"Rheged: The Lost Kingdom" - Update | This article first appeared in |
| Written by: Brendan Quale | Issue 60 - March 2000 |
 The lady of the Lake. Still from "Rheged: The Lost Kingdom", supplied by Rheged The Upland Kingdom Discovery Center."The Lost Kingdom" is now called "Rheged: The Lost Kingdom", to reflect the core concept of the film and the theatre project for which it is being made. The word Rheged comes from the Celtic kingdom which once covered large tracts of Northern England from the time of the Romans until after the Saxon invasions. The film deals with the story of its greatest leader, the warrior king Urien, as seen through the eyes of a 20th century American traveler and his interlocutor - a magical gypsy girl he encounters on arrival in Cumbria. 2nd Unit filming was completed in the Autumn and Avid Editing by Merlin's Colin Green finished in December. The first work print was screened recently and the negative cutting is ongoing in Hollywood. Graphic effects by CFC in London and Imagica USA are ongoing and the sound design by Hackenbacker and sound mix is due for completion at Shepperton Studios in February 1999. Andrew Oran, formerly of Imagica USA, and a well-known figure in the Large Format movement joined the Rheged film team in November as Digital Effects Supervisor. The score for the film was composed by Fiachra Trench, known not just for his film and TV scores, but as an arranger for six years with Van Morrison and more recent top ten work with the Corrs. It was performed by the Irish Film Orchestra and Chorus in Dublin at U2's Windmill Lane Studios and features the use of both ancient and modern instrumentation. Film Director, Brendan Quayle said "I wanted a feature film score - along the lines of Trevor Lucas's Oscar nominated "The Last of the Mohicans", and with a sound both Irish - as the best known Celtic music format in the modern world, but avoiding the cliché of Uillean pipes - and Saxon. The order was tall - in short. But Fiachra came up with the goods, blending whistles and horns with full soaring strings, and a song in the Enya style. He even put to music a series of chants I had devised from information available on the 6th century, an Old Welsh Song and an elegy on Urien by the poet Taleisin as a core feature in the film. His achievement is wonderful. I am delighted and looking forward to seeing the music with the pictures on the big screen". | Further in 70mm reading: |
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