SAVANNAH FILM

Summary:

Narrated by a 95-year-old Christmas Moultrie (Ejiofor) as he recalls his friendship long ago with Ward Allen (Caviezel) in Savannah back in the early 20th century. Ward was born into privilege in the mid-1800s but settled for a life of duck hunting, which found him in front of Judge Harden (Holbrook) often. He was also found quite drunk, a point of tension with his wife, Lucy (Alexander) who married him to spite her father (Shepard) who wanted her to marry Sir Graham (McBrayer). Their marriage is later tested by his hard-drinking ways, his devotion to his hunting, and her breakdown after a stillbirth.

Difficult scenes to shoot:

Water. There was a lot of water scenes, from sailing in a small boat on the marshm to a scene when Lucy also had to get in the boat in a trun of the century cream colored linen dress. There was no way to clean all the grease and grim that get's into a boat, and it was raining that day, so you can imagine how mud did not help in this. There was an all night cleaning session to attempt to restore the dress back to it's original shape. With success.

Water. Ward had a scene (spoiler alert) when he is supposed to stand on the edge of the boat and it is implied that he jumps into the water ending his misery. Surprise although my crew was standing by with towels, Jim leapt off the boat into the water. The water was freezing and now his boots as well as all his clothes were soaking wet. We were after much drama able to preopare him for another take, and also were now standing by to help him afte the scene to warm up again. Wow what a day.

Water. There was scene that got cut from the film that had Lucy in her misery sitting out on a rain strom wearing nothing but her night slip. Thjis was filmed at night and it was quite cold. We did everything we could to keep her warm between takes. She was a trouper even though this was a very difficult physical scene to shoot.