HOWZAT

A mansion block of flats and the local gym have been adapted to look like a bombed hotel. Some 30 truckloads of rubble and sand have been arriving in Redcar. “And the thing is it can’t be just any rubble,” explains production designer Sarah Greenwood. “It has to be period rubble: timber and brick but not plastic.” Greenwood had an inkling she would find her location in the northeast, having worked there before. Wright and his team, with a £15 million budget – peanuts compared with a Hollywood movie of similar scale – wanted to keep costs down, and filming in France was not an option.

Back in the editing suite, computer-generated imagery will be used to paint out any signs of the 21st century and to enhance the numbers of men on the beach. The steam belching from the Corus steelworks is adapted to look like smoke from the burning port. There were other logistical challenges – especially recreating a wartime hospital at Shepperton Studios – but Redcar as Dunkirk is the big set-piece scene, costing £1 million. Near the sea, there’s an abandoned Thames barge, which was transported to Redcar in four pieces, and military vehicles and guns are dotted around. “Several of those guns I was able to name from my Dinky toy collection,” says McEwan. “I knew a 25lb gun because I used to fire matchsticks from mine.”

As the sun begins to dim, Wright and his team are finally ready for the shot. Robertson, the cameraman, does a take, and at the end his colleagues are waiting to take the steadicam from him while he catches his breath. Wright asks to do a second take and then a third. On the fourth run, Robertson is halfway round when his legs buckle and he folds under the weight of the camera. Wright runs over to make sure he is all right. Robertson wants to try again and this time he falls after 100 yards, exhausted. He asks for time to recover but Wright and Webster insist he’s already got the shot they want.

“He was brilliant,” says McEwan. “I saw the take they are going to use, which is take three, and everything is perfect, including the execution of the French cavalry horses: they fell down right on cue. He had a tough job. But I think he did it so well.” It sums up McEwan’s feeling about the whole production. The film itself is a fitting tribute, a companion, to McEwan’s novel. “It’s extraordinary,” says McEwan. Indeed it is. Redcar has never seen anything quite like it.

Atonement is released on Friday

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