The next morning, I woke up and biked to the guys' B and B at 7:30 in the morning (too early for me!). We drove to the northern part of Oxford to a farm house which they nicknamed "The Barn." The land was quite stunning. The sun was bright and lit up the beautiful colors of the changing trees. We unloaded the van and set up for the first scene. This day, we filmed Lewis and Tolkien when they served in WWI, so most of the shots were outside.
First, we filmed Max and the actor who played Lewis's commanding officer. They discussed the war or poured over maps developing a battle plan. Again, it was all silent, so it didn't matter what was truly said, as long as it looked like they were deep in conversation. They had different shots with their battle gear at a table, standing behind stone walls, and walking down lanes. My job through all of this was to fill the space with smoke. I would run across behind them, spraying as I went, and then get out of the way just in time for them to take the shot before the smoke blew away. This was quite tricky because the wind kept changing direction, so the smoke would never stay where we wanted it to.
At one point, they filmed Max writing a letter to his father. He was leaning on a low rock wall. Jock told me to go behind and spray smoke. The stupid wind kept changing direction though, so it would not envelope Max as it should. I had been running back and forth behind the wall, and Jock finally yelled, "Stop!" I did, but I was right in the middle of the shot. "Down!" Jock yelled and lowered his hand. I dropped to my knees, still clinging to the smoke machine. But then, I realized that the ground was extremely wet. "That's good, Hannah! Now, crawl to your left." "Snap," I thought, but I did it anyway. "Now, to the right!" They called out directions for the next few minutes, and as time went on, the more wet my jeans became. Finally, they told me they were done, and when I stood up, my shins were soaked. When they saw me, they let me go inside and dry off. I didn't mind a so much about my jeans, but I was super cold.
We then moved on to Alex's scene. It was very similar in that he also wrote a letter back home during the war. However, they had Alex climb on and stretch out on top of the wall.
We finished the morning with scenes that took place during Lewis's studies. At the beginning of WWI, he was too young to fight, so he learned under his father's old tutor, William T. Kirkpatrick. We filmed Max in and outside of the house, often with a book in hand. After that, we broke for lunch, and the actors to play members of the T.C.B.S. began arriving.
When Tolkien was attending King Edward's School in Birmingham, he and three of his friends began the club which they called the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (T.C.B.S.). This was given because they frequented Barrow's Store to drink tea. Even though two of the members would die fighting in the war, these comrades of his early years would influence him for the rest of his life.
Filming the T.C.B.S. scene took all afternoon. First, we had to transform the dining room of the house into an early 20th-century parlor, not an simple task. We had to collapse the table and tear down most of the modern decor. Then, we had to set up the props, china, and make the tea. They also hung special lights outside that looked like moonlight streaming through the window. I helped with all the set up and the costumes. And once they began filming, I had to make a new cup of tea every five minutes, so the pot would be full at the beginning of each take. We did all of this in one room, and then we tore it down and did the whole thing again in another.
Once we were finally finished filming for the day, the whole atmosphere became frantic. Everyone rushed about, putting things back in order, organizing props, costumes, equipment, and washing the china. We finally got everything back to normal, and packed up the van to leave. It had been a long but productive day, and Jock was kind enough to drive me home.
British thing I learned:
A British waistcoat is an American vest.
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