FILMS ARE LIKE ELEPHANTS by Brenda Mabey

Well, not very much like elephants really. However, I believe that baby elephants have a very long gestation period (22 months on average) and what appears at the end of this period is a fairly substantial creature, so in that respect I stand by the above statement. This is the tale of one of our "babies".We are lucky enough to have had some recent success with "The Siege of Vicksburg", our latest offering to an unsuspecting world - all the more gratifying as the making of this particular production had turned out to be a somewhat complicated and protracted process.It all started while we were on holidayin the USA in the spring of 1998. Following our noses around the state of Mississippi, we stopped for the night in the town of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. As it happened our hotel was situated just across the street from the entrance to the Vicksburg National Military Park and since we were already intrigued by glimpses of what looked like oversized gravestones dotted around and about on roadside verges, we decided to have a quick look. What was intended to be a rapid drive-through, something to fill in the couple of hours between hotel check-in and supper, turned out to be the start of something big.That first tour through the Park made a magical impression. It was late in the day and the tourist traffic had thinned to a trickle, allowing the peace and serenity of the place to reassert itself. The light seemed to mellow as the sun faded, sending deep shadows across the switch'back landscape and the old siege lines and etching dramatic highlights on statues and monuments.Towards the end of the drive we stood for a while on the summit of Fort Hill, high above the dark waters of the Mississippi, and watched the setting sun descend into the river in a baking red glow. If a place can speak, this one did - and it had an inspiring tale to tell.Instead of moving on from Vicksburg as we had planned, we stayed on for four days, spending the whole time in the Park filming what we saw around us and finding out what we could about the story of the siege. There wasn't even time to take a decent lunch break; we snacked on fruit,biscuits and tinned drinks - if we remembered to throw them into the boot of the car as we set out each morning. We might have stayed even longer but we were finally driven from Vicksburg by violent spring storms which brought in torrential rain and tornadoes, forcing us to retreat southwards to the Gulf coast in search of warmer, sunnier and safer weather.Back home again in England, we got down to the task of trying to sort out all the material we had gathered at Vicksburg.

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