When director of photography Yorick Le Saux first read Steve McQueen’s script for Apple BlitzkriegThe show tells the story of a boy (newcomer Elliot Heffernan) trying to reunite with his mother (Saoirse Ronan) during the German bombing of London in 1940, but the climactic scene takes place in the subway system But it made him stop. Heffernan’s character, George, takes refuge in a Tube station with hundreds of other Londoners as surging water breaches its walls.
“What are we going to do?” the DP recalled asking McQueen, adding that the water required for the sequence and the visual effects required would have looked very bad on screen. Saux, along with production designer Adam Stockhausen, wanted to maximize the realism on the set for better-looking visuals and benefit Heffernan. “We had a kid who had never acted before,” Saux said. “He can’t play with a green screen. We need to give him a real environment.
Filming the scene on a giant subway platform took about a week, and the whole process was much more efficient than Blackmail expected. He said his biggest challenge was executing McQueen’s last-minute ideas. “At one point, Steve said to me, ‘Let’s turn out the lights.’ “I said, ‘We can’t see anything!'” Le Saux recalled with a laugh. “It was a pleasure. [see him] It’s not easy to push something.
This story first appeared in the November issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
