Location Scotland Ensures Park Pictures’ Florence & the Machine Shoot is Plain Sailing
Location Scotland (LS) recently collaborated with Park Pictures to fully service the shoot of Florence and the Machine’s latest promo, which launches today.
The high-end production servicing company flawlessly navigated a number of logistical challenges thrown up by the shoot, including the transportation of a 76-strong crew on and off of a tiny Scottish island.
As the final day of filming was coming to a close, Director Vincent Haycock still required a final dusk-time shot to complete the film. With the night rapidly approaching, ferrying the shoot’s entire cast and crew to and from a remote island, all for the single shot, looked to be a hugely challenging task, especially as there were no roads or lights on the island.
However, for Edinburgh-based LS it proved to be a straightforward operation. Lending their production servicing expertise to the challenge, the team hired extra boats to ensure that Haycock was able to capture the final shot needed for ‘Queen of Peace’, his latest film for the band.
Sarah Drummond, Head of Production at LS, says: “Logistically it was one of the more challenging shoots, but the location was so stunning and Vince’s work is amazing, so we knew that the hard work would be worth it.”
As well as manoeuvring the crew from the island on the final evening of shooting, the team also arranged for their transportation when the shoot was pulled forward a day.
With Florence and the Director choosing to stay on location following a tech recce, the production team arranged for over 60 crew members to travel from Edinburgh to the remote location – over 130 miles across the Highlands – at only a day’s notice.
Shot across three days in March, LS organised the shoot from start to finish. The company’s expert production team facilitated all aspects of the ambitious shoot.
Headed up by BAFTA award-winning producer Sarah Drummond, the team brought their bespoke approach to the job, which included the organisation of location, casting and crew.
Delving into their library of over 100,000 inspiring location images, the team initially put forward over 50 possible location options. Once it was settled that the picturesque Easdale Island was to be the location of the shoot, the team got to work to guarantee everything progressed smoothly.
Despite taking over an entire village, booking all the local accommodation options for crew, LS maintained a fantastic relationship with the local residents, even managing to cast some of them in the film alongside Florence.
“We wouldn’t have been able to pull off the shoot without LS, especially with curve balls such as throwing an additional shooting afternoon in on prep day. It was a fantastic shoot and LS and Nick Goldsmith were great” says Sophie Hubble, Producer at Park Pictures.
Executive Producer, Paul McKee adds: “It was a really great production under very challenging conditions, and everyone at LS gave 100%.”
“We filmed ‘Queen of Peace’ and ‘Long & Lost’ in Scotland, one of my favourite places I’ve ever been to or filmed," says Director Vincent Haycock. "The coast of Scotland is breathtaking, beautiful and harsh, an aesthetic mix that both Florence and I have been very interested in during the making of these videos. The Scottish people are amazing and especially the town of Easdale, the small island that we lived on and filmed. We shot in the winter and it was cold, brutal and endlessly inspiring, which I think really helped the story of Florence’s struggle with her family, the younger innocence vs. the feuding violence of the men around her, etc. The end of the video was done in a single take, at the very last seconds of light during a stormy barge ride on a freezing sea. The effort and focus on both the actors and crew was so amazing, Florence delivers one of my favourite moments to date and it’s one of my proudest technical and narrative accomplishments.”
‘Queen of Peace’, the latest single from Florence and The Machine’s ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ album, is out now.
