On the Trail of the Templars
By Kate Edwards (SetJetters CXO & CoFounder)
Nothing beats being in the midst of a true adventure, digging into history and tracking down clues that lead to new and amazing discoveries!
Whether it’s Indiana Jones, Robert Langdon, Benjamin Franklin Gates - or even Sherlock Holmes - there’s always a thrill and adrenaline rush to being in the “hunt”. This is no doubt what drives most of us SetJetters, working hard to discover that exact location where a scene was filmed and experiencing that “Eureka!” moment of finding the precise shot.
While I was recently traveling in London, I was out and about in the scene-rich city and paid a visit to the venerable Temple Church. This amazing site was originally built by the Knights Templar during the late 12th century and is where several key moments in history took place, including the drafting of the Magna Carta - which became the foundation for modern democracies.
Of course, the church is also a well known filming location, especially for The Da Vinci Code (2006). At the time of my visit, our SetJetters app had one scene location placed in the church, so I decided to “collect” it and also capture a great ShotSync to post. But, it didn’t take me long to discern that the shot image in the app could not be matched with any features in the Temple Church. There were definitely similarities but the details were not exact.
Thankfully, I happened to be visiting the church on a Friday afternoon, when the Vicar of the church, Reverend Robin Griffith-Jones, regularly gives a fantastic 45 minute lecture about the history of the church, and even addresses The Da Vinci Code briefly at the end. I highly recommend timing your visit during his lecture as he was very informative and frankly, hilarious.
After he concluded his lecture, I quickly approached him to ask him about the issue I was having with not being able to match up the ShotSync. I showed him the SetJetters app (which he thought was brilliant) and he very quickly pointed out that the particular shot was actually filmed in Lincoln Cathedral, which is about 258 kilometers (160 miles) north of London! Apparently several additional scenes for The Da Vinci Code were filmed there, in addition to the Temple Church. This knowledge helped us not only build out more SetJetters scenes at the Temple Church, but also at the Lincoln Cathedral.
Rev. Griffith-Jones was super helpful in resolving the scene issue, which only reinforces the fact that when you’re in the hunt for those film locations and the correct scenes, nothing beats having local knowledge at your disposal. Most typically, local residents are more than happy to talk about their experiences if they were around during the production of a TV show or film.
So happy hunting and don’t be shy about asking for local help if you’re not finding your shot right away!
SetJetters is free to download and you can submit scenes we haven’t got to yet!
