Behind the Scenes of the Foal's Birth

(bright music) (slate board snaps) - I love days like these.

The atmosphere on set just changes when you have animals, especially big animals like horses.

There's a certain calm that comes onto the set.

The scenes we're shooting today is a storyline of Candy the horse, who is in full, and she's having a bit of trouble.

It's a bit of camera angles and trickery, but a real horse.

- Acting with the horse is very interesting.

You know, obviously animals do what they like.

So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

- This is one of those scenes where the horse tells us.

The horse is leading this.

Aramis is the horse's real name playing Candy.

It just amazes me every time he lies down, he stays down.

There's so much going on around him, and he's calm.

- The amazing thing about Aramis is once he is laying down, he's super good and really, really careful.

- He's beautiful to look at, but he's also a big gentle giant.

He was hand-reared, very comfortable being around people and cameras and got great CV.

Really used to telly.

So yeah, I feel honored to be working with him.

- I've got a lot of respect for horses.

And I don't wanna spend too much time at the back end of them, but this job requires it.

(laughs) So we take all the precautions necessary.

Making sure I'm comfortable around it, and the horse is comfortable around me.

- I always feel very safe doing the scenes.

And it's just really fun, actually.

It's just great getting to work with these big animals.

And then when the finished product goes out, you just look like an absolute hero because you're walking around this huge animal, looking like you know your stuff.

(laughs) Don't worry, cavalry's here.

- As ever, the animal comes first.

But then that's the story of the series.

When we're working close up with the delivery of the foal, we also have a prosthetic.

Some people say, "Oh, don't tell us that.

It ruins the magic."

And I think exactly the opposite.

I think the more you know about how something like this is put together, the more magical it seems.

- Today we've been using a bit of the prosthetics.

It's a brand new experience for me how everything works and how everything fits together.

(bright orchestral music) (laughs) - The whole thing is kind of fully functional.

It's as accurate as we can get to help the actor.

Andy the director, likes just little bits of movement.

It brings it all to life.

So rather than having a rigid, you know, sort of half horse's backside, we've made it so that it's slightly flexible.

So the legs can flex.

The tail can flick.

It's merely a sort of interim, a bridging thing that the actor can use.

And then they cut it all together.

Put the real horse, the actor working with this, and then cut to the real foal birth.

- We work very hard with something that's artificial to make it look real.

And if we do it right, then everyone believes it.

(bright orchestral music)