Liverpool has ancient looking streets and houses. And it’s cheap when it comes to being used by film companies wishing to make period dramas. So, it gets used a lot.
The cobbled streets have a bit of dirt poured over the top to carefully hide the modern day road markings, and in come the horse drawn vehicles. And all the extras who stand around wearing old fashioned clothes. In fact, as near as possible, everybody and everything looks just as we imagine it might have looked back in the good old Sherlock Holmes type days.
Except for the bits that don’t look like they used to. These get covered by green sheeting. In the edit, these green bits are ‘keyed’ over with whatever is required to appear to be there instead of, well, a green sheet. This is the wonder of CGI at work.
But, why isn’t the whole sequence CGI? What is the point of closing off a real street and getting people to stand around in the cold for hours and hours? Then you’ve got issues with keeping real modern day sounds and odd lighting away from the recording. And the pesky onlookers.
Surely the whole thing would be better recorded on a proper sound stage and the entire background keyed on afterwards?
I mean, no need for the buses, coaches, trailers, and food wagons. No location payments. No messy hotel bills. Everything where it should be in a single location alongside the interior sets. Yeah, far less messy and much more like reality than reality itself!
Maybe location filming needs to be phased out totally. The future’s in the minds of the creative artists who can do a better job than ‘dressed’ streets. I’m right aren’t I?!
England's England 