To have access to this coveted 1953 Ferrari was a great opportunity, but
it demanded scouting for a location that was its aesthetic equal. The
more grand the ambitions with a ‘tableaux’, the more vulnerable each of
the constituent parts are to a sense of dragging the end photograph
lower. Location scouting is an integral part of our working year, as
storytelling rarely blossoms in a contextual vacuum. The idea of using
tall snow berms to frame the Ferrari and then offering a period James
Bond type narrative, was not a new addition to our conceptual idea
factory. It had been knocking around the edges for some time, but we
simply did not know exactly where to find narrow roads shouldered by
walls of snow 10 foot high. Weather patterns do not give the filmmaker
the luxury of forward planning in something so specific and we need to
plan well in advance. What we did know is that these visuals tend to
occur towards the end of the ski season at high altitude in both Europe
and America. It is uneconomic to snowplough small private roads with
further winter storms around the corner, but equally, as soon the spring
thaw accelerates, the snow berms on ploughed roads lose their height
and grandeur. There was some precision required on timing and my
intuition suggested that this was a shot for the third week of April,
whether the location was in the Alps, the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada
Mountain range. We knew we would be filming in America after Easter and
our research concluded that the ski area that tends to have the most
amount of spring snow in the US is the Sierras. Historically the
mountains above Lake Tahoe get dumped on in March and the snow above
7000 ft can still be very deep in mid-April. To shoot in California
rather than Colorado was a big call, but we felt it gave us the best
chance and the best access. The snow season runs late in Lake Tahoe. Our
team based themselves out of the old railroad town of Truckee,
California and with the help of some properly informed mountain men, we
found our precise location and went to work. When I arrived on set, it
was one of the few times in the last few years when I have been visually
arrested by what was in front of me. This was an exceptional setting
and an entirely secret one too. Our timing and our planning was on the
money. I would like to thank Brooks Nader for being such an excellent
1950s girl and Chip Connor for lending me his prized 250 MM, Ferrari.
Meanwhile, locals Stefan Moore and Troy Caldwell were rock stars making
the berms high and safe. Every constituent part of this image was first
class and in reality, I had the easy job.