Euprera Congress 2006: Theory, Practice and Myth

Just back from the Euprera Congress, held in Carlisle, and run by Julia Jahansoozi and colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire. There was a lot of good stuff, but the PR presentation that caught my eye was outside the body of the conference. On Friday night delegates were taken by coach to the Rheged Discovery Centre for a gala dinner, preceded by a big screen showing of a film, Rheged: The Movie.

Projected on a screen said to be the size of six double-decker buses, it was pretty spectacular stuff, lots of swooping helicopter shots of the Lake District, held together by a narrative that featured a boy searching for his roots with the help of a book and talisman handed down by his grandfather, and guided by a gypsy girl.

Hence lots of flashbacks to epic battles between club wielding Angles and Saxons, a bit of pillage, and rather curious intervention from William Wordsworth. Maybe my education is lacking but I had never heard of the Kingdom of Rheged or King Urien (pictured), and nor, for fairly obvious reasons, had most of the delegates who had gathered from all over Europe.

The trouble was, by the end, they had even less idea of the history of the region than beforehand. Brendan Quayle's script veered from pseudo-documentary to children's drama, and I spent quite a portion of the evening struggling to answer questions about its historical accuracy.

The film was intended as PR for the Lake District, and with so many images of spectacular countryside to draw on, it could hardly fail to impress. So why, then, create a narrative and myth that willfully blurred truth and fiction? Presumably the feeling was that for today's audiences history needs to be interpreted and amplified - and anyway it was good, escapist entertainment...

The Congress focused on various aspects of strategic communications but, for me, the movie offered some interesting insights into PR effects.

Comments

[Serge]

'Having even less a clue afterwards than before...' Sounds like the academic year has already started again and students are back in full force :-D ...
Anyway, hope the company was better than the film. Pity I couldn't attend but I am sure Anne-Marie and Els did a good job!

[Philip Young]

It was, and they did.

[Lee Ford Parker]

I'm the Director of Photography of LOST KINGDOM. I am an American. Just by chance I ran across your posting. I wanted to say thank you for your kind words about the beauty of the film. I'm sorry to say I agree that the "narrative" is a bit confusing, but that wasn't my job. My job was to try to capture the magic of the Lake District. As you say, it wasn't hard to do. I just fell in love with the land.

As you point out, the main purpose of the film was PR for the Lake District. The making of the film was extremely difficult. The summer we filmed was the worse for weather in the Lake District in many, many years. We couldn't promote a "rainy" Lake District. In one shot alone, at the Wordsworth cottage, we stood, waiting in one camera position for the sun to come out, camera ready, actors ready, in a drizzling mist 2.5 hours. We waited 6 months for a window of weather good enough to get the "swooping aerials" to which you refer. We got up each day praying for a bit of sun. Due to the heavy 70mm camera we used, the British Civil Aeronautics Board would not allow us to fly a British helicopter, which we might have obtained locally. The only helicopter and pilot we could get were from France. When the helicopter arrived, the pilot couldn't understand English very well, and none spoken with the Cumbria accent. I had to translate conversations with Air Traffic Control! With winter approaching, we just didn't have the luxury of waiting for the English speaking pilot.

Of course, no one cares about the story behind the making of a film when the film is not considered "good", as the comment posted by Phillip Young suggests it was not. It doesn't matter that we where hampered at almost every turn by weather, government or budget. And as a filmmaker and film watcher, I understand this sentiment. I make no excuses for story or film. It is what it is.

However, comments like yours make me happy to have been part the amazing experience of making LOST KINGDOM. That we succeeded in doing ANY justice to the magnificence of the Lake District is icing on the cake. I am pleased to pass on your comments to the crew members who always gave their all to make the best 70mm film we could what little we had. My thanks and congratulations to Westmorland Motorway Services to the many years of success they have achieved. John Dunning took a big chance to make this kind of tribute and promotion of the land he loves. I am happy to see his gamble has paid off.