grow from what looks like 'Alien' egg cases into huge over-the-head-
sized plants. Marc had identified this plantation as a possible ele-
ment in the secret garden, so huge are the plants, adults and cer-
tainly children are able to walk beneath the umbrella like leaves. To
achieve the 'growing before our eyes' effect early in February, a VFX
team went to record and scan the dormant plants, then after another
couple of months, they went back and recorded the next stage. On
further visits, the director saw other potential sets within the gar-
den, a tropical pond and towering tree ferns for the children to run
through. This would take the use of the location from perhaps half
a day to two full days. Trebah is situated in the furthest south coun-
ties in the UK, it was difficult to get to via narrow country road and
miles from any sort of main road. We also had to build temporary
roads through cabbage fields (I remember this well as I had to sign
off on cabbage compensation!), either side of the narrow valley in
which the garden is situated to get generators into position. As the
gunnera plantation was right at the end of the valley by the sea, we
even considered bringing in our production by a beach-landing craft.
Trebah Garden is one of the most visited attractions in this re-
gion. The best time to film these huge plants was again in high sea-
son, July, but thankfully the management of the garden could see
the potential of the disruption this would cause as a large part of the
garden would have to be closed off. The management came up with
new trails for visitors to follow and the source material did the trick
in convincing the paying public they would get to enjoy the garden
on the big screen.
The filming schedule in the last three weeks of the shoot spread
out the location team from North Wales to Cornwall. Extra location
managers joined us as each garden needed seven to 10 days of prep
and couple of days film and a few days out so major overlaps with
each location. Abbotsbury became my location to manage, I spent
two weeks in this beautiful spot working with the dressing and pre-
light teams while we prepared the location for the crew to arrive to
from Cornwall. At the start, I was concerned how we would work
within these delicate landscapes. However, during filming, the crew
did very much respect these garden locations. I think working in
tranquil, beautiful places rubbed off on the crew. We had plenty of
meetings with departments to discuss how to work within these
delicate sites and generally they would come up with inventive
ways of looking after the locations. We tested and bought the right
types of lawn ground protection materials and always gave our-
Below: Abbotsbury dressed as if in India. Photo by Tom Howard/LMGI.
Right: Photo ©2020 Studiocanal S.A.S./Courtesy of Trebah Gardens.
