A town at war has been a documentary which has taken 5 years
to complete; it was the directors desire to tell the story of
a typical market town and its surrounding areas during ww2.
Not only was the story of the town and its surrounds important,
but also the people who populated the area were also a key factor,
whether this be on the home front or fighting the war on foreign
battlefields.
It became clear that making a documentary that would cover
the war from it’s beginning in 1939 through to it’s
finish in 1945 was going to be a major undertaking, first the
town and surrounding area had a huge amount of history some
of it already world famous, then there were the people who’s
own story’s were just amazing, ranging from life on the
home front to those who found themselves on foreign battle fields
whether it was at sea on the arctic convoys or in the jungles
of Burma or in the air over occupied Europe
By the time filming had finished the director and camera crew
had amassed some 35 hours of footage this did not include archive
material this was just what had been filmed in interviews or
on location.
The task was now to decide what to keep and what would end
up on the editing room floor, with so much material it was decided
to extend the documentary from one DVD to two DVD’s and
extend the running time from the original two hours to three
hours
After seven edits and some 300 hours of editing the final cut
was achieved, all that remained was to find music for the end
scene which being very special and emotive required a musical
score to match Charles-Henri Avelange a Los Angeles. Based composer
came up with the required score.
Before being released the documentary had a premier screening
in the town of Royston Hertfordshire to an invited audience
of 1000 people, and since release it has received many excellent
testimonials by those who have seen it.
When asked for comment by the media about the documentary the
producers said it had been a privilege to make such a film and
to spend time with a generation of people whose likes we may
never see again.
