In this year of extraordinary events there was a week in late March of unseasonal glorious sunshine, when we basked in its early arrival and dreamed we might be set fair for summer.
That week, an extraordinary – surreal, even – event happened at Buckingham Palace when Her Majesty The Queen made herself available for a few short hours to appear in a film sequence alongside another British icon, James Bond, 007.
Although not a drama in the conventional sense, “Happy and Glorious”, as conceived by Danny Boyle, has a gentle narrative which sets up the Queen’s arrival at the stadium for the opening ceremony.
Her Majesty, Daniel Craig, our Brazilian schoolchildren (a nod to four years hence of course) and the corgis all played their parts impeccably and none of it would have happened without the extraordinary and tenacious Tracey Seaward who somehow fitted in co-executive producing these two films with her day job of producing the entire ceremony.
That was the very first element shot of two films – “Happy and Glorious” and “Isles of Wonder” which opens the entire worldwide coverage – that BBC Drama Production have contributed to the ceremony and which started with a brief phone call back in February.
Two short films for the Olympics? Directed by Danny Boyle? Sure, that didn’t appear too tall an order and in fact sounded something of an alluring prospect. How difficult could it be?
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Source: BBC