The Legend of Beggars Bridge

The Director

Andrew Davies

“I decided to make this film towards the end of 2008. I’d been messing around making short films for a few years, both whilst at university and since leaving. None of them were done too seriously though and I found myself doing just about every role on the production side, so it was never really going to work. However, I did learn a hell of a lot from doing them – the most important being… I love making films!

The story of Beggar’s Bridge is one I’ve been aware of for over 10 years, since I started exploring the North Yorkshire Moors. The idea to turn it into a film was completely Meredith’s (Co-Producer & Production Designer) idea and she must take full credit for that. Whilst she was at university she made a short piece on the story and it was after that that I started thinking about turning it into a short film.

Meredith and I started pre-production in the middle of January 2009 and it soon became an obsession – well, for me anyway! Over the following weeks and months I discovered a whole network of filmmakers in York that I’d previously been unaware of. From this we soon assembled our production team, which was made up of around a 50% split between people who had graduated from TV and film courses at university within the previous three years and of currents students.

The original idea was to use a small crew of around six or seven people and for the film to be no longer than 15 minutes. However, as the weeks rolled on the film began a kind of snowball effect with more and more people wanting to get involved when they read the script and met the team. In total, we’ve had over 20 people involved as crew and many more who have helped with such things as locations and costumes – not to mention the cast and extras! The amount of people involved allowed us to become more ambitious and the duration of the final film is over 25 minutes!

The production stage itself was a mammoth task and has not been without several problems – as you would expect with any project as ambitious as this. The number of filming days doubled from the planned amount, as did the budget. The reasons for this are documented in our ‘Making Of’ video, which is a behind-the-scenes look at the production and is brilliantly presented by my good friend, Pete Marshall.

Now the film is complete I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. Given the fact this was our first project together and the limited experience of the team prior to shooting the film, along with it being produced with no funding, everyone involved should be proud with the result of their efforts.

For me, producing this film on the budget we had was never really an issue. The most important thing from my point of view was that there was a fantastic story to tell and, by whatever means, I was going to tell it. I am very grateful to all the people that have helped make this film a reality, many of whom will hopefully continue to work with Eboracum Pictures on the future productions we have planned.

Finally – all I genuinely hope is that when people watch the film they enjoy the story and that it helps keep this great folktale of a true local legend alive!"

- Andrew Davies, Director