repainted the cubicles and added periodsign writing to the doors and walls.

The second pool, a huge spring-filledformer quarry on the outskirts of Bristol,presented its own set of challenges.Archive footage from the 1930 showedthe lake had actually been used formajor swimming galas and gave the artdepartment valuable information.

“It was a beautiful location in the firstplace, but there were a lot of things thatneeded to be well dressed. Thepontoon that was already in the lakewas covered in aluminium, which madeit look extremely modern, and so that allhad to be dressed and made to look likea period setting.”

The large open space was deckedwith bunting, windbreaks, tents anddeckchairs that would immediatelyconvey a sense of spectacle andoccasion. A second pontoon wastransported from Pangbourne andassembled on location by the crew, thenrowed out to the middle of the lake.Gale force winds in the middle of thenight had the art department racingdown at daybreak to make repairs.

“Thanks to Simon’s attention todetail and AP Sue Fairbanks’ ability tosource anything from anywhere,entering the sets for Nectar was liketravelling back in time,” says Crow.

It was always our intention to ensurethat deaf characters were played by deafactors. This was of crucial importance toCrow. “The casting of disabledcharacters in the film and on stage iscontroversial. Roles are frequently filled

by non-disabled. My take is not so muchthat only a disabled person can play adisabled person (although they will bringparticular knowledge and depth to therole), but that so few directors believedisabled actors can hack it in any role. Itis necessary to bring in positive actionand disproved this claim.”

Finding the actors, however, was noeasy task when the specification was soexacting. Nectar follows the maincharacter at the ages of 17, 23 and 91and the production team searched fortwo actors to cover this timespan.

Unfortunately, there not manyprofessional deaf actors with BSL astheir first language to cover thistimespan. The first challenge was tofind someone to play the older Walter.The team tracked down Ian Chandler,who had a wealth of acting experience,but also looked believable as Walter, a90 year old man who refers to hiswhisky as nectar. Chandler broughtsensitivity to his performance but, atthe age of 70, he needed to be aged 20years to play the role. Again, theunforgiving high clarity of HD meantthe team did not want to rely tooheavily on make-up, so, aside form theaddition of a few wrinkles, Chandlerrehearsed with the deaf consultantLorna Allsop to make his BSL deliverythat of an older person.

Interestingly, the actor JacobCasselden, who played the youngWalter, did not have much swimmingexperience before the shoot, thoughafter a rigorous training routine with

three different coaches he has now sethis sights on competing in the 2012Deaf Olympics.

Nectar was shot on Sony HD F750camera, supplied by Films at 59 (whichalso supported the short financially), andedited by Bim Ajadi, who has abackground in broadcast television.Editing took place over a two weekperiod using Final Cut Pro. Once theoffline edit was complete, James Cawtecompleted the colourisation at Films at59. The 5.1 audio mix was added bysound editor Brian Mosely and originalmusic by composer Barnaby Taylor.

From the start it was the intention tomake the production inclusive. Thisincluded involving deaf and disabledpeople both in front and behind thecamera, working at all levels and avariety of roles. Crow gathered herself acrew that operated successfully in twolanguages and used various methods ofcommunication (speech, sign andlipreading). BSL interpreters wereemployed and Allsop advisedthroughout on how to make theprocess accessible. In a sector whereonly two per cent of workers are madeup of deaf and disabled people, Nectarwas made up of 25 per cent.

“On one particular afternoon, Iwatched BSL and Englishcommunicators seated happily side byside, in what was the most collaborativeand inclusive shoot I’ve ever been on,”says Crow.

For further information visit:www.roaring-girl.com

directors’ notes

issue 12 may/june 2006 | showreel 79

Attention to detailwas crucial to theproduction, with notonly period costumesand set-dressing, butalso accurate BritishSign Language of the1930s.

70 year old actor IanChandler had to be

aged to 91 for the role.

directors’ notes

78 showreel | issue 12 may/june 2006

Inspired by her grandfather’sappreciation of whisky – and by herown love of swimming – Nectar hasbeen a labour of love forwriter/director Liz Crow. Nectar is

the tale of a young man called Walter, achampion swimmer in the 1930s, whohas an epiphany during the race that willdecide his future as an Olympic hope.Walter also happens to be deaf.

Impressed by the potential of thescreenplay and by Crow’s track record,producer and script editor AbigailDavies joined the team, bringing withher 20-years of film and televisionexperience. Her role was to drawtogether the practicalities of theproduction to enable Crow to realiseher ideas in the most dramatic waypossible. “Being a producer is not justabout doing a job of time or moneymanagement,” says Davies. “Whenyou’re casting a film or picking a crew,you’re looking for people who willenable the project to be delivered inthe most excellent, most meaningfulway possible.”

“Abigail has a way of asking theincisive questions and calling on me tojustify my decision at just the rightmoment,” says Crow, “with the resultthat I able to reach absolute clarity inhow and why I’m weaving the widernarrative and every detail within it.”

As Nectar is set in 1931, it wasextremely important to have detailedresearch for the costumes,environment and attitudes. For

research purposes Wendy Coles fromthe Amateur Swimming Associationgave Crow access to her own archiveof swimming history, includingdocumentary footage of a 1930snational swimming gala held at thelocation selected for the film.

Swimming strokes have changedsince 1931, and the swimmers inNectar had to adapt their swimming tothe period style. Sports training wasalso very different in the 1930s, with noformal sponsorship and athletes havingto fit competition and training aroundtheir fulltime jobs.

Alongside the tale of Walter as achampion swimmer, is a parallel story ofhim as a young deaf man. Just as Walteris under pressure from all around himto continue as a competitive swimmer,he is expected to fit in with the hearingworld through lip-reading and speaking.As he journeys towards swimming forthe love of it, he also works to claimBritish Sign Language (BSL) as hisnatural language.

Deaf consultant Lorna Allsop joinedthe production during the scriptdevelopment phase to advise on itshistorical and cultural accuracy from adeaf perspective. She also translatedrelevant sections into 1930s BSL, whichwas used by 50,000-70,000 people inthe UK at the time. As BSL has evolvedover the past 75 years, Allsop wastasked with researching period signlanguage and then teaching key actorsto deliver their lines appropriately.

In the film, Walter wears acumbersome hearing aid, gifted to himby the local community, which at thetime was considered breakthroughtechnology. Unfortunately, hearing aidsback then magnified all sound, so thatthe user received a cacophony ofspeech and background noise. Theactual hearing aid used belonged toAllsop’s father.

In Nectar, the elements ofswimming and sign language are

entwined. The naturalness ofswimming for Walter is mirrored in thenaturalness of language and vice versa.“I wanted to show a disabled person ina situation where impairment is not thedriving force,” says Crow. “At the sametime it is integral to the situation. Walterdoesn’t either compete or or stopswimming because of being deaf.However, there is a fluency in hisswimming that is matched in his BSLand, if only people had listened, theymay have known they were pushinghim towards a dream that was not his.”

During pre-production Crow hadan opportunity to view high definitionfootage from another production andknew immediately that it offered thecolour intensity and vibrancy – thealmost tactile quality of the image – thatshe wanted for Nectar. She turned tocinematographer Terry Flaxton, whobrought his HD experience and strongcimematic vision to the production.

“It was the quality and conviction ofthe writing, combined with the strengthof Liz’s vision and ambition for the filmthat drew me to the project,” saysFlaxton. “My role was to convey thatvision through the camera.”

With its clarity of image, HD leavesno scope for error from the artdepartment. When your film is a periodpiece, that’s a tall order, especially witha small budget. Fortunately, art designerSimon Hicks agreed to take up thechallenge of turning Bristol’s clocks back75 years and creating a believable andauthentic period backdrop.

For Nectar, two fully functioning1930s pools had to be found and one ofthese had to be the right scale for thenational championships. After months ofresearch, Wiveliscombe Pool, nearTaunton, was found for Walter’s homepool. A small community pool, lovinglyrestored and managed by the locals, thiswas one of several delightful locations inthe film. Here, as with the sets, no detailwas spared. The art department

An Olympic challenge