Royal Academy Videos: how we made Mr. Turner

For those planning a viewing of "Mr Turner" over the seasonal break - here's a few links to some very helpful videos, websites and blog posts by the Royal Academy of Arts.  JMW Turner was of course one of their own - and several scenes are set at the RA!

They're highly recommended by me.

see below for more details about this hour long video

What I hadn't realised that the cast had made use of the RA Archive when doing the research for their characters - which is the Mike Leigh way of creating and producing films. This is when there were just 40 Academicians and just 20 Associates - they were a very elite body of men.

• RA Blog - Who’s who in ‘Mr. Turner’? by Annette Wickham - In this blog post she highlights who are the other painters in the film and what their backgrounds are. It's one of the top ten blog posts of 2014.

• Next is an absolutely fascinating and very informative video about the context of the Summer Exhibition at the RA. This video illustrates how how the makers of 'Mr. Turner' recreated the 19th century Royal Academy and the exhibition of 1832. You have the Director, Mike Leigh, and a number of the art historians and people responsible for the set discuss the process in detail. Plus Tim Wright the man who taught Tim Spall to paint and the chap who painted the unfinished paintings!

Behind the scenes: Mr. Turner and the Summer Exhibition from Royal Academy of Arts
(13mins 47 secds) on Vimeo.

• On the website there's also a link to a full length panel discussion (very nearly an hour long) between Timothy Spall (Mr Turner); Mark Stanley; Martin Savage and Dr Jacqueline Riding - the consultant historian and art historian for ‘Mr. Turner'. It's absolutely fascinating in terms of how the film was made.  Things like how Timothy Spall took what was in effect a foundation course in painting over the course of two years BEFORE the film got started - so he would able to paint in a convincing way.

"The film is about people who got on with it" Timothy Spall  

Link: "Mr Turner" - a new film about JMW Turner