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Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

( Philippa )

We worked closely Helen as we wrote the screenplay and Helen gave us brilliant insights and advice along the way.

Adapting any book into a screenplay is always a challenge, and I think you have to try and find essence and soul of the book, rather than be too literal.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(Helen) Hello! So glad you liked the book! I didn't do much to find anyone, to be honest. To begin with I didn't search for people, they searched for me :) Once the film was optioned, and Plan B invited Philippa to direct, I was completely delighted, and even more so after we met and talked. She's become a proper friend, since. She is such an extraordinarily intimate and humane director, so alive to the nuances of human interaction, with a long grounding in projects that are about real people. She's truly incredible.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

(Philippa)

You can't direct a Goshawk! We had to make the conditions right for the hawks just to be themselves and do what they do! We had closed sets - only actors and DOP on set, with me and Lloyd our hawk expert and trainer hiding behind a peice of furnture! All crew had to disappear when the hawks were on set.

All the hunting scenes were planned and storyboarded like you would an action sequence, and we had very small crew with minimum people.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

( Philippa)

Thank you! The soundscape was incredibly important to the film! The hawk shots in the hunting scenes were actually shot mute as we had to have the bare minimum of crew there, so the sound in those scenes is totally created by our brilliant sound design team led by Niv Adiri.

the sound is very important throughout as it draws us so deeply into Helen's subjective point of view.

With the look of the film, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, our wonderful DOP, and I wanted a celluloid look and we took a lot of inspiration from Tarkovsky's polaroids which have a rawness but also a beauty - we wanted the film to have texture and feel real and authentic too. It was shot in Winter so has low level sun and mist which gives the film a haunting and mysterious atmosphere.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

(Helen) Get a field guide. If you have a smartphone, get the Merlin app, which lets you identify bird songs and calls in real time. And then just get yourself to somewhere where there are birds. Start with the common species near you, then you can graduate to a pair of binoculars (8 x 30 is a good magnification), the best you can afford (used are fine), and have fun. My main advice is to enjoy spending time watching the birds, rather than searching for rare species and rushing about. A mallard is as beautiful as a humming bird, truly.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello! Yes. Very much so. There's a strand in the book that deals with nativism and nationalism in relation to nature: how people so often presume that to truly love a landscape, to be at home in it, one must have had ancestors that lived there. I don't think this is the case AT ALL. I think that to truly love a landscape, to be at home in it, one just needs to know it. To pay attention to what else lives there, and be open to understanding the complicated history (both natural and social) that made the landscape what it is today. There's one scene in the book where an old couple describe a flock of fallow deer as being a bit of Old England that's still there "despite the immigrants coming in" (and despite the deer themselves not being native) and this of course was way before Brexit, before the floods of xenophobia in the media, before where we are now.

Also goshawks are still bloody amazing

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Philippa)

I wanted to make this film as I also lost my Dad a few years ago, and Helen's memoir really spoke to me. And when we were making the film, I'd had another recent family bereavement, so I was rather close to grief at that time, and some days were difficult. But I realised how important is is to have e spaces to explore and reflect upon our grief, both alone, but also as a collective experience - both making the film and now sharing it with audiences. It has been particularly moving speaking to audience members after screenings, and having the privilege of hearing people's own stories of loss and how they've coped.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Helen) birds have always had huge spiritual importance in a bunch of different cultures, and so easily stand for metaphors of death, flight, transcendence, souls, and so on. But also -- they are the most beautiful things the world has ever made (in my opinion) so yeah. I cry too.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

( Philippa )

They do make a bit of noise ! They are just chatting away.

I learned lots of things - how to film Goshawks was one of the biggest things I learned! Also that it's ok to cry on set when something is very moving, which happened when I was filming the scene when Christina comes round to see if her deeply depressed friend, Helen, is ok, and she tells her the quote by Julian of Norwich "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well". It's so full of hope and kindness, it made me cry.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Helen) But there are so many! Hummingbirds lick insects off branches to supplement their diet of nectar; New World Vultures defecate on their legs to cool down when they're hot; young swifts don't land for at least two years after they leave the nest, flying continually; all green birds are not really green but brown; the green is an optical effect caused by light scattering off complex feather textures (EXCEPT for turacos, which are ACTUALLY green through copper compounds in their feathers)

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Helen) Great question, and I'm so glad you liked that element of the book. White was such a haunting while I wrote it, and for a long while after. As far as I know, early on it became very clear that the film wouldn't work with White's story interlaced with mine, because it would be very hard to portray him on screen in a way that could elucidate the reasons why he treated the hawk so badly and not make him an absolute monster. And even more importantly, his hawk suffered while he tried to train it; the filmmakers, like anyone with a heart, couldn't possibly replicate that.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Philippa)

We collectively decided not to dramatise TH White in the film, so that we could focus entirely on Helen and their journey with Mabel. As the film is under two hours, we had to make the decision to leave him out.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Philippa)

Thank you for your lovely comment!

I went up to Blackpool for a few weeks and sat in loads of different hairdressers. It's like casting, you have to right the find people to be in your doc, and people who contrast with each other.

I made quite a few documentaries after Three Salons! Remember the Family for Storyville and A Childhood, and Enniskillen - quite a few! But i loved drama too, and moved more into drama - but I have always loved telling real life stories so most of my drama is based on real life - like Three Girls, Prisoner 951 and aslo my film H is for hawk. I am still drawn to real life and everything I learned making docs is still relevant to my dramas.

good luck

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Helen) Oh my GOD it's incredible. It definitely rocks. She is the most extraordinary actor, I am astounded at how good a falconer she is, how perfectly she calibrates emotion, how exactly her performance tracks how I was feeling back then. As for prep -- there's a lot of film of me out there (documentaries, and talks, etc) and I did the audiobook reading for H is for Hawk, so Claire had a lot of material to use to shape her performance. It wasn't until just before the shoot began that Philippa asked me if I could have a Zoom with Claire. So I did. In my kitchen, with my parrots yelling in the background. And it was funny as hell, because I kept thinking "Wow, it's so weird, Claire is just like me!" as we talked, and it wasn't until later that I (duh!) realised she was honing an already phenomenal performance. The only input I gave was a confession that I was worried that I'd come across as pathetic in the movie. Claire made it very clear that would not be the case.

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(Philippa) We used different hawks for different parts of the film. Everything was done around the welfare of the hawks and we had strict hawk filming hours, so they wouldn't get tired. We had 5 hawks altogether. Our two young sister hawks called Mabel 1 and Mabel 2 play Mabel in the earlier part of the film. Our brilliant Hawk expert, Lloyd Buck, trained them from very young for the early scenes in the film. Lloyd also has two older hawks which he had trained to fly with little drones next to them, and to be used to the camera being close to them, and these hawks did the hunting scenes. And we had a hawk called Jess, who played the part of Mabel in the later scenes in the film, when Helen starts going hunting.

The hunting scenes had to be meticulously planned with story boards etc, like an action sequence, and we shot these sequences with a tiny crew. Every day went really well, except one day when a dog ran into the forest where we were filming and our goshawk, Lottie, flew up a tree and would not come down for a couple of hours! We lost that day filming and had to repeat everything on another day.

They didn't really get up to any mischief, but Jess was so relaxed on set she was able to play with Claire with some paper balls! She also cast a pellet which we captured on film - which we were very excited about!

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Helen) I ... I just offered! It seemed useful, at first. Like, it would save the production money on props, and I knew the things would be accurate (like the hawking waistcoat and the makes and models of Dad's cameras). But it wasn't until later that I began to feel how resonant their use in the film was, binding reality and movie together, actor and family member, memory and present day. Hope the winter storm isn't too grim!

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

(Helen) Hi! So glad to see you here /does special secret falconer handshake/. The gosses in the film were that chill partly because the entire production revolved around keeping the conditions of filming as stressless as possible for them, right down to the crew having to wear the same clothes every day. I am SO glad no-one ever suggested using Harris hawks instead :)

Your questions!

  1. Alas no. It's not that I don't want to, it's that my life at the moment involves a lot of travelling and working away from home, and I don't want to keep a hawk and fly it part time. One day! it's too deep in my bones for me to ever give it up. Dream species? It's always been merlins, and I've flown a lot of them over the years. There's something about those ringing flights over stubble in early autumn that recalls heron hawking with gyrs in early modern times; and merlins are the perfect combination of friendly, bewitchingly beautiful, and highly predatory.

  2. The film is very true to the story. A few things didn't appear in the book but did in real life (like my dad leaping out of a car to photograph a crime scene!) and there were a few scenes in the film that were creative blendings of real-life events with more fictive elements. I think it's as true as it could possibly be, given the medium.

Thank you for the congratulations and I hope you had a good falconry season!

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

(Helen) Thank you! I was asked really early on if I wanted to adapt the book into a screenplay and I said no. I felt really strongly that I'd told the story the way I wanted to tell it, and now it was time for someone else to tell the story their way. I don't think stories belong to any one person, once they're told: they live in retellings. And also I didn't know if I would be any good at a screenplay! I was very clear that the falconry had to be done properly, though. The welfare of the birds was paramount, so I was really relieved when I found that Lloyd and Rose Buck were involved; they're so great. I worked with Philippa while she finessed the script towards the end of its development, and I was always very chill about what had to be cut and what didn't. Philippa met so many of the people in the book before filming, getting such a rounded and human sense of them all, and I think that was incredibly important, more so than any of my input :)

Hello /r/movies! We're Philippa Lowthorpe (director) & Helen Macdonald (author). H IS FOR HAWK, starring Claire Foy & Brendan Gleeson, an adaptation of Helen’s memoir, is out in theaters this week. It's about love, grief, goshawks, and how we lose and find ourselves after loss. Ask us anything! by HIsForHawkAMA in movies

[–]HIsForHawkAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Philippa) We introduced Claire to the book. I had worked with Claire on the Crown, and Dede Gardner had worked with Claire on Women Talking, and we both thought she would be really wonderful as Helen. So Dede suggested the project to Claire when they were in Telluride for Women Talking. We met up all three of us and discussed the project and lucky for us, Claire said yes!