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Tony Chance and his part in the Escape of King Charles II

As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of Harniman’s blogs, I (Tony Chance) occasionally have a cameo role to play. This usually involves a story board, actors – real or imagined – and video. In fact, the first time I graced these pages was in the blog about a joy riding skeleton in a Lamborghini Reventon. Seriously!

Xbox Deus Ex: Human Revolution

A couple of years ago Harniman and I worked on this crazy video idea of a dead fellow driving a super car through a ruined cathedral, as you do. As it turned out, the idea paid off and Harniman and AIR CGI got the job to do the CG background for Xbox game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. So that was a result. But our collaboration hasn’t stopped there. Recently we’ve been working together on a pet project of mine that I’ve had on the boil since my student days. I’m a rather obsessive history fan and I’ve always wanted to make a film about the escape of King Charles II following his ignominious defeat at the Battle of Worcester.

The Escape of King Charles II Poster

Kickstarter.com

The idea, with Harniman’s help, was to create a trailer for a low budget, independent film. This trailer was filmed specifically for Kickstarter.com, an arts-based crowd funding site that helps to get indie art projects off the ground, from films and games to plays and dance. The idea is to attract finance – from GBP 5 to GBP 50,000 – and give the funders a privileged role for their part in producing the product. So you offer a package of rewards. GBP 5 gets special emails, but if someone wants to fund the whole film I’ll story board their own film for them. I’ll write it, film their life story, drive their car… I jest. But it’s a seriously good platform for emerging artists with ideas.

Story Board, the Escape of King Charles II

Tony Chance & Harniman

Stokesay Castle, Shropshire

For the film itself I first met the two main characters at Stokesay Castle in Shropshire. A beautiful old walled manor house on the Welsh marches. Actors Mark Vance and Stu Willis were doing a piece on the history of sword fighting in front of a big crowd. It was a brilliant double act and I knew then that I wanted them as the principle actors in the film.

Stu Willis and Mark Vance

Story board

Behind the Scenes

Mark is a professional historical entertainer who does jousting, historical lectures, re-enactments, the lot. I guess the two of them are a cross between Laurel and Hardy with a dash of Errol Flynn. So with them in mind I wrote a script and emailed it to them. Happily both of them wanted to be part of the project immediately.

Battle of Tewkesbury

I wanted their two characters to tell a riveting story. Once they agreed to take part, I drew up the story board and then encouraged a load of re-enactors with all the costumes and kit to take part in the movie. One shot has a whole troop of these people making merry mayhem at the recreated Battle of Tewkesbury. A pivotal key scene in the story is when Charles hides up an oak tree, escaping his Parliamentarian pursuers. Harniman kindly took all day to shoot this for me. He built a specially constructed pulley system with a camera that tracked the shot from the tree to the ground. He even employed a tree surgeon to strip the branches of one of his oak trees to help create the scene.

Behind the scenes

Incidentally, the original oak tree still exists – well at least its progeny do – at Boscobel House in Shropshire. The original was pulled to pieces by trophy hunters. Another location where we shot the trailer was Aston Hall, a Jacobean island in a sea of concrete just off the M6. To film there, we had serious problems with the noise of the motorway traffic.

Nick Smith, the audio wizard

Along with Harniman’s help, I also used Nick Smith for the soundtrack. Nick is a genius in the studio and knows instinctively what sounds and noises need to go against what visual images. He composed the soundtrack for the Kawasaki Demented video and The Escape of Charles II. He also helped to shoot and edit both and we really couldn’t have achieved the high quality results without him.

Behind the Scenes

Nick is also a regular in Harniman’s studio working with him on various projects. I’ll leave you with the trailer for the Escape of Charles II. It was fun to make and I hope you find it fun to watch. Thanks again to the Harniman team for all their hard work shaping what I hope will soon be another great British movie about a story that was never told.

Tony Chance

The escape of King Charles II, Tony Chance