Butterflies in Winter
11 May 2009
My novel Lady of the Butterflies opens with the lines 'They say I am mad and it must be true. Look. can't you see? There are butterflies, bright, orange butterflies, even though it's night, even though it's November?' Which is funny, as I was challenged with the task of filming butterflies in winter to promote it!
My publishers said it would be great to have a short promo trailer on youtube and my website, which sounded a great idea. My husband Tim is a video producer and he is also a composer so that meant we could have some clever camerawork and lovely atmospheric music. He also plays in a band with a rocking rector who was happy to give permission for us to film in his lovely old seventeenth century wool church, AND to play the part of the vicar on scrreen! So far so good! Only trouble was, you can't have a trailer about a book about a lepidopterist without featuring any butterflies. Existing footage of them flitting about on flowers was OK, to a point, but what we really needed was some interaction with them.
Thanks to the wonders of Google, I tracked down a company called Gribbly Bugs who supply butterflles for release at weddings. Obviously they had the same seasonal issues, but had some red admirals and painted ladies living in a heated barn and very kindly dispatched them to me. They performed beautifully, bless them, sitting on my hands and fluttering about by our own rather picturesque mullion windows. The best thing was, since it was way too cold to set them free, we got to keep them as house pets, feeding them sugar solutions and pieces of fruit until they died a peaceful death. I felt like a 'lady of the butterflies' myself.
And we had great fun shooting the rest of the movie too. The owner of Eleanor Glanville's real manor house on the Somerset Levels gave us permission to film in the house and on the land, and in a real Hitchcock moment, I got to star...in my wedding dress. (I have always had a thing about period costumes, fortunately, and since I married on Christmas Eve, I chose a midnight blue gown rather than white, which came in very usesful.
You can view the results on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhCa5lKpwic
And at www.fionamountain.com.
Hope you enjoy it!
Xx Fiona
Have your say