Léa's Diary
Travelling With Work
Correct me if I’m wrong, despite the urge of wanting to create magic behind the lens, if you have chosen this industry, and more specifically the camera department, it’s most likely because you can’t stand the idea of sitting in an office. Yes, you can be constantly filming in studios, not seeing any daylight for months, but don’t you just all love the adrenaline, challenge, and feeling of being on location, especially when it is outside of the city? Travelling to different locations is part of the nature of our work, whether it’s around London, or around the globe. Now… is it all it’s cracked up to be?
After spending four months in lock down, I was so grateful to have been able to work on a short film outside of London. The hotel was in the middle of a tiny village, near a beautiful lake, and location was not too far away. It was exactly the kind of work I needed: away from the chaos of London, fresh air, no reception, magnificent trip from the hotel to the location, and vacant landscapes. Of course, filming outdoors is hard work, as you are working with the weather and the daylight. Personally, I find these sort of shoots a lot more fun!
Once you start going overseas for shoots, things get a little more complicated. What’s important to keep in mind is that you most likely won’t have access to a kit rental company near to where you are filming, so if something goes wrong with any piece of equipment, you’ll need a back up. Also - always test the equipment beforehand and be sure to ask for spares. What if you’re on top of a mountain, two hours away from any sort of civilisation, or on a boat in the middle of nowhere, and something goes wrong? You don’t only need a Plan A, but also a Plan B, C and D. The bottom line is that you can never get caught off guard. You need to be prepared for every scenario. It is essential to write up an entire list of the equipment you are taking with you before leaving for the shoot, and send it to your camera team.
As we know from the last article, there’s a lot involved in prepping the kit, but when travelling abroad, you need to write up what is called a carnet. This is a form where you have to detail every single piece of equipment you are taking with you on the trip, with their serial numbers (much like the equipment log mentioned above). If you’ve missed something out on your form, you might not be able to bring your equipment past the border into the country.
You also need to think about how to pack the kit according to the airport security guidelines. Check the batteries are flight safe, and divide them per bag as one person can only carry so many batteries in one bag (depending on the types of batteries you have). Once I was traveling for a documentary, so we had minimal equipment, but it was still all very expensive and had to be packed carefully and efficiently, for airport security. Each of us had bag full of equipment, two to four batteries, and a written letter of permission to take them on the plane with us. On much larger productions, they might decide to hire a truck to drive the equipment to the country you’re filming in, as there would be significantly more equipment to transport than for a documentary. Depending on which country you're going to, you’ll still need to fill out a carnet.
Think of the country you’re going to film in. Will it be snowing, humid, extremely hot, dusty? In Switzerland, we knew we would be filming in -10°C, so the focus puller brought some sandwich bags to keep the batteries in with hand warmers in order to keep the batteries at a regular temperature. (When it gets cold, batteries don’t last as long.) With the cold, the mechanics in the camera also become stiffer, and it inevitably is physically harder to work in such conditions, so prepare yourself for that too. A recurring question in the camera team is: where can I get power to charge the batteries? Well, sometimes you won’t have power and will have to prepare for that or find a smart way to access it. In India, there was a day where we were filming on a Tuk Tuk on the motorway for most of the day. The camera was facing the wheels or the roads most of the time, so regular lens checks were necessary. For a source of power, we decided to bring a power inverter, getting power from the car to a 13amp socket, to charge our batteries as much as we could. Luckily, it did the job perfectly for us on that day.
The equipment is important obviously, but don’t forget about yourself and your mental health. How will you be as efficient as possible doing your work, despite the challenging working conditions? How will you cope being away from your family and friends for a long period of time? How will you make yourself comfortable in the hotel?
It might seem silly, but bringing some blankets, slippers, photographs, and other things that make your room a bit more personal can help you feel a bit more at ease.
When travelling with work, you won’t necessarily see the touristic places, but rather be filming in places you never thought you’d have access to, and meet many amazing people. However, sometimes, you’re so caught up in your work, you won’t even have time to see anything at all. After spending two weeks in Switzerland, we only noticed on the very last day, having a slightly later call time, that we were living by this stunning lake and majestic mountains! The work can be so intense that you won’t realise that what you’re experiencing as part of your work is unique, until you go back home. My advice would be to take even just a couple seconds to take it all in, be grateful and enjoy it all while it’s happening. Go all in, allow yourself to immerse yourself in the landscape and the culture, because it is truly wonderful, and not many people are able to live this. We do what we do to tell stories not only through the screen, but also to share our experiences with the people you know and love. And believe me, some people in this industry have some amazing stories to tell from filming abroad!
I’m so grateful to say that I have witnessed the stunning sunrise on the back of a low loader in the countryside roads of Scotland, celebrated Diwali in its entirety, sat down to chat and share a delicious home cooked meal with the incredibly generous family we were filming in India, filming on top of a mountain with the most outstanding view in Switzerland, driving through Northern Ireland with our driver who was full of stories and showed us some of the landmarks of his country, and finally, filmed on a flying plane from London, past Scotland, landing in Wales, to finally return to London in a bus filled with the pilots and their crew.
Of course, it’s understandable that during this time of Covid, it’s hard to think about travelling, with all the limitations, but it is definitely something that I very much look forward to coming back to.
