Filming completed on Shropshire love story Long Forgotten Fields
[gallery] It's a wrap . . . up-and-coming Shropshire movie maker Jon Stanford has just completed shooting on his debut feature film.
Jon, a former Church Preen primary school pupil who also attended Wrekin College, is now locked away in the editing suite, hoping to get Long Forgotten Fields ready for release by the end of the year.
The movie, which takes inspiration for its title from the words of county poet AE Housman, is described as "a Shropshire-based love story about the challenges faced by two unique characters".
It centres on a young woman wrestling with the challenges of isolation at her countryside home, and a traumatised soldier who returns from national service.
The girl's routine existence of work, family and friends is called into question when her soldier boyfriend comes home on leave. Any expectations she has of rekindling their relationship are overturned as she is drawn into the traumas of his post-war world.
The cast and crew – including Game of Thrones star Simon Armstrong – shot the low-budget film over 18 days at locations including Middlehope on Wenlock Edge, Dorrington near Shrewsbury, and Ludlow.
Jon, who graduated from London Film School, said: "They say you should write about things that you know, and this film is very much based on my personal experiences of being brought up in Shropshire.
"When you grow up in a rural part of the country, you do have to make your own entertainment sometimes, and often have to ask yourself whether you should stay in the area, or leave.
"These issues are certainly tackled in the film. There are elements of a horror and thriller in it too, but it is really a love story at its heart."
Jon, who brought a 14-strong cast and crew to the county for the shoot, is hoping to have a completed version of the film ready for the end of the year.
"We hope to get it into some film festivals in the new year, and start to speak to distributors. It would be great to get it shown in Shropshire, because the support we have had from local people has been fantastic.
"Shropshire is such a beautiful place in which to shoot a movie. Whenever we have asked people for their help, there has been a real can-do attitude, and I think there's a genuine interest to see how it all comes out."
The cast includes several people with local connections, including leading man Tom Campion, who went to school with Jon at Church Preen, and Wayne Swann from Ludlow, a former Shropshire solicitor. The lead female role is played by London actress Rebecca Birch.
