10 August 2008

Merlin and the War of the Dragons (Starring Jurgen Prochnow)

The Institution LLC part of Asylum Films from Los Angeles decided that locations in Snowdonia were ideal for their low budget feature length film “Merlin and the War of the Dragons”.  For the past few weeks they have been filming at different locations in the North West Wales area – Beaumaris and Dolbadarn Castle, Dinorwig Quarry, Snowdon, Gwydir Forest and Castle, Llanfair Cavern etc. They also spent three days in Usk filming a few scenes.

The film has already been pre-sold as a DVD and will be available at Blockbuster Video stores as from the end of November.  They are also hoping to sell it to television.

The main actor was Jurgen Prochnow who has starred in many Hollywood movies to include Das Boot (his most famous), Judge Dredd, De Vinci Codes to name just a couple – over a hundred films in all.

Line Producer Anthony Fankhauser and Director Mark Atkins asked Helen from the Clic Agency  to cast the remainder of the actors.  Even though Helen advertised the character breakdowns on casting websites and actors from London, Manchester and all over the UK attended the auditions, Mark opted to use local talent from North and South Wales.

The lead part of Merlin went to local actor Simon Lloyd Roberts from Waunfawr.  He was in quite a few scenes with Jurgen who played “the Mage”.  Joseph Stacey from Dwygyfylchi was Vendiger, King Vortigen was Hefin Wyn who most people will remember as “Ian Flash” from Tipyn o Stad.   William Huw from Denbigh played the part of Torm,  Iago Mcquire from Anglesey played Hengest and Dennis Carr from Llanberis was his sidekick Kelvern.

Other parts included Carys Eleri and Nia Ann as the ladies of the lake, Dylan Jones as Uther, Iona Thonger as Igraine, Karen Roberts as the Pict Leader, Dylan Thomas as Ambrosius, Gary Toomey  was King Eringar.  Ceri Bostock was Gwyneth and Ena (Ceri’s baby) was baby Merlin. Iago Mcquire also appeared in silhouette form as the Demon when the young Merlin was born.   Ceri and him had a right laugh behind the curtain on the four poster bed!!!  Ruthie Gwilym played the midwife, Mark Hayes was Roden and Peter Hind played the part of Arvel.

There were also some horse stunts in the film which were organised by Dylan Jones and his team to include Sonia Bazin and Vince Todd.  Vince also appeared as a background artist together with quite a few others who had a great time dressing up in peasant clothes and pretending to be poor villagers.  The Samhain Welsh Medieval Society were also featured in a few scenes.

Once the casting was in place, Helen was asked to help on the production side as most of her work in London had been as a Producer.  She was so glad that she said yes as she had a fantastic time driving the American crew around the Welsh countryside looking for locations and setting up deals here and there!   She also drove Jurgen back to his hotel a couple of times and found him to be a most pleasant man.  He used to chat about his family back in the States and was also interested in knowing more about local topics here in Wales.  He told Helen that he filmed in Dinorwig Quarry years and years ago in “the Keep” and thought the countryside was beautiful.  He made a point of commenting on Simon’s performance as Merlin and reckoned that he had real potential to go far as an actor.  Another actor that he applauded was Gary Toomey as King Eringar.

Other local crew working on the film were Jan Marshall who was costume designer/wardrobe mistress and much more.  She worked so hard until the early hours to get the costumes ready for the next day’s filming – and those days usually started at 07.00.   Annie Maycox stepped in at the last minute to do the make up, Terry Jackson and Dewi Williams did all the driving and what a lot there was!!  Richard Hopkins from Bethesda was the runner for the film.   A lovely girl from  London – Melanie Light – was the Art Director and what a good job she did!!  The rest of the crew were from California.

The famous “Excalibur” was loaned to the film by Magnus Sigurdsson who has supplied most of the swords for very large blockbusters to include Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill etc etc.

Anthony Fankhauser told Helen that the help he had received from Arwyn Williams at the North Wales Film Office had been tremendous. He said Arwyn had gone out of his way to help them out.

Busy, busy times but wonderful and unforgettable friends made.  Let’s hope they come back soon with a much bigger budget.