Night Orchid was shot in Florida in Orange, Sumter, Lake, Seminole, and Volusia counties. The script is centered around locations unique to the area--orange groves, fruit packing plants and "Florida Cracker houses". When the film team discovered that they could not film on the roof of their key packing plant location, they decided to build it themselves. Production designer Don Drury supervised the construction of the thirty by sixty foot structure complete with skylights, metal sheeting and side windows. The roof set was so big that it nearly filled the sound stage from floor to ceiling. Director of photography, Paul Atkins: "The rafters were literally three feet above our heads, so we had to come up with some unusual solutions for lighting, and shooting so that you wouldn't see the walls and roof or the stage." In the film the real packing plant blends seamlessly with the set.

Night Orchid was a challenging shoot in that two-thirds of the action takes place at night. This involved heavy lighting set-ups and reversed schedules for weeks at a time. Weather also played a large role in the script and the team was called on to create both rain and lightning effects. Director Mark Atkins: "When we were unable to get a rain machine we had to improvise with a hose and a ladder." Backlighting, a lightning machine and amazing sound effects from Soundelux Florida pull off the illusion. The crew even filmed a real thunderstorm as it happened. Atkins: "For me the locations, weather, and atmosphere are a "character" in the story. I put as much attention to finding the perfect location and creating the right mood as I did in casting the actors. On one hand it was alot of work getting out to these places but it pays off in the film. I wanted to create a film that could have been shot nowhere else. To do that we had to find locations that had not been used before."

More Production Shots

- CLICK HERE FOR DIRECTOR'S BIO | ACTOR BIOS | CREW BIOS