When DP Yorick Le Saux first read Steve McQueen’s script for Apple’s Blitz, which follows a boy (newcomer Elliott Heffernan) as he seeks to reunite with his mother (Saoirse Ronan) amid Germany’s bombing of London in 1940, a climactic scene set in the Underground transit system stopped him in his tracks. Heffernan’s George takes shelter in a Tube station with hundreds of other Londoners when rushing water breaks through the station’s walls.
“How are we going to do that?” the DP recalls asking McQueen, adding that the water needed for the sequence, and the visual effects required, might render terribly onscreen. Alongside production designer Adam Stockhausen, Le Saux wanted to maximize the reality on set for better-looking visuals and Heffernan’s benefit. “We have a kid who has never acted before,” says Le Saux. “He’s not able to play surrounded by a greenscreen. We need for him to have a real environment.”
Filming the sequence took about a week on a massive subway platform set, and the process was much more efficient than Le Saux expected. He says his biggest challenge was implementing McQueen’s last-minute ideas. “At one point, Steve said to me, ‘Let’s cut the lights.’ I said, ‘We won’t see anything!’ ” Le Saux recalls with a laugh. “It was great to [see him] pushing for things that weren’t the easy way.”
This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.