According to this Battle Diary, the Saxons will be invading, Taliesin will be explaining to his father Elphin that “they” (whoever they may be) have weapons far beyond what they’ve ever seen, and Myles Clohessey playing Uther looks like a massive warrior! Some major battle sequences will be happening here! Just watch!
I’ve expressed in the past my concerns that this directorial team in Boreing and Whitaker have little action experience, but as you can see in the BTS videos, it is Dallas Sonnier who is an oft present figure on set for these action sequences. If you’ve known his work, you can be confident that he has substantial experience with action, not only in DW’s Terror on the Prairie, but also in his Cinestate film work that used to be a Dallas fixture, making numerous indie action & horror films in Texas back in the day. These include films such as: Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete, and Showdown at Sparrow Creek.
Concerns abated!
In fact, these sets and the experts working them look to be top notch. I haven’t seen horse wire-work yet, but that is substantially difficult work from the little I know. It is a quickly fading art form in film because it is so incredibly difficult to pull off! Pun intended.
Doing the deep dive: Jeremy mentions the Cymry, he mentions the lake that Avallach & Charis call home, and we see confirmation of these locations used on their set/location profile pages. Returning to the first week’s diary video, they show us three locations: Vortigern’s Tower, Maridunum, and St. Joseph’s Shrine. There’s some beautiful shots of that shrine in the first video. But we also get an expansive drone shot of the city-set of what we believe to be Maridunum. Then we get to see the city on street-level. And of course, we get what appears to be a great incidental shot of Brett Cooper as Princess of the Fair Folk, Ganieda, the woman with whom Myrrdin has a love affair.
We can see that the Shrine is something important in Charis’ life, so possibly the Christian faith is shared here. Since I have not read the entire series, all I know of it yet is that it has to do with the Holy Grail, possibly as a secret place to hide it.
Indications from the slate (which states July 9th) seem to show that this was actually filmed 2 months before their announced filming date of September. But as Jeremy indicated, Ryan Whitaker (director of Surprised by Oxford) had been shooting weeks before Jeremy arrived. My guess is that it was during this period (in July and August, before Jeremy arrived) that much of this BTS footage was shot, such as the Shrine shooting day. Official shooting dates often coincide, not with supplemental footage or location shots, but often with the primary moments of acting so that their motivations and interactions are captured by the person who drills into these essential moments which are very important to maintain story continuity. That is likely Jeremy’s job on this sharing of directorial duties. Of course this is speculation on my part. These stunt action sequences with Dallas Sonnier were likely shot then as well.
With my concerns of action sequences abated, my only concern remains… the “girl-boss” trope that we find in the Disney films. If The Daily Wire truly seeks to upend Disney’s corrupted woke perspective of storytelling, as DW seems to want to do with BentKey, they must make an end to the girl-boss trope. I haven’t seen this happen yet, even though Terror on the Prairie mildly points in this direction. A stronger line in the sand must be drawn at some point, between the hero girls we want to see and the unrealistic girl-bosses, as this place too high a standard upon our girls, giving them a bad example. As the non-woke “One Piece” has shown us, a reflection of the true world and its relationships is more inspiring and powerful. As the girl character proclaims that one day her practice buddy, a boy, will one day surpass her in strength, speed, and agility as he grows up. You can see this here. He MUST surpass her in order to compete with other men to maintain his advantage and protect the family he will one day cherish.
The truth is, just as the older generation told their kids (our generation) that we could do “anything” we wished in our careers, and especially that girls could, so we must finally respond to this as adults with a more grounded level of thinking. We cannot do as we wish, this being the more humble heart of conservatism. We gain purpose in finding our true grounding and our true place, a place where God expects us to be, and in accepting our lot in life, which is where society expects us to be. There are limits after all. We must, then, come back down to earth. To the place that is relatable. To the place where we all live. The place where we can all be happy if we are thankful for what God has given us.
Having read some of the books, I do think that it has enough realism and is grounded enough to not disappoint. And considering BentKey, which has an ethic of trustworthiness and innocence, I think we are in good hands. My kids have already been enjoying it!
Now time to finish the books!!
Did you enjoy this new installment of The Pendragon Cycle Production Diary? What kind of storytelling do you think DW will give us? Is this looking as epic to you as it does to me? Let us know in our social media, or comment down below (with subscription).
