Last week was one of the most unforgettable times of my life – we flew (& drove) our tiny but mighty team out to rural Washington and shot for 4 days, capturing some amazing moments.
Incredibly, nothing went tits-up out there. The movie gods seemed to be smiling down on the project – we didn’t even get a drop of Seattle rain the whole time.
But that doesn’t mean it was easy…
Here’s a quick break down of the shoot day-by-day – full BTS videos will come soon(ish!).
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Day 1 – Travel & Shoot
After creating yet another new version of the schedule, packing & prepping our house for the cat-sitter, Toni and I caught a whopping 2 hours of sleep, then met with our gaffer and lead actor at Burbank airport for our 7am flight to Seattle.
This was my first time meeting our gaffer, and he was perfectly picked for the job – he’s been working on unscripted survival TV shows for years.
When we landed, it was straight to the car rental facility to grab a minivan – then we drove 90 minutes to our main filming location out in Index, WA.
Casey (DP/producer) and our AC were already there, having put in an extra few days of prep and testing on site. Chris (co-writer/producer) and his wife were also there early, and had already started stocking us up with crafty.
We took a couple hours to get unpacked and set up. Then I ran through a quick production meeting over lunch before we headed over to the river to start shooting.
Knowing we’d be exhausted, I only scheduled 2 shots for the day – both simple but unique setups. We could get them out of the way while easing into working together.
All went well, so we packed up and sat down for dinner.
After that, Casey and I walked through the plan for the following day. So far we were exactly on schedule.
Day 2 – The river
Call time was 3:15am, so people started moseying into our production office/staging area around 2:30am for breakfast.
We decided a couple days before the shoot to abandon the idea of an overnight schedule, and instead just wake up early to take advantage of blue hour and golden hour at sunrise (5:15am). If we needed night shots, we’d wake up extra early.
Our first blue hour challenge was to capture 2 dolly shots around the remains of a campfire. It took a combined effort from everyone to get both of them set dressed, lit, and framed up in the very brief window of time where the light would look right.
We barely got it done in time, but we did, and the team was starting to flow together.
After that, we were off to the river again, shooting for the rest of the day.
This was fairly uneventful because we stayed exactly on schedule (we love that).
At 3:45pm, we wrapped for the day and a few of us stuck around to prep for the next morning, and what we thought would be the most physical challenge of the shoot…
Day 3 – The hike
Call time was 3am – and started with a company move to a nearby hiking trail.
Everybody was carrying gear on their back – ranging from 25-60+ lbs!
We picked up a blue hour shot out there, then a golden hour shot a little further up the trail. After that, it was a 2 mile hike up the mountain to our cave entrance location.
We had scheduled 90 minutes for the hike, but our team was crushing it – and we made it up in only an hour. We broke for lunch (pre-packed sandwiches), and planned out a bonus shot we now had ample time for – and I’m so glad we got it.
Then it was over to the nearby location we came up here for. Again, we stayed on schedule and everything went smoothly, and all the shots up there exceeded my expectations.
Then it was time for the hike back down the mountain – and by the time we got back to the trailhead at 1:30pm my shoulders were killing me from carrying all that gear.
I thought the biggest physical challenge of the shoot was done… but it turned out I was wrong.
After dinner, Casey and I planned out the details of the opening scare of the film at the river the next day, then Toni and I spent an hour creating footprints in mud for a blue hour shot the next morning. We were spent.
Day 4 – The scare
Call time was 2am! Which meant we were all awake around 1am. Today was going to be a long day.
The reason we started so early was to pop off all our remaining night/blue hour shots. The footprint shots were particularly annoying to get – turns out it’s really hard to make footprints show clearly on camera. This day was aggressively scheduled, and for the first time, we started falling behind schedule.
When we relocated to the river to shoot our opening scare, the water was still icy cold. That sucks for us, because half of us were about to be standing in that water, for quite a while.
This is where morale started really breaking – we were struggling to get the precise timing and blocking of the scare shot to work, and to shoot it, we needed 4 of us standing out in that cold, slippery river.
We fell an hour behind schedule until we finally got one take of the scare that worked. I saw it on the little monitor over Casey’s shoulder and called it – moving on.
I figured if it “got me” there, it would work great on a big screen with sound design.
We got the hell out of the river and broke for lunch as we started feeling our toes again.
The rest of the day was picking up a series of shots we planned to shoot right next to our production office/staging area. It was a welcome relief from the physical and mental challenges of the past day and a half.
Amazingly, we made up all our lost time here, and even finished the day slightly ahead of schedule – with no compromises to the shots we caught at the end of the day, which ended up being some of my favorites.
But our day was far from over…
Cue 2 hours of packing up, cleaning up the ranch we had rented for lodging & shooting, and then driving 2 hours through traffic back to the Seattle airport.
After a couple of airport drinks, by the time I got on the plane, I was completely out of it.
Toni and I finally went to sleep in our own bed, almost 24 hours after call time 😵💫
The dominant feeling was – I can’t believe we got away with all that!
There were a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, but all the extra effort we put into prep really paid off. The rest was a very healthy portion of luck.
If we had had ONE less person, we couldn’t have done what we did. And if I could turn back time, I definitely would have hired a couple of extra PA’s or runners out there.
But regardless, we got it done, stayed safe, captured some of the best footage of my career, and made memories to last a lifetime. What more can you ask for?
What next?
We just have 2 more days of shooting here in LA – coming up in a couple of days actually! These will be our cave interiors, shot on a soundstage.
Compared to the Washington leg of the shoot, I think these 2 final days will feel almost decadently cushy. We’ll have more hands on set, in a controlled environment, in a city where you have conveniences like… getting food delivered for example. Breezy!
Huge thanks to everyone who came out for the Washington shoot, I’ll be giving them their proper flowers in the BTS videos. Shout out to our great unit stills photographer Alley Rutzel for the pics in this issue!
Much more to come. Let’s make some movies.
-Kent