TV PRODUCTION

Night Flight on a Lancaster Bomber

Night Flight, a powerful drama set in 1943 and the present day, looks at the terrifying wartime flying experiences of bomber crews, many of whom continued to be affected throughout their lives. Writer William Ivory's father was a Lancaster navigator during the war. The drama will be broadcast on BBC 1 in the autumn as two ninety-minute programmes.

Actor Christopher Plummer takes the lead role of pensioner Harry, a Lancaster bomber pilot during World War II, whose life changes when his former flying comrade Vic (Edward Woodward) returns from the past with old memories and secrets.

Night Flight looks at the terrifying wartime flying experiences of bomber crews.

David Higgs, Director of Photography on Night Flight, shot the full-scale Lancaster interior stage scenes with an Aaton A-Minima camera. "The beauty of the Minima is that you can tuck it into your body. I was jammed inside the stage plane and a real Lancaster, fighting for every half inch of space, but I was able to get shots that would have been impossible with a conventional camera. I could balance the Minima on my hand and tilt and rock it." The Lancaster replica was attached to a huge hydraulic gimbal, which vibrated and shook violently for the flying scenes. "I expected to have the bucking and diving motion coming from the camera, but with the Minima I could balance more and take a lot of the vibration out. It's a very fluid way of working and very liberating in general drama terms," he remarks.

	Night Flight explores the impact and the terror of flying a Lancaster bomber during World War Two.

An Aaton Prod and an Aaton XTR were used for the exterior scenes with a set of Zeiss ARRI ultra primes (16 - 35mm). Higgs admits to being extremely pleased with the versatility of the stock and the way it inter-cut - Kodak Vision 320T (7277) film was chosen for the stage plane shots and Kodak Vision 250D (7246) film for the day interiors and exteriors.

An original Lancaster bomber operated by the Lincolnshire Heritage Aviation Centre was used for the exterior scenes and is one of only two in Britain still moving under its own power. "We needed the Lancaster to taxi down a runway with the tail coming up to a point when it was taking off, but it was beyond our budget to actually get it flying - the plane hadn't been in the air for twenty eight years," he says.

"Too much lighting would not have been legitimate, but at the same time I had to ensure the lighting level was acceptable to the audience. The perspex hood on the canopy was old and scratched and too much light would have made it look ropey, so I used very small liner lights and bulbs that I could hide, but I had to be careful where they were placed because of internal reflections at every level." Effects of shrapnel and anti-aircraft fire were achieved in camera but other material was projected. Higgs produced sequences of planes going up in flames and night-time bombing sequences and reflected these in the perspex hood.

The storyline of Night Flight is so complex and layered that Higgs kept his technique as simple as possible. "It's not an inherently visual script, but an incredibly strong personal story. At the end of the day, there's always artifice involved, but I've focused on the characters' emotional journey and tried to find ways to encapsulate the fear that was experienced by Lancaster bomber crews. The magnificent ability of the actors, the brilliant director, Nick Renton, and the amazing script were inspiring. Night Flight is going to astound audiences. If my working life is filled with projects like this, I'll be very happy," he concludes.

Data File

Night Flight

Producer - Hilary Salmon
Director - Nick Renton
1st AD - Martin Coates
Scriptwriter - William Ivory
Director of Photography - David Higgs
Focus-Puller - Nick Lawson
Clapper-Loader - Suzy Jacobson
Grip - Jim Monks
Editor - Arden Fisher

A BBC Production

David Higgs has over twenty television film credits to his name, including Nature Boy, which won the 2001 RTS Award for Best Drama Serial. He entered the film industry as Assistant on film for Newsnight and has been a DP for fifteen years. Directors he has worked with include Joe Wright, Peter Kosminski, David Attwood and Catherine Moorshead. Scriptwriter for Night Flight, William Ivory also wrote The Sins and Common as Muck for BBC 1.

TELEVISION FILMS -
A Christmas Carol, Innocents, The Russian Bride, Nature Boy, Hero of the Hour and Summer in the Suburbs