The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
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40 • LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2020 several sessions, an exhibition of design sketches and costumes, as well as a guided set visit by the producer. The kids were totally enthralled by seeing the work which goes into a film production and perhaps we have inspired some of them to be involved in our industry. As for the scenes inside the walled garden, our first visit was to Bodnant Gardens in North West Wales, one of the top 10 gardens in the world, with the unique feature of a fast-moving river running through 80 acres of planted and designed historic gardens. Bod- nant also has the world's longest Laburnum Arch, when in bloom attracts on average 20 coaches a day of tourists. The yellow blooms only last for two weeks. Of course, Marc also wanted this flowering spectacle in the film! The estate overlooks Snowdonia and on my first visit, snow still covered the peaks. Situated about 250 miles from the studios, it was not the ideal place for us to get to. The pro- ducers asked if we had anything similar in the southeast of England but nothing nearby matched what Marc had seen at Bodnant. It is truly a spectacular place. Bodnant is managed by the National Trust and permission had to be requested from the Trust and owners, both agreed immediately to our request, but to get the garden at its best, we would have to film in early July at the start of the busy season. Not an issue they replied but we need to keep as much of the gardens open to the public as possible. Fortunately, the selected filming areas were the furthest from the main entrance at the bottom of the hillside the estate is situated on. Two 500-metre-long sections of river and sur- rounding gardens were required by the director, then Marc's next big request was the National Trust allow the lawns to grow tall and become meadows, which in effect required them to be left uncut for two months before we filmed. Remember, this garden is one of the best in the world and every inch of the 80 acres is designed and managed by a team of 40 gar- deners. Tourists come from around the world to admire these cu- rated landscapes! Apprehensive at first, the head gardener agreed to keep the lawnmowers off our selected areas. As a side note to this request, on our departure after filming, I asked the head gardener if they would be cutting the lawns back to the original height and she replied that one area by the swimming river would be left and when the film is released, would be advertised as part of The Secret Garden set. On the tech recce, we had a major fright when the designer want- ed to bring additional plants in to draw together the separate gar- dens into one while adding more texture and colour. The gardening team forbid this due to the risk of foreign bacteria getting into the soil and infecting the plants. Crikey, I thought. The designer had expressed all the gardens would need additional greens to build his vision. How could we get around this ban? After a lot of head scratching, it was decided we could bag and tie up all the plants' roots before being dressed in at Bodnant. Access into such a big garden was also a major headache, it was a 20-minute walk to the river from the entrance down many steps, along winding paths and over narrow bridges. This location would be the first of five which would challenge the location and unit managers. Each of the secret garden sets were only sched- Photo by Tom Howard/LMGI Iford Manor. Photo ©2020 Studiocanal S.A.S.