Joseph Mawle in the film written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, an Honorary Doctor of Literature at Edge Hill.
Carl was commissioned by The British Council, through Liverpool’s Hurricane Films, to produce one of 11 short films marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
He said: “Frank and I wanted to keep in the spirit of the original text. The Winter’s Tale was Shakespeare’s first ‘special effects’ play – written not for the open-air Globe, but for the candlelit Rose Theatre, where he could experiment with sound and light.
“Shakespeare goes out of his way to draw our attention to time’s passing and the way time can often appear to stand still. The film tries to preserve the optimism and hope of Shakespeare’s late romances.
“We both live close to the Gormley statues, in Crosby, and I often walk that coast line taking photographs, observing the landscape as it changes through the seasons.
“I wanted a painterly approach to capturing the scenery and nature is a very good production designer.
“The play is also famous for being set on ‘the sea coast of Bohemia’. Bohemia, of course, has no coast.
“It must be ‘another place’, to use the title of Gormley’s installation.”
He has spent the past month filming on location at Crosby Beach with the help of three film and television students keen to gain first-hand experience of film production.
Carl added: “The film’s soundtrack reflects both the alien nature of the fantasy setting and the cinematic landscape in which the story takes place.
“It was inspired by Bebe and Louis Barron’s score for The Forbidden Planet, which was a retelling of The Tempest.”