The BFG is a 2016 American fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s novel. Ruby Barnhill stars as Sophie, a ten-year-old orphan who is taken from her London orphanage by the Big Friendly Giant, played by Mark Rylance through performance capture. Unlike the other giants, the BFG does not eat children but spends his nights collecting dreams and delivering them to sleeping humans. After discovering that the other giants are planning to hunt children in England, Sophie and the BFG seek the help of the Queen, played by Penelope Wilton. The film also stars Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, Jemaine Clement and Bill Hader, with a screenplay by Melissa Mathison.
The BFG (2016) was filmed primarily in Vancouver, Canada, with additional locations in England and Scotland. Principal photography began on 23 March 2015, with most of the live-action scenes filmed inside a converted warehouse and studio facilities in the Vancouver area. British locations included Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Bamburgh Beach in Northumberland and a section of the A1 near Haddington in Scotland. The Scottish Highlands and islands provided much of the landscape photography used for Giant Country, including the Isle of Skye, the Shiant Isles and the Old Man of Hoy in Orkney. These locations were combined with studio-built environments and digitally created scenery to represent the different worlds of the film.
Most of the scenes set in London were actually filmed in Vancouver, where production designers Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg recreated a fictional version of the British capital. The production constructed an entire cobblestone street lined with old-fashioned shops, gas lamps and brick buildings, including the exterior of Sophie’s orphanage. The street appears during the opening sequence, when Sophie lies awake in her dormitory and looks out of the window during the early hours of the morning. She notices an enormous figure moving through the deserted streets, hiding between buildings and peering into bedroom windows. When the giant realises that Sophie has seen him, he reaches through her window and carries her away. The orphanage exterior, surrounding shops and dormitory interior were all built within the studio complex, rather than filmed in an existing London neighbourhood.
The London street was one of several substantial sets constructed inside the Vancouver warehouse. According to the film’s production notes, the filmmakers deliberately created an old-fashioned environment that could not easily be identified with a particular modern London street. The orphanage dormitory, where Sophie first encounters the BFG, was a separate interior set with beds, tall windows and period furnishings. This allowed the filmmakers to stage the sequence in which the giant reaches into the building while keeping the physical surroundings consistent with the exterior street. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński later explained that he did not photograph any exterior locations during principal photography in Vancouver, with the British landscape material obtained by separate camera units.
The Vancouver production also constructed the BFG’s enormous home in Giant Country. The interior was designed around the difference in scale between Sophie and her twenty-four-foot companion, with oversized furniture, enormous containers of dreams and everyday objects adapted to the giant’s proportions. Much of the action takes place around the giant’s worktable, where he keeps his collection of dreams in glass jars, and in the surrounding rooms where Sophie learns about his unusual life. The production built elements of the cottage at different scales, including a version suitable for Ruby Barnhill and smaller furnished environments for Mark Rylance’s performance. The exterior landscape surrounding the house was created separately, incorporating scenery inspired by the British countryside.
One of the most distinctive British locations is the A1 near Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. A section of the road between Haddington and Gladsmuir was used for the sequence in which the BFG carries Sophie across the countryside during their journey away from London. The film shows the enormous giant travelling through the darkness and leaping across a busy road while vehicles continue along the carriageway below. For the production, the A1 was closed overnight for approximately seven hours, allowing the crew to photograph the road without normal traffic interfering with the sequence. The location was selected for its open surroundings and long stretch of roadway, which could be incorporated into the scene featuring the digitally animated giant. The filming was coordinated with local authorities, and the road closure is documented by Film Edinburgh, the regional film office.
Another identifiable location is Bamburgh Beach on the Northumberland coast, where the production created enormous footprints in the sand below Bamburgh Castle. The sequence shows a series of giant impressions stretching across the beach, providing evidence of the creatures’ presence in Britain. The castle, which stands on a rocky outcrop overlooking the North Sea, is visible above the shoreline. Rather than creating the footprints entirely through digital effects, the crew formed them directly in the sand and poured barrels of water across the impressions to make them appear partially washed away by the tide. The scene uses the real beach and its historic castle as the background, although the footprints were temporary and disappeared after filming.
Bamburgh Castle is a medieval fortress overlooking the village of Bamburgh, with a history stretching back to the early medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Much of its present appearance dates from nineteenth-century restoration work undertaken by the Armstrong family. The castle itself was not transformed into a fictional palace or fortress for The BFG; its main contribution is the recognisable silhouette above the beach. This distinguishes the location from Blenheim Palace, where the historic buildings and gardens were used to represent an important setting in the story.
The Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands provided much of the landscape material used to create Giant Country. The production filmed aerial views of several distinctive locations on the island, including the Quiraing, the Old Man of Storr, the Cuillin mountains and the Faerie Glen. These landscapes appear in digitally altered form during the sequences in which the BFG carries Sophie through his homeland and takes her towards Dream Country to catch dreams. The filmmakers used the natural mountains, cliffs and valleys as the basis for the environment, extending and modifying parts of the landscape to accommodate the enormous fictional characters.
The Quiraing, on the northern part of Skye’s Trotternish Peninsula, is a dramatic landscape formed by ancient landslides. Its steep escarpments, isolated rock formations and broad grassy slopes provided material for the mountainous surroundings of Giant Country. Nearby, the Old Man of Storr, a prominent rock pinnacle rising from the slopes of the Storr, was another of the locations photographed for the film. The unusual formations around these places helped establish the scale of the landscape through which Sophie and the BFG travel, although the finished environments were substantially modified during post-production. The production did not require the actors to perform in these remote areas, as the location footage was incorporated into the completed scenes separately.
The Faerie Glen, near Uig on the Trotternish Peninsula, also contributed to the depiction of Giant Country. The area is characterised by small rounded hills, grassy ridges and unusually shaped rock formations, giving it a different appearance from Skye’s more imposing mountain ranges. Its landscape photography was incorporated into the scenes showing the giants’ homeland, with the natural terrain forming the basis for parts of the digitally extended environment. The filmmakers also photographed the Cuillin mountains in southern Skye, whose jagged ridges and steep rock faces provided a contrasting landscape for the more remote areas through which the BFG travels.
Additional aerial photography was undertaken around the Shiant Isles, a small group of islands in the Minch between Skye and the Outer Hebrides. The islands are known for their steep coastal cliffs, volcanic rock formations and large seabird colonies. Their isolated position and dramatic shoreline provided material for the coastal scenery associated with Giant Country. The footage was used alongside the imagery from Skye, with different landscapes combined to create the impression of an extensive region that does not correspond to any single geographical location. The surrounding sea and rocky coastline also contributed to the film’s views of remote areas beyond the giants’ main settlement.
The production travelled farther north to Orkney, where an aerial unit photographed the Old Man of Hoy. The natural sandstone sea stack rises approximately 137 metres above the sea on the western coast of Hoy, separated from the surrounding cliffs by a narrow stretch of water. Its isolated form is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the Orkney Islands. The footage was incorporated into the wider landscape material used for Giant Country, allowing the filmmakers to introduce another distinctive rock formation into the fictional geography. Like the scenes assembled from footage of Skye, the Orkney material was photographed separately from the principal performances in Vancouver.
One of the film’s most important English locations is Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which was used to represent Buckingham Palace. Constructed between 1705 and 1722 for John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, the Baroque palace is surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland and formal gardens. The production used the Great Court and the Italian Garden, with the latter representing the royal gardens during the sequence in which Sophie introduces the BFG to the Queen. The enormous giant appears outside the palace as the Queen and her household begin to understand the danger posed by the other giants. The Italian Garden’s formal arrangement of paths, hedges and ornamental features is visible in the scene, while the palace’s monumental architecture provides the background.
The use of Blenheim Palace was particularly important because the film required a grand royal residence with outdoor spaces large enough to accommodate the appearance of a twenty-four-foot giant. The palace’s Great Court and gardens could be photographed separately and incorporated into the scene without requiring the actual Buckingham Palace grounds for the main sequence. Blenheim Palace has confirmed the use of both the Great Court and Italian Garden in its official filming history, identifying the latter as the location where the BFG meets the Queen.
The interior scenes at Buckingham Palace were filmed in Vancouver, where the production built elaborate reproductions of royal rooms. These included the Queen’s bedroom, a large ballroom and the dining room used for the breakfast sequence. In the film, Sophie persuades the Queen that giants exist, and the BFG is subsequently invited to breakfast with the royal household. Because of his enormous size, the servants must improvise furniture and utensils, including a makeshift chair assembled from household objects. The giant introduces the Queen and her guests to his unusual drink, frobscottle, with embarrassing consequences. The large dining-room set was constructed to resemble the actual interiors of Buckingham Palace, with elaborate ceilings, gilded decoration, chandeliers and furnishings. Penelope Wilton later explained that the recreated ballroom included copies of the real palace’s carpets and paintings, allowing the Canadian studio interiors to be combined with the English location photography at Blenheim Palace.
Bamburgh Castle
Bamburgh Castle is in Huntingtower, Becket, The Devils, Macbeth, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Tempest, Ivanhoe, Robin of Sherwood and many more.
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace is in Saraband for Dead Lovers, Half a Sixpence, Barry Lyndon, History of the World, Part I, Without a Clue, Black Beauty and many more.