Shot on location in Wells, Norfolk, it follows the horse from its first steps as a foal, then helping a farmer and his wife plough their field, then pulling a lifeboat. As the film progresses forward in time, the black horse is then seen pulling a horse-drawn carriage at a 1980s wedding, before ending as a British paralympic showjumper cantering through a forest all set to the emotive soundtrack Wings by British singer-songwriter Birdy.
Creative Director, Wes (Jonathan Westley) comments; "Sam intended to capture most of what you see in camera and so our main focus was about enhancing a lot of the live footage - removing modern elements in the wide scenes of the farmers field, putting matte paintings in the end of the street where the girl runs after the milk cart and bringing out the skies.
The lifeboat shoot was a challenge because they had to place a historic lifeboat out on a sandbank and wait for the tide to come in. So shooting wise it involved us all dressing up in dry suits and standing halfway out to sea on Holkham beach waiting for the sea to come in and surround us."
Head of Colour, Seamus O’Kane comments on the grade "This beautiful photographed spot was a delight to be involved with. Directed seamlessly by Sam Brown the emotion of the long standing trust and interdependence of mankind and horse flows throughout this film.
With so much beautiful material it was important not to over style the grade but rather to produce a sense of evocative images that resolve into the memorable end portraits of each scene. The impact of these is then reinforced by their clarity and honesty.
DOP Franz Lustig produced a wonderful set of descriptions and intentions for each of the main scenes and these allowed me an insight into his vision for the film. We tried to remain faithful to this whilst revelling in the cinematic scale of the images."