Queen Mary I of England
Mary Tudor, History of England, Catholic Heritage
Last year (2016) saw the release of our film 'Mary Tudor - The Catholic Queen' on DVD.
The film is a historical, biographical journey with Queen Mary I of England told in her own words.
Film Production
We had wanted to have a film about Queen Mary Tudor in our collection since we founded Mary's Dowry Productions. She was the last Catholic Queen of England and remains the most maligned. It was a heavy task to research and write the narrative. While we did not want to be too biased we wanted to provide a film that is Queen Mary friendly because there is a lot of Queen Mary unfriendly out there. Interestingly, the actual historical documents, facts and information are all Queen Mary friendly, it is pretty much the interpretation and presentation of Queen Mary since the Reformation that has always taken a specific tone. So the first step in our production was to work very carefully on the facts, details and information in history and write our narrative presentation.
Next step was to find locations for our visuals, as well as the image that we wanted Queen Mary to have on screen.
FIRE!
Obviously we were going to include Queen Mary's most famous association with 'burning heretics' and that is how we open our film. For the imagery we drew upon footage we had captured while on location in Gosport in 2009 at the Living History Village. We open up the film with the Revival of the Heresy Acts, a fascinating part of England's history that goes back to 1382 and places Tudor governmental sentencing within the correct and whole historical context. The narration opens over the sound of the crackling of fire and the visual of the official written text of the 'Revival of the Heresy Acts' document of November 1554 - this is a very fascinating look at history linked to Queen Mary I.
BEDHAM RUINS
We had to present our own visuals of Queen Mary I to run throughout the film, so we decided to film outside and chose two locations local to us. The first was in the ruins of a missionary church and school located in a forest in Bedham near Petworth. We liked the idea of having the form of Queen Mary Tudor walking through a ruined building. The structure is very atmospheric and seemed to capture history. We spent a couple of hours in the eerie silence acquiring footage of Queen Mary I for specific segments of her biography.
BEGINNINGS
After the opening of the film with the Revival of the Heresy Acts, we go back to the very beginning of Mary Tudor's life, to her birth. In the context of history this is very fascinating and often moving and tragic. We made good use of portraits and paintings of the Princess Mary, following her through her infant and childhood years to specific events and circumstances in the life of her father, King Henry VIII, that shaped history and Princess Mary's life and future reign.
Of particular interest to us in Mary's private life was Mary's love of music and reading and later, when she sent cucumbers from her own garden to the pregnant Jane Seymour, showing her human and personal qualities and interests.
RACTON RUINS
For additional visuals we travelled to Racton Ruins outside of Chichester. This was a very eerie place with some beautiful views. We wanted Queen Mary I to have a structure behind her and this worked very well in the background. The various images and locations are interspersed throughout the film and give an overall effective presentation of Queen Mary I as a person, a living form, that we were able to run beneath the narrative of her life and reign.
FINISHING TOUCHES
To complete a film by Mary's Dowry Productions, the final edit is given colour effects and any special effects required. It is then sent as an AVI file over to our composer, Bernadette. Bernadette has her own music blog where she often writes about her inspirations and experience writing each film score. It can be visited here:
This is the most important finishing touch because the original music score flows alongside the narrative and visuals to complete our unique filmmaking style. In the music for our film about Queen Mary Tudor, Bernadette used a lot of Gregorian Monks in the segments about the Church in England, the dismantling of Catholic culture and the Mass. This is beautifully effective and spiritual.
Overall, the music score for 'Queen Mary I of England' draws the viewer and listener into the journey of the Queen, with special touches of instruments from the Tudor Era fused with several modern instruments. Some of the instruments used in our film score include:
STRINGS
EARLY RENAISSANCE HARP
LUTE
NYLON GUITAR
TRADITIONAL WOODEN FLUTE
SHEVANNAI
CANTUS
TENOR VIOLA DA GAMBA
ALTO RECORDER
SMALL PSALTRY
CONCLUSION
'Queen Mary I of England' by Mary's Dowry Productions was a journey through faith and history in England for ourselves too and one that we are now pleased to have available on DVD worldwide. Having wanted to present her life and reign for so many years, we are pleased to be able to offer another source for anyone interested in the life of the daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine of Aragon. It is a film that delves into the history of England and England's Catholic heritage.
Our film runs for 55 minutes and very carefully and thoroughly presents the life, reign and death of Queen Mary I of England with our trademark style and approach.
We are pleased to be able to offer this DVD worldwide in all region formats in our online shop which can be viewed by following the link below.
Coming soon from
Mary's Dowry Productions
to DVD
'Queen Katherine of Aragon'
No comments:
Post a Comment