Shoots outside in nature are usually some of my favourites, the fresh air, the natural lighting, the stunning locations! But being outside leaves you (and more importantly your kit!) exposed to the elements and this is exactly what happened on a recent shoot in the forests near Manchester!
Day Of The Shoot
This shoot was set to be an absolutely awesome day of capturing content with a professional forager as he tracked down rare mushrooms and berries for use in some unique recipes.
Although we had been forecast some rain, what presented itself when we arrived on location was on another level! Our camera's rain cover and our trusty golf umbrella was going to be no match for what the heavens had laid out for us.
So this left us with a very serious conversation with the client as we all stood in the rain, in a car park, in the middle of the forest.
Tackling The Problem
The first thing we did was to gather all the information we needed, with everyone's time and money on the line it was important to make the right decision and quick!
Here's what we got back:
- The crew had been hired for the day - a reshoot would incur costs to bring them back.
- Our talent had made a special trip to Scotland the day before to pick some particularly interesting Mushrooms. These wouldn't last another 24hrs. (Can't freeze them either! We asked!)
- The weather wasn't looking any better for the rest of the week, in fact, it was looking worse!
- The afternoon was already packed and there was no way to switch the timing round.
Making A Decision
(This image does not do the weather justice, just picture a very soggy version of me stood in some mud.)
We decided the first step was to wait it out - to see if the rain was getting better or worse. I think my reasoning was something along the lines of "There's only so much rain in the clouds!".
Before we all sat back in our individual cars to wait it out, there was a brief conversation about secondary locations, and that's when the solution appeared. Our forager happened to have a yurt about 10 minutes away. This was perfect and although it wasn't quite the shoot we had planned, the crew was quick to adapt, working with the equipment we had for a completely different setup to light and start rolling inside of one of the coolest filming locations of the year. (Not too hard thanks to COVID!).
Prevailing
By midday, we had successfully captured a number of interviews and just as we were starting to think about our next move - the rain cleared and the sun came out. We managed to fake our forest location with some nearby greenery, captured some beautiful shots of our forager in his natural habitat and even had some onsight brews and some of natures "natural source of testosterone" by the time we arrived for our afternoon location we were back on track and storming through the day!
This is a bit of a long blog - but it hopefully gives you an idea of the challenges creating amazing video content can bring! I'm incredibly proud to be part of that team, both the client and the filming crew who were faced with a challenge and plucked success from the jaws of defeat.