Actor's Thoughts On What It Was Like To Work On Within The Shadow Of The Tree

Here Are A Few Thought’s From Actor David Neal On The Role Of Pungin.

The time we have all put into the making of this move has been phenomanal, and it’s really wonderful to have finally completed it.

(if I tell you how long it has been in production you would’nt believe me)

Anyway I’m here to talk about Pungin, who was a lot of fun to play, and as most actors know a film is never shot in order and to atest to this my final shot in the film was shot a few month’s ago where I played the younger version of the character.

Out of all the characters in this film I think Pungins make-up was the most elaborate, it would take about 3 hours just to apply the head and face.

To start with the main part is the high hair, brow and nose, which are glued down, then everything in between is painted in with a liquid latex down to the neck area to give the face texture.

While the latex is wet, the warts are applied, which were played by lentils J

The latex would take around about 45 minutes to totally dry out before the colour was added and the warts highlighted, which would take another hour.

After a short break it was time to start on the legs, arms and hands, warts were glued onto the legs, feet, arms and back of the hands, they were then painted green (obviously) the toenails were painted black then false fingernails were applied, this would take another hour.

When the make-up finally dried it was time to add the false stomach, and the costume.

And if you’re asking if the head was uncomfortable the answer is “YES” especially over the eyes!

That’s all for now, see you all down in the swamp.

Dave

Director Carl B Harrison talks about doing the voice performances for some of the characters.

Well, other than Directing the film I knew I was going to be doing some puppetry on some of the characters, a lot of the time they were being performed by a variety of other puppeteers but on occasions, when I wanted a specific type of performance I would do it myself and that is when I started to get into the voices of each character. I realise at times I could not get the pitch or speed but I knew with just a bit if tweaking and digital enhancement the performance would be what I wanted.

Playing The Small One.

The Small One Voice, I wanted him to be sort of a mixture of ET meets Yoda, with a very big sense of humour. Although the most strenuous performance I did out of all the characters was for the Small One, when The Wise One was dying. I had to get myself into this very emotional state and perform it several times. I knew when I had the take as I could not stop myself crying afterwards and I was mentally drained...I pity actors in soaps who week after week need to perform emotional scenes to that degree, not recommended for your sanity !.

Carl B Harrison Controlling The Small One Puppet

Playing Rawldrol

The hardest vocally must be Rawldrol’s voice, it pushed all my vocal limits and no matter how much tea and honey I took to ease the suffering, my voice was shot for days after that scene. It’s all to do with the way he speaks and the pitch change, you have to breath in at the same time as you say the dialogue and vibrate the back of your throat, this makes it very dry and sore.

Rawldrol is also a very big coward, he looks scary with his big one eye looking at you, but challenge him or shout at him and he’ll back down 99% of the time, so he babbles his words out and stammers and mutterers especially when he is scarred, more so when he is talking to Lord Akrifa.

Playing The Villain Is Fun

The Voice of Lord Akrifa was a lot of fun to do, it is right what they say, villains are lots of fun to play, his voice was altered a small amount but all the shape and emphasis had to go on specific words and movements he made... a lot of fun to play especially when he got angry or he became manic and had to laugh in his sinister and macabre way.

Carl B Harrison Movies

Actress Jennifer Duncan talks about the woodland shoot where she is forced to abandon her child the Small One.

I was thrilled when Carl asked me to be in “Within the Shadow of the Tree”. I had never been in an animation before and thought the experience would be good for me. Little did I know that the one and only scene I would be in was set deep in a forest and that my “Husband” was a cruel and nasty man who had snatched my new born child from me.

The day for the shoot was set. We all turned up at the designated time and place. Carl was there in his usual happy mood. I had not been warned that we would have to scramble our way through the undergrowth to get to the location. Nor was I told that I would be the only female on the shoot (not that that bothered me too much).

Carl gave me the script to read and set about applying my make up. This consisted of thin strands of latex. I was a bit peeved to see that my “husband” had loads of latex and looked really scary, whilst I didn’t look much different. I had been secretly hoping that I would be transformed into some weird and wonderful alien form, but, alas this was not to be.

Jennifer Duncan Movies.

Eventually we got down to the serious business of filming and Carl shouted “ACTION”. The scene was of my “husband” dragging me away from my new born child which involved a lot of screaming and wailing from me. Our location was the middle of a wood in a well known tourist spot. The thing is with filming, you have to keep doing the same scene over and over and over and over again, in order to get every angle and facial expression for the editor. This meant that I had to do a lot of screaming ( I nearly lost my voice by the end) and my “husband” had to do a lot of dragging ( by the time we finished I was black and blue) . You have to suffer for your art, at least, that is what I am told.

Half way through the filming I realised that we could look a bit dodgy, a group of men and a screaming woman and did observe to the others that we could end up with a visit from the police. However, we carried on regardless and needless to say the police did not turn up to check us out. A little worrying really.

I really did enjoy being involved, even in a small way, with Carl’s great epic and I am really pleased that he has, at last, got it finished. Well done to you Carl!

Jennifer Duncan. The Woodland Shoot

Actor - Editor - Animator and Musician John Morris talks about his role in the movie and tells us about his makeup ordeal.

I first met Carl in 1991 when he hired a SVHS editing suite from me. He was cutting some demo scenes for a fantasy film he was making. Being a nosey b I had a look at some of his material and was completely knocked out by his ideas and the quality of the material that he was producing. I was a broadcast film and video editor at the time and Carl's vision and execution far outweighed the vision of any of the experienced film and television directors that I had worked with. I really wanted to get involved in his project.

Early 3D Virtual Model Of Woodscrote, Built & Animated By John.

To cut a long story short, I did get involved. As far as I remember the original intention was for me to act as a kind of post production advisor. I was also to going to produce some 3D computer animation. It was while I was building and animating 3D virtual models of strange creatures called Woodscrotes that Carl came up with the crazy idea of me playing a part in the film. I had done a little acting at film school and also voiced a few lines for a television drama but I was a behind the scenes man - not a performer.

John prepares himself for his head casting ordeal.

Somehow Carl convinced me (he can be very convincing) to take on the part of the main characters evil father. Not really knowing what this would entail I tentatively said yes. What followed was a mixture of nightmare and pleasure.

The nightmare was having a cast made of my face.

The make-up artists needed to make a cast so that they could build some prosthetics that would be applied to my face.

This involved having something like twenty litres of thick pink gunk poured over my face, having two drinking straws shoved up my nostrils so I could breathe and sitting for what seemed like an eternity in a state of complete sensory depravation while the thick pink gunk solidified.

Carl, I don't know if you know this or not but I'm claustrophobic. I never get into an elevator and have panic attacks in tents.

Somehow I managed to stay calm during this whole process, but to this day, I am scarred by this whole experience - if I see anything resembling a bucket of thick pink gunk, I freak, like no-one has ever freaked before.

The pleasurable part was working on the various sets with the crew and the other actors. It was a laugh and we had many adventures, especially on the location shoots. We drove from location to location in an old converted ambulance that had a slight problem with the doors - they kept falling off! At one point a door fell off while we were driving down the motorway. Luckily it happened early on a Saturday morning when the roads were empty so we didn't cause a major accident. We would get lost all the time, Carl has no sense of direction and was the navigator, I have no sense of direction and was the driver - go figure. One day we were stopped by a police car because we were driving on the wrong side of the road, I was extremely confused by directions like "left here, no right, no left, no right" usually given fifty metres after we had passed the junction. In a state of extreme desperation I started to hallucinate, thought I was driving on the continent and veered onto the right hand side of the road. Ten seconds later a blue light started flashing, a siren started wailing and we were pulled over. After talking to us for a few minutes the policeman obviously deduced that we were a bunch of nutters, took pity and waived us on our merry way. Eccentricity has its bonuses.

Yup, there were parts of this shoot were chaos, but every production I've ever been involved with has been chaos. The production of Within the Shadow of the Tree was enjoyable chaos and that is a rare thing. Thanks for the experience Carl.

Link To John's Makeup & Woodland Shoot

PS
I have to mention this, ten or more years after the fact I still remember the production sandwiches - made by Carl's wife Sandra... these sandwiches were delicious and I'm a sandwich connoisseur. Thanks for the sandwiches Sandra.

Left Eye Dominant . John Morris Music