A Matter of Life and Death (film) - Production

Production

A Matter of Life and Death was filmed at D&P Studios and Denham Studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, and on locations in Devon and Surrey. The beach scene was shot at Saunton Sands in Devon, and the village seen in the camera obscura was Shere in Surrey. Production took place from 2 September to 2 December 1945, used twenty-nine sets, and cost an estimated £320,000.

The film had an extensive pre-production period due to the complexity of the production:

The huge escalator linking this world with the other, called "Operation Ethel" by the firm of engineers who constructed it under the aegis of the London Passenger Transport Board, took three months to make and cost £3,000 (£92,245 in 2012 pounds). "Ethel" had 106 steps, each 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, and was driven by a 12 h.p. engine. The full shot was completed by hanging miniatures. The noise of the machinery prevented recording the soundtrack live — all scenes with the escalator were dubbed in post-production.

There was a nine-month wait for film stock and Technicolor cameras because they were being used by the US Army to make training films.

The decision to film the scenes of the "other world" in black and white added to the complications. Where they merge from black and white to colour, they were filmed in Technicolor, but the colour was not fully developed, giving a pearly hue to the black and white shots. (Breaking the fourth wall, Conductor 71 remarks during an early transition, "One is starved for Technicolor up there.")

Other sequences also presented challenges, such as the stopped-action table-tennis game for which Hunter and Livesey were trained by champions Alan Brooke and Viktor Barna; the scene where Carter washes up on the beach, the first scene filmed, where cinematographer Jack Cardiff fogged up the camera lens with his breath to create the look he wanted; and the long, 25-minute trial sequence, which required a set with a 350-foot (110 m) long by 40-foot (12 m) high backcloth.