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"NIGHT LIFE" AT CARNFORTH
The Thrills and Boredom of Shooting a Film
(By One of the "Extras")
The strange lights seen in the sky over Carnforth almost every night for
ten days have not been caused by searchlight practise, nor were they a form of natural
phenomena akin to Aurora Borealis.
The powerful illumination was caused by a Denham film unit on location at Carnforth
Station.
This unit with a personnel of about 90, has been making a number of shots for a new Noel
Coward film "Brief Encounter" from his play, "Still Life"
In that film, which stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard and Stanley
Holloway, Carnforth Station is "Milford Junction" and on its platform a young
married woman with two children, and a young doctor, are thrown together by circumstances
and fall in love, with the usual complications.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Let's take a look at "night life" on Carnforth Station,
literally a look behind the scenes.
The first thing we notice are the three generating vans and the sound van, which are
parked in the forecourt. The sound van, in which sound is turned into light and recorded
is worth £8,000.
As we enter the station the light is dazzling. The effect required is that of normal
peace-time lighting.
Mind the cable! There are several thousand feet of it laid down and it is easy to trip
over.
Here we are actually on the set, the centre platform with the subway running down the
middle of it.
There are lamps everywhere, lamps with queer names - "juniors",
"broads", "foufous", and "bashes".
There's the camera on the 4ft high wooden rostrum. The wheeled trolley on which it is
mounted is called inexplicably, a "dolly". The chief cameraman is Robert
Krasker, who filmed Henry V and half of Caesar and Cleopatra.
NEITHER GLAMOROUS NOR EASY
Ask one of the extras or one of the passengers stranded at Carnforth for
the night what impressed them most. They will tell you in one word "the
waiting". Most of the extras are local people, 40 out of the 50 engaged at various
times are from Morecambe. Very few had any experience of film work and the majority were
greatly disillusioned.
Film work is neither glamorous nor easy. It's hard and exacting, calculated to upset the
most even temper in the small hours of the morning.
Some idea of the detail which must be watched for may be gained from the
ease with which anachronisms may be made. The period is 1938, therefore 1938 papers must
be read by extras, R.T.O. signs blacked out, etc.
"SHOT" 20 TIMES
Watch this one shot from the beginning and I think you will see what I
mean.
A train draws into the platform and passengers alight and a few words of consversation
between the stars are recorded. Simple! - But do it twenty times.
Hold your breath when you hear "Quiet please - everybody quiet" over the public
address system. Then hear a door bang miles away and have it all to do over again.
Then wait while the Director , Mr David Lean, holds one hurried conference after another.
As a matter of fact 20 - 30 seconds of actual screen time is considered quite good for
location work. A total of three months shooting being needed for this moderate length
film.
Incidentally, if you're keen on statistics, the cost of the actual
celluloid which runs through the "gates" at 90ft per sec. Is roughly £3 10s per
1,000ft for sound film and £12 10s for picture film, the two being recorded separately
and "married" afterwards.
All the officials of the film company have been unstinting in their praise
of the willing co-operation of the staff of the L.M.S. Railway. They were equally pleased
by the reception and hospitality afforded them at the Carnforth Hotel and by the local
public in general.
Not only Carnforth, but the whole district will miss this grand crowd of people, most of
whom returned to London yesterday.
Their job up here is finished and they are going back to Denham, where there has been
built an exact replica of the station, to finish the picture, which you will see in a few
months.
"NIGHT LIFE" AT CARNFORTH - The
Morecambe and Heysham Visitor and Lancaster Advertiser, February 21, 1945.
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