On the Same Earth | Sam Cox dives into history and finds magic

Meticulous research mingles with magic in On the Same Earth from writer director Sam Cox.

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Inspired by shows like Merlin, Harry Potter, The Last Kingdom, The King and Vikings, Sam has also drawn on his experience of other shorts to create an inspirational step into a past world.

It’s easier to do history

“It’s easier to do history,” says Sam, “because you usually have the information. If you want to make something in the future, you don’t know what costumes are going to look like, you don’t know what buildings are going to look like, you don’t know the tech, and there’s a lot more CGI involved. With the past, there isn’t any of that, generally, unless you have a film set of a town or city in the Roman Age.”

Sam has dived into an age after the Romans left and before the Vikings came along. “Trying to bring to light that era, and the fact that lots of Anglo-Saxons moved over who had a whole different culture. And then there’s no definitive answer on if they started invading and taking over, or if they just might have mingled and migrated and merged with communities.”

A mystical land

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Plus there’s a big chunk of fantasy, which is drawn from history, too. The Romans believed Britain was a land of magical creatures and this was a mystical land, says Sam.

“I wanted to add the remnants of that in this film, because when Romans moved in, they didn’t take over every single individual settlement – especially in Devon. In Devon and Cornwall, there would have been Romans, but there would be communities which would have just kept on running the way they would have before Romans existed. And to have that magical element was cool to show part of this mystical culture and the era… but also just to have this fantasy element,” he admits.

Shared living

That mystical element is what brings the two characters together. You could almost say the dragon egg is a symbol of the shared part of living on the same earth between the different cultures.

On the Same Earth follows Eadlin (Rosemary Blaker), a Saxon settler, who is injured after trying to break a mysterious dragon egg. Leir (Toby McLellan) is a displaced post Roman Celt wanting to protect the egg. Switching between modern English, Cornish and Old English they try to communicate and accept each other.

Locations, costumes, and language

Taking on history, with all those extra elements, was an ambitious undertaking, with plenty of research into locations, costumes, and language.

“In the story, when the character has a bag, and they’re carrying all their travel items, you have to figure out what those travel items are,” says Sam. “And then figure out the rest of the story.”

To keep things authentic, they filmed at an archeological roundhouse site in Cornwall and in a woods in Devon, but they still had to ensure the fences, tree planting and other modern-world giveaways weren’t included. And being remote meant logistics for the small production was more of a challenge.

“Finding out where you can get the food for those locations on the day, or if you have to bring it with you. And there’s lots of walking, with lots of kit. That’s one of the challenging parts,” says Sam.

Time

The time was also against them. The film is set in autumn so couldn’t leave it much later as the leaves would be off the trees.

Creating the look of having lived in the woods was makeup artist Peyton Fullwood.

“Peyton was there every day,” says Sam.“The makeup she did was great with the authenticity of how they look with the dirt or mud effects. Leir was supposed to be living in the woods for quite a while. And there was a cut effect – she really knows how to do that and make it look real.” Peyton was also helped in repairing the dragon egg.

Flouting convention

Sam likes exploring themes that you wouldn’t think of normally. With his short film Wish, he combined sci-fi with historical realism. His vampire film – A Vampire’s Reflection went against horror convention. And On the Same Earth shows balance and confusion as different languages and cultures come across each other, without making either too dominant in the story.

“Probably the biggest challenge was to get everything as accurate as you can,” says Sam, as he talks about the costumes, and brooches in particular. “Brooches, you have to get the right ones: some, only males wore. And some were used between different cultures, some were not. That research is really hard, and you’ve gotta really go into it. It was great to exchange knowledge with Rosie on the costumes as she already knows so much about it.”

Research

To help them deal with the language, they had Mark Elton as Cornish language correspondent. And Cornwall Council also helped with translations. But there wasn’t much information for the Germanic language, because it’s so old, says Sam. “That’s the difficult side of research.”

But there were plenty of joys.

“One of the main things was going in the roundhouse, because it’s like you’re on a film set, rather than just filming in the woods. And seeing the actors in their costumes – seeing all that come together for the film, that’s really special.”

Sam also developed the storytelling through the use of the camera and had steadicam advice from Garry Jenkins. “It was really good to get that experience, get his knowledge, and then have him on the set as well.”

The camera moves also help tell the story from these two perspectives.

“We’re using it to actually showcase the relationships between characters while creating this smooth magical feel” says Sam.

Proof of concept

There are plans for On the Same Earth to be developed into a short online series or even a feature.

“We can use this as a proof of concept, almost like a scene from the film, to show what it could be like,” says Sam. “This part of the film shows that first interaction between the characters with cultures and language.”

Running through Sam’s description of making On the Same Earth is the sense of community, of all the actors and crew working together to bridge gaps, support each other and tell the story of culture coming together. Maybe that’s where the real magic sits.

On the Same Earth is an Exeter Phoenix commission, and premieres at Two Short Nights film festival on Friday 6 March.