This September I found myself on a filming trip with Mike Chaney (www.mikechaneyfilm.com) for Much Better Adventures We were tasked with filming for a TV advertisement – covering one of their trips in the Norwegian Fjords with supporting stills for online and print media. Norway is an incredible venue and we were blessed with three seasons over the four days that we were there. Our first day started with incredible sunshine, paddling to our first campsite of the trip. A cold crisp night telling stories around the camp fire saw us waking early to kayak accross the Fjord for the day’s objective to hike up Breiskrednosi. As the second day went on the clouds started to close in until our hike off the summit saw us in a biblical downpour! An atmospheric paddle back to camp saw everyone crowded around the campfire listening to some vintage tunes on the bluetooth speaker and enjoying marshmallows underneath the NRS Tarp kindly provided by our guide – as it happens a lot of our kit was provided by NRS and they make some really bomber gear! The third day saw us paddling out in the early morning rain and mist to our rendezvous location for transport back to base. Norway is a really spectacular place to visit – real bucket-list type stuff!
One of the big challenges for shooting this trip was that we were required to join in on the expedition – that meant a lot of shooting from a double sea kayak, working the angles and trying our best to stop ourselves from throwing our equipment in the sea! We were able to organise a boat for part of the first day, which was incredibly helpful to get lovely shots of the group moving as it gave us a big stable platform to work from. Big shout out to our skipper Haio who saw us right. For the hike up breiskrednosi we had to keep up with the group, with our cameras, batteries and lenses in tow – something that has become a bit of a speciality for Mike and myself over the years.
It takes a good amount of fitness to be able to get ahead of the group over and over again to get the angles, not to mention a good amount of skill to see the shots and angles before they happen. As this was a “live” trip with real clients we obviously wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible even though everyone had given their permission to be on camera and understood why where there we wanted to let them enjoy their trip without asking too much of them. Lucky all of the members of our team where great to work with and a lot of fun, so everyone had a really good time and we got some incredible footage and stills too!
Working quickly and fast to get the required coverage of shots while keeping up is definitely a big skill set that both Mike and I are proud to have in our skills-bag. Being able to be self sufficient in an expedition environment and keep up (and get ahead of) things lets us work really well without imposing on the events. The other benefit of this approach is that it can be really good from a budget perspective, had we tried to shoot this trip with actors and a full support crew it would have taken many times longer and the budget would have been correspondingly a few factors bigger too! On this trip we definitely delivered an insane value for our clients, and the advert should be on TV soon – I can’t wait – it’s always a thrill to see your work out there in the world.
Our main character for the shoot as a woman called Ellen Duffy, who has been on a Much Better Adventures trip before. Ellen is super cool, with a brilliant eye for a shot and a great social media profile on Instagram that’s worth a follow. Ellen is a true adventurer and a bit of a bad-ass. She’s been through some challenges in life and always come through still swinging. She was a joy to work with and we wish her all the best in the future especially with her graphic design business (ellendanielle.co.uk) that she runs with her partner – also well worth a nosey, their work is incredible!
Here’s looking forward to the next adventure already! It’s always great to get stuck in to a project like this in a beautiful location with a great team! I get a big sense of satisfaction from a job well done and overcoming all those niggling challenges that inevitably present themselves!