Elemental

This weekend, I had two long shoot days on a western webseries. Being a western, it's mostly shot outdoors, and of course there's an obligatory desert scene. It's cold in the desert in California in late March. The rigors of the shoot reminded me of one I blogged about a year ago (Will Freeze for Work). 

Out in the desert, we were combating relentless winds; ultra-fine dust that worked it's way into eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; and blindingly bright sun exacerbated by reflection off the white desert surface (this being a period western, these cowboys didn't benefit from sunglasses). At least one in three takes was spoiled by someone's hat being blown away. Several of us were running on only a few hours sleep.

Having wind blowing in your ears for hours on end will nearly drive you mad. If you've ever been on a boat at speed for a significant length of time, you know what I mean. After a while, you begin to feel exhausted just from the sound of wind in your ears. Combine that with the headache you get from squinting for hours from the sun being reflected off the water and you start to feel kind of dizzy. It was the same in the desert.

By the time we wrapped, I was covered in dust, had a serious headache, felt disoriented from the wind, and my fingers and toes were numb from the cold. But at the end of the day, when I got into the car to head home, I was nothing but smiles. It was an epic day with a great crew and great actors.

I love this job!

 

What sort of physically challenging shoots have you done?

(first photo is my own, second is courtesy of Nick Laurent)

-- Gabriel Voss