Chasing Shadows

STEVE Delaportas is awed the way only Americans can be as he strolls through Whitby's narrow, cobbled streets. "It is really made for a movie!" he says in an enthusiastic drawl, black leather jacket slung over one shoulder. "There's hundreds of years of history here. Why would you want to go and build a set somewhere else? You can't replicate this in a studio."

That may seem an odd concept to a Hollywood movie mogul - but it's a sentiment Whitby folk would no doubt agree with. We are walking from the historic White Horse and Griffin Hotel in Church Street towards the 199 steps that lead up to St Mary's Church.

Gulls wheel above us in the air; and from the top of the steps the view across the harbour and the red roofs of Whitby town is stunning.

Steve is here with his fellow Fortitude Films producer Lisa Marie Butkiewitz to check locations for a planned multi-million dollar film of Shadowmancer, former Vicar of Cloughton Graham Taylor's bestselling magical adventure.

It is a dark, and at times genuinely scary, tale set on the wild North Yorkshire coast in the 1700s. The book centres on the evil Vicar of Thorpe, the Rev Obadiah Demurral, who tries to bend the powers of darkness to his own will in an attempt to overthrow God Himself.

Opposing him are two local children, Kate and Thomas; Raphah, a mysterious Ethiopian shipwrecked on the North Yorkshire coast; and smuggler Jacob Crane, a man whose grim reputation is far worse than his bite.

The action takes place in and around Robin Hood's Bay and Ravenscar and the windswept cliffs, bleak moors, smugglers caves and boggle holes that characterise this part of the coast.

It all reaches a dramatic conclusion right here at St Mary's Church, high on its clifftop in the brooding shadow of Whitby Abbey.

It is a church Graham Taylor knows well, having once been a curate in Whitby. In fact, he claims to have encountered a poltergeist here.

It's this first-hand knowledge of the area he writes about that is one of the things that makes Shadowmancer such a powerful book.

The writing is so vivid, and the sense of location so strong, that there is only one place a film could possibly be shot, Steve says. Right here on the North Yorkshire coast.

In three days in and around Whitby scouting out locations the Americans have visited Whitby itself, Ravenscar and the Raven Hall Hotel - model for Demurral's satanic battlemented vicarage - Robin Hood's Bay and even the Boggle Hole.

Steve rolls the names off his tongue with delight, glancing at Graham as if to make sure he pronounces them correctly.

"It is awesome!" he says. "You can read the book, but when you get here and see for yourself it is a whole different story. Ravenscar, the Boggle Hole, the cliffs and the way the land slowly swoops down to them; this town and its architecture. You just couldn't make Shadowmancer without capturing the environment here. That would be an injustice to the place."

His enthusiasm is obvious. In fact, Steve and Lisa were so bowled over by the book (a classic tale of good versus evil, Lisa says, in which good ultimately triumphs over evil, so giving the required feelgood Hollywood ending) that they are planning to make not one but three Shadowmancer films - the original book and two as-yet unscripted sequels.

They hope to shoot them all on location at the same time, as Peter Jackson did with The Lord Of The Rings in New Zealand. There is even talk of setting up a small film studio in Whitby during filming - and the prospect of big name stars. An A-list director, Steve promises; while Graham himself would like Sean Bean for the part of Jacob Crane, and either Anthony Hopkins or Donald Sutherland for the part of Demurral.

The former vicar - he is officially retiring as Vicar of Cloughton this year on health grounds - admits he has been hugely impressed to see the Americans at work.

"Everywhere that is mentioned in the book, they have been and had a look," he says over a glass of mineral water in The White Horse and Griffin's low-ceilinged bar. "They have read about the area and wanted to see what it is like and whether it is feasible to bring a film crew. It has been things like 'where can we have the catering truck when we're filming at the church, where is the generator going to go, where are the actors going to stay, can we make it secure.' What they're doing is quite awesome."

The seaside town is buzzing with the news. The White Horse And Griffin was already old when Charles Dickens stayed here a century and a half ago, and it is a good bet that it will be one of the film's key locations.

It features in the book as The Griffin - where a weary Kate, Thomas and Raphah seek refuge and meet a mysterious stranger - and rumour has it that part of the book was actually written here. "He Graham Taylor had toothache one day, he was feeling low, he had lunch here and it perked him up and he carried on writing," says owner Stewart Perkins.

Steve and Lisa stayed at the hotel while they were in Whitby, and Stewart is delighted at the prospect of it featuring in a Shadowmancer film.

"It is fabulous news for Whitby," he says. "It's good for us, good for Whitby and good for the local economy."

Whitby Mayor Rob Broadley is equally enthusiastic. "People think Dracula is the be-all and end-all of Whitby, and that's not the case," he says. "If this goes ahead it will project Whitby on to the world stage in a bigger way than we can imagine. It is really exciting and would do wonders for the town's economy."

It could also provide the chance of a lifetime for star-struck youngsters who dream of following in the footsteps of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, the child stars of the Harry Potter films.

At Graham's insistence, Fortitude Films hope to hold open auditions, restricted to youngsters from the North East of England, for the key parts of Thomas and Kate.

It is just one of the ways in which he is retaining control over the film-making process.

There will be some changes in the film version, he says - Jacob Crane will have a love interest, for a start, and the plot, while substantially the same, will be tweaked slightly. But in essentials, the film will be true to the book. "I've been right in there from the word go," says Graham. "It has got to retain the Yorkshire flavour; that really gritty, earthy reality. They have been very helpful and considerate."

So when is filming likely to begin? It could be some way off yet. This week was the beginning of what Hollywood types call 'pre-production'. Steve and Lisa are now back in the United States. They have some illustrators lined up - people who have worked on films such as The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean - to begin the work of creating the 'look' of the film.

Among other things, they will have to bring to life the book's host of dark creatures - including the Thulak, invisible creatures who smother their victims in a dark mist and steal their will to live, and the Varrigal, long-dead Nordic warriors summoned from an alternative dimension.

But Fortitude is a young company, only set up a year and a half ago. And with three films - two of them as yet unscripted - to be shot at once, getting to the stage where filming can begin is going to take time. It's a huge commitment for a director, for a start, says Steve.

So the likely time-scale? He screws up his face. "The first film out... maybe... 2007?" he says.

Shadowmancer country can't wait.

Updated: 09:31 Friday, July 02, 2004