Thursday, August 22, 2019

The Night My Number Came Up - Michael Redgrave (1955) - View towards Lantau Island

There are a couple of brief shots that show the plane both (supposedly) approaching and departing from the airport over a stretch of sea with some islands in the background. In actual fact these very brief shots were filmed most likely from a boat that was positioned somewhere off the western coast of Hong Kong Island.

The shot with the junk below shows the approach shot, with the plane flying 'towards' the airport. You can see Castle Peak on the far right in the distance poking up between the gap that is Penny's Bay i.e. we are looking towards Lantau Island from the south east - definitely not the approach to a landing at Kai Tak by any stretch of the imagination.

The second image shows the plane 'leaving' the airport, commencing its journey to Japan, and shows roughly the same area as the first image but by now the camera has moved to the north slightly and now Castle Peak can be seen distant centre left. The light coloured patch further left is the outline of Kau Yi Chau island. 

The reason I think this was shot from a boat is because there is no land in this vicinity (with this angle of view) on which the camera could be set. This also explains why the view has shifted somewhat between the two takes due to the boat drifting.


Incidentally, there is another over water shot of the plane flying across the harbour with the Kowloon hills in the distance. This most definitely could be the approach to Kai Tak but in the film, as you will see from the next post, the plane approaches the number 13 runway from the west which means it would have had to fly past the airport and then do a 180 degree turn to line up for that approach.

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