Annihilation films the UK as America
Sci-fi movie Annihilation filmed UK locations as the southern US to tell the story of a team of experts investigating a mysterious coastal phenomenon.
Alex Garland’s movie follows the all-female team of experts as they explore an expansive forest setting that has been affected in mysterious ways by an event referred to as the ‘Shimmer’ that may or may not be alien in nature.
Filming took place in the UK partly because London was already a base for Garland and his core creative team.
Some of the movie’s key locations included Windsor Great Park west of London and the former Marsworth RAF base in Buckinghamshire. Holkham Beach in north Norfolk was used for coastal scenes set near a lighthouse setting that appears to be the origin of the Shimmer in the story.
Selected interior settings were built at Pinewood Studios.
The Shimmer has a dramatic impact on flora and fauna in the forest and this element of the story involved considerable planning to get the visuals that Garland was looking for.
“We started scouting in the summer of 2015 for a shoot in the summer of 2016 and stood down partially throughout the intervening winter so that we knew what the principal sets would look like with the plants in full bloom, the grass high and the trees in full leaf,” says Alex Gladstone, the film’s location manager, in comments to The Knowledge.
“It sounds obvious, but it was an incredibly good call by Alex and the producers to factor this in to their planning as we all knew exactly what we would be working with.
“All the locations were worked on by the art department in order to introduce both actual trees, flora and natural features appropriate to the deep south of the US, alongside the imagined elements such as the mutant hybrid flowers and fungi - this was a combination of construction, greens, CGI and props-making.”
Extensive location filming in isolated woodland settings brought with it the usual challenges of protecting the cast and crew from the elements during a wet British summer.
London continues to be one of the world’s top production hubs, with forests and studios within easy reach of the city’s iconic urban locations.
Image: Paramount/Netflix/Peter Mountain
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