The Touch

Episode 49, The Touch. The start of season 3. Shot at the causses and La Margaride, Lozere

 

La Margeride

The Margeride is located in the south-east of the Auvergne, between the departments of Cantal, Haute-Loire and Lozčre. So roughly

east of the Saint-Flour / Marvejols line. The area is very sparsely populated: only 14 people live per km2 (as of 2016). It is a

wonderful area for those who love space, peace and nature. Flora and fauna are therefore rather unspoilt. Natura 2000 area.

    

    

 

The Causses

The Grand Causses (there are three main plateaus – Mejean, Sauveterre and Noir) provide grazing for herds of sheep and cattle on natural grasslands, while two granite

mountains (Lozere and Aigoual) punctuate the landscape at 1,565m and 1,699m and the schistose Cevennes has a series of deep verdant river valleys, providing some protection

from the extreme weather conditions on the plateaus and mountains during the winter months. It’s an area where it is all too easy to imagine life a hundred, two hundred or five

hundred years ago because so little has changed.  Recognition of that preservation of a traditional way of life is what led the area to receive a UNESCO listing for

Outstanding Universal Value, protecting the countryside from major development. Click here for a link with information about the Causse de Sauveterre.

 

Ferme des Boissets

Ancient farm 'Boissets' lies on the edge of a cliff just above the Tarn river and village Saint Enimie. This farm and it's fields are very important for many episodes of season 3!

As far as I can see 8 episodes! Most of these episodes have two locations in common: the Stone chaos blocks and the Ferme des Boissets. Boissets features a lot in season 3

The Touch 49,  Spirit of Rebellion 50,  Insurrection 51,  Doppelgangers 52,  Trailbreak 53,  The Mission 54,  The Children 64  and  Headhunters 69. Tell crosses the wasteland,

looking for answers, meets all kinds of people and experiences a lot. . It's a big part of Tell's adventures in the quest for the woman and the meaning of the amulet.

 

 

The Touch

Episode 49. The start of season 3!

The first episode of season 3 is shot around Boissets. The scene where Tell was shot, was located in the stone chaos in the Causse de Sauveterre. The scene: 'The Touch' starts with

Black Knights hunting Tell. You can see some nice stunts. Then Tell meets a boy in the forest, he takes Tell home to offer him shelter. That has a major inpact on Tell's life.

 

In a rush they meet.

 

Arrival at Ferme des Boissets

Scene: The boy, with a form of autism, cannot talk and involves his mother. She invites Tell. At the boy's advice, she forfeits his future and gives him a warning.

 

1988  The farm of the boy and his family                                the roof in the middle is wonderfully restored 2015                                                                                           

Location: Boissets north. The left of the building has changed a lot. 2015

Compare: This house is also in episode 'Doppelgangers' and 'Insurrection'

1988   Insurrection 51                                                         2015                                                                               2015                 

 

And in episode Doppelgangers 52                                                                                   2015                                                                                                                2015                                           

 

Location interior: Boissets

Scene: The boy wants his mother to predict Tell's future. Tell agrees and the mother takes his glass but seems frightened. She warns him for a ´silver wolf.´

Above you see Arish with a 'silver wolf' on his helmet (The confrontation will be in the next episode ´Spirit of Rebellion´).

The producers 'cheated' on the entrance to the house in which lives the woman and her son. Also Boissets but another sheepfold.
In fact, it is not a house but one of the sheepfolds that are found behind. The series used quite a few sheepfolds by making believe that they were places of life.

 

The centre of the ferme square

They went in this farmhouse at Boissets. (The Touch, 49, above you see they run into another sheepfold on this terrain, on this map the place of the exterior).

 

Compare: And the same place again in other episodes.

      Spirit of Rebellion 50. The scenes with Luke and his father                                                 2017 as a museum                             

 

And even a shot of the parents in episode The Children).  

 

 

Gessler's camp in episode The Touch

We think it's next to the stone chaos, rock 1. There is a little bush like this... Near the 'plateau de Margeride.'

 

Ferme des Boissets

The interior of one of the farmhouses of Domaine des Boisetts around 1988. The estate was bought and restored by the General Council of Lozčre. The set of buildings,

characteristic of  a caussenarde farm, of which construction began in the seventeenth century, was until 2018 a museum of agricultural and pastoral traditions of the

region and a fine example of caussenarde architecture. The estate used to be open to visitors in July and August but closed around 2018. 

 

The main farmhouse of Ferme des Boissets

                                                                                                                                                 Aris in front of the main farmhouse of Ferme des Boissets.

                                                                                                                         

The rocky 'stone chaos' in Causse the Sauveterre

If you would like to see nice rock formations...there is a place I visited called: 'Chaos Montpellier Vieux.' It is a beautiful area with very nicely shaped rocks. Like stone choas Nimes le Vieux'

in the causse de Mejean, is also a rocky place and different from Montpellier Vieux. It's not the place you can find the Crossbow rocks but it's worth a visit. This year (2019) C. Petit and I

discovered the exact location of almost all the rockformations of the wasteland. It's not that close at the Ferme des Boisetts as we had expected. It is located high in the north of Lozere, far from

other locations. We found them this summer near Truc Fortunio, Lozere. The stones have different shapes in the episodes, we didn´t know in the beginning how many rocks we had to look for...

While we walked around the location, the shapes of the rocks changed all the time, Like magic rocks! Also the height! One formation can easily reach about 6 meters or more and the back only 1 meter.

They filmed on at least 5 different rock formations. For different episodes like The Touch, The Shadow, The Mission, Trailbreak.

 

Lozere rocks

When I made a 'still' picture for the website, I saw something in a split second. (It doesn't strike you while watching) I saw a tower between them in the back. I told C. Petit took a good look and

found the place in combination with three hills, which we never been able to trace before. That was another direction, than we first thought. We used to look around Boissets before, that wasn't

the right place after all. See the tower in between them, that brought us more up north. The ground is no grassland but mainly a lot of heathland with stone. I'm amazed the horses could gallop over this.

 

 

Rock formation 1

This is the main rock of episode The Touch. Rock 1 is filmed from all the angles. Seen from above this rock has the shape of a triangle.

 

1988                                Scene: Grania offers Tell a hiding place. Location: in the middle of Rock 1.                              2019

 

The goodbye

1988                                                              No trees yet.                                         May 2019            

Look at the difference of this rock. That is exact why It's hard to identify rocks like these. It depends on the camera angle and what's in front of it.

This is also the place where  they surround Tell and shoot him.

Below some other photos of this rock. It's in many shots of episode The Touch. Also in some other episodes like the Mission.

     

 

The influence

Scene: Gessler is keeping an eye on the rock, so Tell isn't able to escape. Gessler discovers Edgar's fascination for weapons. He sends Edgar to distract

Tell and so they are able to surround the rock easily. Here are some photos of the place and it's environment in Lozere. Location: bushes in front of this rock.

 

Look at that eagle!                                                                                                                                                              

Scene: The boy is fascinated by the uniforms and weapons of Gessler's soldiers. It's too late...'the silver wolf' hits Tell. Tell falls into the trap.

 

 

                                                                                                                         Edgar is approaching

 

 

How did we find the place?

The photos below: made and found by fan C. Petit.

I had pointed out to Petit that the three great blue colored mountains, of increasing size, should still be recognizable in the area. It turned out to be a long way from the filming locations.

Where we had never looked before... In a moviestill I recognized a tower, it was only a second. Petit said that is too far out of the direction. Because the stones were still so hard to find,

he Googled in that area and drawned almost the right position. During vacation I went there to have a look in the huge area of forests, stones, stone deserts...and indeed found them there.

Really wow! Special area! So beautiful. We wont give out the exact place, we are afraid of gravity paint etc. Unique area.

 

C. Petit saw these places were similair. Tell's rock in episode The Touch is also the base of Horst en Benzai.

This location in the middle of Rock 1 is a nice high point of min. 6 meters high! Above the treetops.

These examples helped us finding the right place. And I can confirm this is the same rock. It's unbelievable how many plateaus and levels there are...Even when you see the same

mountains, then It's hard to find out what camera angle they used and what's all in front. The cameraman has certainly good qualities; he can take a good picture of the place as

a whole, by filming the right corners and avoiding disturbing environmental factors, making things look farther and larger. That sometimes confuses you in a search.

 

 

Above Mende, more north, than we first thought.

    

    

The centre of Rock 1

It's overgrown with trees

 

                                                                                                                 It's up here, in the middle of these rocks.

                                                                                                              Also the place where the boy is thrown off the rocks. You can compare the upper rocks of this rock formation.

 On the rock-with the lower tilted rocks is the place Edgar's mother and Tell talk). Where Edgar stood, is the same place the stuntmen stands.

Up on this place, Grania and Tell met. The trees made it hard to check. And also the base of Benzai and Horst in episode The Shadow).

 

Scene: Edgar visited Tell and he is not alone. Location: On top of Rock 1.

Taken high up from rock 1. (Behind the boy the field of 'The Mission' with the gate to the wasteland).  Taken from groundlevel  2019          

                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                     Same rock in the middle, from a slightly different camera angle.

   

   

Stuntman on top of this rock.  The Black Knight came to surrender

 

The place you see above is up on the same rock..  in the middle of the photo..

Tell is on the highest point of rock one, behind him it's 6 meters low. The big rock on the left is the top of the rock (the tower of 3 a 4 blocks) See one row below.

1988                                                                                         2019    

 

They are up on the rock in the middle

 

The fight

  Scene: He took Tell's bow, Tell got surrendered. Then the boy realized he made a mistake, but it's no use. Can this threat still be averted?

 

    1988                                                                                              2019

 

                                                                                          2019

    

 

 

 

North side of this rock

Looking down from the top was quit a shock, I didn't realize the enormous heigth, until you stand on top of it. The stuntmen climb and stand on those highest stones.

 

 

  

Surrounded

I made a panorma compilation which was hard because the camera turned 360 degrees and filmed up and below the rocks.

          

The panorama of this rock continues....

                 

                

1988                     This is still the same rock, but it looks much smaller                 2019                                  

    

                                                                                                                                    And in the back this rock again (episode 'Mission,' gate to the wasteland).    

 

The shot and the end of episode 49 The Touch   

   

The start of season 3 was quit a shock to me. Scene: Tell: "You should have killed me the day we met. You are too late now." Gessler finally kills Tell.

William's last words to gessler: "The spirit of rebellion is already rising." It's the introduction of season 3. Season three is just started, 23 episodes to go.

23 without William Tell? My first thought was: 'I don't survive 23 episodes without this main character ;) No one likes to see his hero dying.

 

Edgar fought brave, but he wasn't able to beat them and is hidden behind the rocks and witnessed the terrible truth.

 

                                                                                                              

                                                  1988   The photo below is from Mr. Lyman.                                                                  May 2019                                     

   

 

The disbelieve

 

Resurrection

        Scene: Edgar brings Tell's body to 'a cave.' A ray of light enters the room...someone appears with a message... Location: ferme des Boissets, other sheepfold, see below.

 

She brought Tell the amulet, awaked him and told him to cross the wasteland and find her. For a moment I thought I was just ended up in a science fiction series.

 

 

They made it look like a cave

 

When the spiritual lady disappears, Tell's heart starts beating and he opens his eyes. Then he walks out of the Ferme des Boissets.

                                                                            Beyond Tell is the mountain in the middle (zoomed). 

1988 Night turns into day, the rain changed into sunshine. Tell is at the beginning of a new adventure, Location: west of Domaine des Boissets. 2015

 

Boissets fields

 

From this moment Tell, tries to cross the wasteland and carries his amulet with him.

To compare

                   The end of 'The Headhunters,' Tell at Morris grave.              Episode Trailbreak - Tell is getting chased by Gessler and his man

           

 

                       2017                                                                                                             1987

 

Boissets fields in the back                                                                                           

   

Georgia Lyman and the children of Yannick Derrien (stuntdouble) at Boissets.

Boissets is split into more parts. It's such a populair shooting location for season 3, it became much too long.

  

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EXTRA PHOTOS OF THE STONE CHAOS IN LOZERE

There it is! The impressive rock, looking different from all sides! A lot of forest has been added. 

This rock is most important of all those rocks. Tell is shot in front of it. Edgar, the boy fell off it. It was the base of Basai and Horst.

 

South

 

Northeast

           Below is taken in front of the trees with a tree-less view on the side of it.                                         Those rocks are huge.                                                     

 

Northwest

If you want an impression hog big and impressive this really is? Look at my husband on the right part of the rock!



 

North

I didn't realize the enormous heigth, until you stand there. North has the highest point. The stuntmen climb and stand on those highest stones.

                                       Edgar climbed here              The view from above. It's really high, far above those treestops

        

The fields around rock 1

The gate to the wasteland and this field was partially in The Shadow

 

Not always easy to orientate yourself, especially if there so many rocks around.

 

 

 

 

 

The south of rock 1

Same side zoomed and higher point. The place Tell is shot. And the base of Horst in episode The Shadow.