Troll Bridge
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Production Diary...

Film Shoot

Day 1: The Bloody Bridge
A tale of aching bones and damp weather

My feet hurt.  No really, they do.   I'm currently sitting at my computer two days after the shoot, and my feet still bloody hurt.   I can only imagine how everyone else feels.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.   It started (around Wednesday), frantically trying to organise everything before the Saturday.   From organising a ute and scaffolding, to painting green-screens the wrong colour (blue) and painting them back again.   From throwing my sleep pattern out so I'd be fine on the Saturday (I had to work until 3:00am Friday night), to getting permission to shoot at the bridge (the Hepburn Shire Council were great about the whole thing, but VicRoads wanted indemnity insurance to the sum of ten million dollars).  To say chaos reigned would be like saying that Genghis Khan was slightly naughty.

Melissa and I picked up the cursed ute (the damn thing wasn't even roadworthy... do not ever rent from a place with Bomb in the title because they sure as hell ain't lying) on Friday and stacked it with the scaffolding.   This was somewhat of an adventure in itself as we had two guys (whom looked as if they were straight from the Deliverance set) trying to tie down a seriously overflowing ute with orange string.   I kid you not!   Orange string!

We ended up heading up at 5:30am on Saturday morning and reached the destination at 8:00am.  Scaffolding was assembled, measurements of the bridge were jotted down, and make-up commenced.

Mr. Snuggles arrived (the only person on set who could legitimately say they had their own trailer), and we started dressing him.   With Alby and Ken's help - Mr. Snuggles very modern saddle was hidden under an old cow skin and white woolly blanket.   I was actually very surprised at how authentic it ended up looking.

We then started filming him.  With a series of tests administered by Jess and Nick (to get him talking), we soon discovered the peanut butter was a no-go, but carrots worked wonderfully.  We also discovered that the green-screen was no where near big enough - and when the time comes to go back we'll make sure we're armed with something at least five times bigger.  We'll take it up in bits and reassemble it up there.

Next (after giving Mr. Snuggles a well deserved break), we had lunch while it rained.  I personally had Coco-Pops, but that's simply because I needed something sugary.  Looking at my living room floor now, I see nothing but left over food.  Bananas and apples, and bread (oh, my!), vegemite, peanut butter, (and various other spreads), chicken and ham, Weetbix and Sultana Bran, coffee and tea, mayo and mustard, and half a packet of Rice Cracker Nibbles (which personally I think are disgusting - but someone must have enjoyed them... either that or the cold had wiped out their tastebuds).

Oh, the cold.  You have no idea what cold is unless you were there.  The second line of the story is “It was too cold to snow.” and frankly I think that's what we had.  Even snow has a nice shiny warmth, compared to the miserable, wind driven day we had.

I had tried getting a large mess tent for the day but had no success.  Unless you're after something that you can't stand up in, or a marquee for a wedding, you're out of luck.  Next time (and something that occurred to me after the shoot), I'll approach some Scout groups and rent one through them while they're not using it.  I utterly refuse to make anyone endure a day like that again without some sort of escape.  We'll also organise a BBQ to get some warm food into everyone.

Other than these hiccups - I believe that we got some really good footage on the very long day.  A big thankyou to everyone involved on the day.  There was a lot to deal with, and everyone did so very professionally.  Especially Bob.  I can't even begin to understand how Bob must have felt wearing nothing but a pair of leather underpants and arm bracers in that weather.

The next shoot will be Cohen's arrival and departure to the bridge (scenes 8 and 10).  I really want to do this before going back to the bridge, just for the sake of everyones sanity more than anything.  I'm going up this weekend to confirm and acquire permissions for the paddocks we'll be using - but everyone (well, mostly everyone) can look forward to a later start that shooting day, as we'll need to end it as the sun sets.

I'm frantically scribbling up the storyboards now.

Oh yeah... I don't know about anyone else but I ended up sleeping for fifteen solid hours Saturday night.   I'm surprised I didn't start hibernating.

My feet don't hurt this time.   They appear in everyway to be perfectly intact, which is something I'm both relieved and thankful of.   My living room floor, however, has once again vanished into the realm of the unattainable.   I'm sure I put it down here somewhere...

Ahem.   What a day!   The Lady certainly wasn't with us, and that's a fact.   Just to sum up the day Melissa and I had (involving nothing but the “new and improved ute”) - it goes something like this: We get lost on the way up, and almost got run off the road by some guy falling asleep behind the wheel on the freeway.   On the way back (after refuelling at a petrol station), the passenger side door breaks and it will not hold closed.   We end up staying in Creswick for two hours in the rain, waiting for the RACV to come along and have a look.   He can't fix it - so he takes us back to his station to have a better look there.   We get fixed and finally start driving home in the dark.   A mist descends and we lose all vision of the road - things with no shape are starting to appear through the mist - but this is possibly just our imagination.   We pull over to swap drivers and we get bogged in the mud.   This was our day.

Although we were certainly more prepared this time - it didn't seem to help.   Thankfully we had a tent (which the Scouts were very kind to loan us), and a nice warm BBQ to help escape the weather later on.   We also had a much larger green screen than before - which snapped in the wind and proved to be too wrinkly to be of any use anyway.

And then it rained.

I am reliably informed, later on that night Russell went home and started building an ark.

Jared wins the Being A Bloody Clever Bastard Award for calling the weather inclement.

We tried and persisted through the rain - but in the end we just had to give up because water kept getting onto the camera lens no matter how many umbrellas we used.   Half an hour after makeup was removed and most of the crew on the way home, (in true Victorian style (gods I miss living in Perth)), the sun came out and the rain vanished.  There was, (of course), much swearing.

So - did anything go right on that day?   Yes (surprisingly), it certainly did.   While the weather was good at the start, we managed to get all the really difficult shots out of the way.  And we've mostly finished up with the horse.  This means when we go back to the blasted bridge (yeah... we're going to have to), we're going to be able to knock over the last shots relatively easily and quickly.

A big thank-you goes to everyone involved on the day (and I mean everyone).   The weather certainly appears to be against us, but I'm sure it's something we can beat.   It's certainly something that will be discussed at the production meeting when we have it, and have a look at the rushes.

Personally, I'm in favour of sending Cohen up to give the Gods a severe talking-to.

Day 3 - The Bloody Bridge Part III
The Final Chapter

Well, we went back to the bridge, finished shooting the scene, and left.

Not a hell of a lot can be said beyond that unfortunately, because that's pretty much what happened.   It didn't rain on us, everyone got there without getting lost on the way, and we pretty much canned everything we needed to - plus had time to do a couple of pick-ups.

Sure we all got wind burn, and I almost fell out of the car on the drive up, but at least we didn't get flooded again - or get frozen to a point that archaeologists would be digging us up in thousands of years time, and invest a heap of time and money into cutting our stomachs open to see what our last meals were.   In this case sausages and hamburgers intermingled with Fantails and Snakes Alive.   I can only hazard a guess at what conclusions said archaeologists would draw from the half-digested meaty, gelatinous blob - but I'm sure they'd have a lot of fun throwing it at the ceiling to watch it stick.

Erm... yeah.

Ahem.

Okay, well anyway the bridge is done - and has been pretty much covered in the other production reports.   This day of shooting was very successful.

Day 4 - Pine Forests & Paddocks
Ute elising the ladscape... snigger... that's actually a pun

It was with some surprise (at least as far as Victoria is concerned), we had some utterly magnificent weather.   The sun was warming to the bones, and the day was an outright pleasant one.

Our first stop was a pine forest.   Before Cohen reaches the bridge, he has a scene in which he talks with the horse about where and why they are heading in the direction they are heading.   Because Death Bridge is located within the Ramtop Mountains (as decided by someone somewhere), pine forest was chosen for the trek (which was certainly a lot more believable than the gumtree forest on the other side of the road).

With Cohen on the back of a ute (or a pickup truck for those of you in the US), we filmed the actor (Bob) bobbing up and down as if he was on the horse, and smoking one of his trademark rollies.   We then later on filmed him riding the horse with just the camera on the back of the ute, and with Nick (Director of Photography) utilising the marvel that is a Steadycam (taking out the bumps in the road).  We got all the angles we needed, and headed in for lunch.

A ripper BBQ had been prepared by Melissa and Russell, and saucy meat was had by all.  Well.., except the vegetarians who didn't have any meat.  That's not to say they thought the meat was bad, but it was probably more of an indication that they don't like meat regardless of who or how it is cooked.  They may or may not have had sauce, I cannot remember.

Next we arrived at the paddock for the last scene in the film.   Cohen, now having been to Death Bridge, discusses with the horse the events, and rides off into the rural sunset.  Once again the ute was employed for the task, and we quickly finished off all the shots before sunset (we were now racing against time).  Although we had some problems with lens flares, we've managed to get some fantastic shots that are easily corrected and improved on in post-production.

It's kind of sad for me typing this, because we no longer have any scenes to shoot involving Cohen at the age we all know and love him.  I suppose it had to finish eventually of course (if only so Bob wouldn't get re-addicted to cigarettes).  A huge thanks goes out to him, and to Helena who did an unbelievably stellar job on his makeup, within the small budget we had.  Helena created Cohen, and Bob brought him to life.

We arrived early at wonderful St. Enochs and began setting up for what was to be the final day of principle photography.   Utterly exhausted from too many late shifts at work followed by early rises, meant that once again I was well under my sleep quota before the shoot.   My body saw this as business as usual.

We entered the stables that were being converted into a tavern, and got to work.  Candles were lit, bread and peanuts were brought in, and a game of Thud was set up.  All the finishing touches were made to make it seem as less stable-like as possible.

As people rocked up, they were costumed and jammed into the booths, and given some empty mugs for them to wish were full.   With lights a-shining, and a big fat evil bastard falling asleep on the table (Elwood the one-ton cat), we shot the first scene for the day.   Very successfully as well.   Colours were rich, and the camera movement was smooth and did a good job of hiding anything that shouldn't be there.

The next scenes were by the lake with the guards.  Shot day-for-night (meaning, we'll make it look like it was night time later), the guards did a wonderful job of looking panicked in this beautiful but thistle enriched location.

Next we moved up to the pine-ringed hillock, but this time armed with Ange as a young Cohen and John the evil wizard Sepsis Leech.   Ange was appropriately greased up, while John was made to look sickly and pasty.   Both donned their wonderfully crafted costumes and we got to work shooting some more day-for-night shots.

And then we had dinner.   With several different roasted meats, everyone was well fed.  Yes - we were running late at this stage, but it was time that could easily be regained.

Boy was I wrong.

Dusk had hit, and now we were bombarded with even more setbacks.   Due to some technical issues, we were forced to get creative - and while doing so - we lost even more time.  We completed the fight scenes between young Cohen and the guards, and also the final segment between him and Sepsis.  With these shots out of the way, we moved down to the campfire.

With flames flickering away, we shot the rest of the main fight scene, plus all the dialogue between hero and villain.   We followed this with Sepsis sacrificing the young female virgin to the Dark Ones.

Although we only ever stopped for small makeup changes (involving blood), and the movement of lights, we still wrapped at 4:00am and got out of there at 4:30.   As you can imagine we were all buggered after this very long and exhausting day - which had run over time by three hours.

The only conciliation in all this of course, is that everything we captured was fantastic.  From the firelight playing off our heroes pectorals, to our armoured guards firing arrows and crashing themselves into the rock strewn ground; from John's faultless performance as the right hand of evil, to the background lights shining eerily through the smoke and in between the trees; these scenes are going to look downright incredible.

With this all said and typed, I must admit I feel somewhat relieved that shooting has produced such a wonderful result.  So far, as I stand on the edge of post-production, Troll Bridge has by far exceeded any expectation I have placed upon it.  And anyone who knows me well enough will tell you: I have always had ridiculously high goals with the stuff I direct.

The true test (of course), now comes in post-production.  It's time to piece it all together, fix anything out of place, and enhance it.  And it's something I'm very much looking forward to - because from here - it can only get even better!

You can tell I'm happy can't you?

Daniel Knight