Wolf Corridor director Peter Kosminsky chosen this shot — which sees courtier Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) and newly appointed Queen of England Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips) strolling silently by an impressive corridor towards an unsure assembly with King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis) — due to the immense technical and emotional challenges it posed.
“We have to assist the viewers perceive the world of Tudor England 500 years in the past, which could be very unfamiliar to us,” he explains. “It’s a scene during which completely nothing is claimed. It’s all visible. [Seymour] has simply had her first conjugal night time with Henry VIII. Cromwell and Jane are in love and would have married if Henry VIII hadn’t intervened and stolen her for himself. That subtext needs to be conveyed on this shot with no phrases.”
The prolonged shot concerned “monitoring backward with Steadicam, on a wide-angle lens, over a really uneven floor: an historical monastery that predates the interval depicted,” Kosminsky says. Digicam operator Chris Reynolds had “to go backward up a steep staircase forward of [the actors], which isn’t straightforward.”
The sunshine pouring in from vaulted home windows needed to be managed with the usage of constructed containers. “We may management the sunshine in that area utterly,” Kosminsky explains. “It was virtually like a studio.”
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. To obtain the journal, click here to subscribe.