Tidal Barrier project: Norway III

We had been lucky with the weather. Other than the rain the day we arrived, and a lot of wind the next evening it was generally quite warm, and the sky was mixed with clouds and sun. So my one main worry I had about shooting out of sequence, that there would of different weather as each story day progressed did not come to pass.
That was until the Friday morning when I awoke to hear the rain. Lu and I quickly rescheduled. We had a plan that in such a situation we would black out the cabin and shoot the evening scenes, but now that it was Friday we had shot most of those them. We also needed sun for some of the scenes we had planned to shoot that Friday, and the weather was forecast to be sunny and clear on Saturday. Our original plan was to shoot the travelling day on Saturday, when Claire travels to the cabin. Now it made sense to shoot all of these scenes in the rain. She would arrive on a gloomy and wet day, just like we did. And then the weather would change for her, like it did for us.
So it was out onto the boat, then into the car, with a minimal crew and out onto the highway we had come in on. Since our space was limited we could only take Flora, the actor, Roland for sound, and JC and Ania to deal with the camera. Lu had to stay at the cabin and fret. This day involved a number of sequences, Claire stopped in the car, reading some road signs, stopped at a bridge, watching the river passing by, then a man loading the boat. That had to be me, unfortunately, as we were quickly running out of crew members to put in the film.
Then a few sequences on the boat, of Claire seeing her destination come into view, and the spray off the bow. We left Flora at the cabin to finish a few other sequences in the car, where she was not required, her baggage rattling about on the floor of the car, then the landscape out of the car window. We drove onto the island we had called home, on a small, rough road. Ania and JC set themselves in the back of the car and I had thought to make this shot quite short, but every time I called cut JC and Ania would shout back, 'No! No! This is beautiful. We have to get this. '
By the time we had come to this scene the rain had stopped and the weather was clearing up. This was great as we were scheduled another scene with Katrine, on the deck, after they had come back from a day of hiking. The weather was meant to be clear, and by 4 that afternoon it was.
The oddest thing about this day was David leaving in the afternoon. He had some work on Saturday and we took him to the bus station on the highway as we didn't have the time to take him to the airport. He had such a part of the whole experience it seemed so odd that he wasn't there when we had finished.
We had more evening scenes to shoot Friday, the final scene between Claire and Natalie, and we waited a long time into the evening for the light to go down sufficiently. We needed to shoot out the windows.
There was still one sequence from that travelling day to shoot, when Claire goes into a Norwegian shop and buys some groceries. We had to do that on Saturday morning because Ronny had arranged with the Kiwi shop to do it then. As it turned out the manager there that morning had heard nothing about it, but he let us shoot anyway. I don't think that would've happened in London. So we had a little Norwegian flavour in this shop, Claire at a distance in this new place due to the language.
That Saturday morning it was also rather sad as Katrine and Ania both were leaving, like David both had work, Katrine in Britain, Ania in Poland. After such an intense experience it was hard to imagine not having all these people around when we finished on Saturday afternoon.
But we go on...this time to the beach where we made our second attempt to shoot the swimming sequence. It was beautiful day, and probably due to the tides, and the position of the beach the jellyfish kept their distance. It took a lot of convincing but I finally manged to get Flora into the cold water to complete the sequence. This is with myself up to my waist, and JC and Kendra, who now was in charge of the camera now that Ania had gone, in the water too, with the camera. It had to be to get the shot we wanted.
We finished the afternoon retaking some of the coda sequences, an idea of David's, to think about the same place at different times of the day. Then a return to the cabin to shoot the last of the evening scenes. This one I decided could be done without shooting out the window so that we could do by blacking out the windows.
And so we are ahead of schedule, which means we are free to do whatever we needed, and this had to be going out onto the trail near the cabin and trying to shoot again the final scene, 68, which I described earlier. JC was happier with the weather as there were large clouds which allowed us to play with chance, that in the middle of the scene the light would change. So I walk through the scene again with Flora, climbing up onto the rocks with her, up onto the ridge, through the trees, discussing what we want, how to change the pace, include humour, decisions, chance, an enjoyment at the physical exertion of climbing, the rough textures of the tree bark, the stone, the view from up there.
So we are all happy and Flora does it again. It is better than when we did it previously but it still didn't feel like we were finished. So one more time. And this time it is everything. Flora has captured it, she has I had imagined it, and for JC the clouds cooperate, and we move, 3/4 of the way through the sequence from cloud to sun, but gradually, so that after Flora has disappeared in the trees I don't yet call cut, but watch as the sun comes out and slowly glows on the leaves, and it goes on and on, and the sound of the place seems to increase too, and just when it seemed the scene should be over the roll in the camera was done, it ran out.
That was a wrap. Fantastic, so happy at how it all had gone. Only sad that not everyone was there to share it. We had the evening to think about what we had accomplished.
We had asked Anton to build a BBQ down near the shore, and they had gone into Risor earlier to try to buy some wine. And they came back in shock at the cost of alcohol in Norway. The government wine store was already shut so all they could buy was beer, and the £50 I had given them only bought them 18 tins of beer.
So we had sausage and burgers down on the rocks near the fjord. The weather could not have been better and the smoke seemed to keep the midges away so JC and Roland could relax. For me, with so little sleep and a few glasses of wine in me, I managed to fall asleep right down there, with a glass of wine on my stomach, snoring away, or so I'm told, on the rocks. There is even a photo as evidence.
There is a whole story about Sunday, sending off our first group to the airport, the rest of remaining behind to clean the cabin, then loading the car, Beth driving back, Lu, JC and Roland in the back, sleeping, me in the passenger seat, also sleeping. And then on the plane, all of us sleeping again, and then the cab back from Stansted, JC, Roland and I sharing a cab, caught in a traffic jam at 12pm, again sleeping through most of it. And we are done.
So some photos of everyone from JC. (I am going to save the last post of David's photos alone).