Peter Weir did more than just read Patrick O'Brian's books when he began pre-production on his seagoing adventure film, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World." For more practical advice, the Australian director turned to several crew members of the Emmy Award-winning A&E cable series "Horatio Hornblower."
And for good reason.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday December 03, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Actor's name -- In Tuesday's Calendar, the caption accompanying a photo of two military officers in a story about the TV movie "Horatio Hornblower" misidentified actor Paul McGann as Ioan Gruffudd and said he was portraying Hornblower. McGann plays Lt. Bush in the drama.
Over the last six years, A&E and its British partner, Granada, have produced eight two-hour movies based on C.S. Forester's popular novels about a young, brave English seaman (played by Ioan Gruffudd) who comes into his own during the Napoleonic Wars. The first series of four adventures won the Emmy for outstanding miniseries in 1999; the second series received seven nominations in 2001. Hornblower's latest tour of duty airs tonight and Wednesday on A&E with the movies "Loyalty" and "Duty" based on stories from the third "Hornblower" novel, "Horatio and the Hotspur."
In these two episodes, the former wet-behind-the-ears midshipman not only is given command of a ship, he also gets married, faces death and defends the Crown against Napoleon's crafty forces.
"Hornblower" also is riding the wave of popularity of "Master and Commander" as well as Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," which arrives on DVD and videocassette today as well.
Andrew Grieve, who has directed all of the A&E movies, says the success and efficiency of the "Hornblower" films gave other producers the confidence to tackle projects set on water, which always is treacherous.
"Traditionally, people have been shy of them because they are difficult and can go wrong very easily and go over budget," Grieve said. "There have been some disasters. Peter Weir did talk to the principal people on the crew I use before we started.... The feature film is obviously different from television in that they have a lot more money and time, but I think basically the problems are the same -- how to film at sea without really going to sea."
The "Hornblower" production set sail for just two weeks of its 12-week schedule. After all, the producers and A&E had only a fraction of the $100-million-plus budget "Master and Commander" had.
"We filmed this in the U.K. in Cornwall and Devon," Grieve said. "We also had a set, believe it or not, that was built in the middle of an airfield in Oxfordshire right in the middle of England. But you do have to go to sea a bit, so we [rented] a frigate. Then you have models and you have sets, and the job of the director and the production designers is to make sure it looks like one vessel. I think we do that pretty successfully."
