Interesting "The White Queen" production facts
250 sets in 120 days including: every season, three weddings, two coronations and 12 state banquets. Horses, carriages, swords, daggers, shields and spears, boats, beds, dogs, dungeons, castles, palaces, parliament, battles - it was all there.
Production made sure that in episode one, Grafton Manor looked home spun and simple, so when the series arrives at court the audience is suddenly aware of richness and power.
Nic Ede (Costume Designer) dressed the men in tight padded trousers, not tights as “these days tights are associated with Robin Hood movies and bad jokes.” They wanted the men to be masculine and did not want their clothes to be distracting.
Whilst filming in an around Bruges production were able to shoot in some exact locations that historically the characters had visited 500 years earlier. When Edward IV fled from England to Flanders during the War of the Roses he attended mass at the medieval cathedral in the heart of Bruges. Also King Edward’s sister Margaret stayed overnight in a house in the village of Damme, on her way to be married to Charles of Burgundy, which production used as Margaret Beaufort and Thomas Stanley’s country home.
Elizabeth Woodville’s (Rebecca Ferguson) hair was the longest real hair wig that Ray Marston Wig Studio had ever made. In medieval times no one cut their hair, so finding a real hair wig that long was quite the challenge.
Costume designer Nic Ede’s most memorable costume was Elizabeth’s coronation gown. The thrill of finding the gold crochet fabric destined for such a costume and seeing the team at Angels cut it, stitch hundreds of pearls and make it into the Byzantium confection that it was – and with Rebecca’s poise and beauty it was a gown that would be magical.
To make the actors age the make-up and hair is ‘dulled’ down to make their faces look almost tired on camera - rather than what is usually applied to ‘brighten’ faces for TV.
Production used an old abbey in Gent for a number of locations. One of scenes shot was when Richard (later Richard III) asked for Anne's hand in marriage. During the filming, a local, said that one of Richard and Anne's children was actually born in the abbey. It was an extraordinary coincidence and after a bit of research, production discovered that Richard spent time in exile in the area so, it could possibly be true!
Production Designer Martyn John’s highlight was designing and building the Palace of Westminster – when do you ever get to design a palace?!
To celebrate Edward’s 15 years on the throne there was a masque ball. It was a winter solstice party and would have taken place in the forest. But as it was the middle of February production weren’t able to film it in a forest at night. So Martyn John (Production Designer) created a forest inside the set of the Palace of Westminster. He dressed the set using 200 coppiced silver birch trees from local foresters (having just been felled and were supplied totally free). A frozen river was created down the central corridor and the floor dressed with 24 x 1 tonne bags of dried leaves. The production made it snow - it was total magic.
Executive Producer John Griffin said that on a trip to Bruges it was essential to come back to London with chocolate for colleagues at Company Pictures! But don’t bring fabulous Belgium cheese back in hot weather. John almost cleared a tube carriage on the circle line coming out of St Pancras International station with a beautiful soft Belgian cheese that had almost exploded in the heat. He sat there with his head down pretending he couldn’t smell the rancid odour coming from his bag!
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