Survivor's Club: Fighting the Cold

There are a lot of days when we film in bad weather - days so hot your eyeballs feel like they're frying, days so cold your hands might fall off, and rain pouring so hard you could almost drown on set. Each month we'll remember one of those horrible weather days and celebrate the survivors who braved the elements in order to film.  Why would we want to remember those days?  Because going through hell on set has a way of bringing everyone closer together when they can say they survived mother nature AND filming on a Yibble set.

FIGHTING THE COLD

The Dragon & The Unicorn was the fifth production we filmed and was shot between the fall of 1997 and the spring of 1998.  The previous productions we’d filmed had mostly been shot in the late spring or summer.  The only production that had been filmed in the winter at that point was Destiny II and only one scene was shot outside. It was a quick scene with only one shot in the courtyard of Wesley United Methodist Church and it was chilly but not too cold. The only weather issues we’d had at this point had been hot weather in the unair-conditioned Great Hall. 

The actors had never experienced a freezing cold set before, so of course I had to introduce them to one. There’s a flashback scene – actually it’s the first scene of the movie – that takes place in a forest at an unspecified point in history (early Middle Ages).  It starts off with running, which keeps the actors warm, but then they stop and talk which is when the cold really starts to set in.  

The costumes were tunics over turtlenecks and pants with boots and cloaks, I think the tunics were made of wool, but maybe it was just knit made to look like wool. Yeah, probably not real wool.  It’s not like they were naked or in short sleeves, but they weren’t in Victorian garb with heavy coats.  Now that I think about it I’ve never filmed a scene with heavy Victorian clothing when it was actually cold outside. Maybe I should try that one of these days.

Anyway, it was cold. Very cold. Not just chilly or a little breezy, but bone-chilling, teeth-chattering, hypothermia inducing cold with a sharp wind that feels like it’s cutting through you. The kind of cold that even in the sunlight you’re still shivering and your breath in the air is more like fog then mist.  You know, a typical Illinois Saturday in late November. 

Luckily we were filming a fight scene and moving around helps warm the actors up.  Unfortunately most of the fight scene takes place rolling around on the ground – the dirty, leafy, freezing cold ground. We choreographed the fight on set, of course (because that’s how I roll), so it took even longer to film than a typical scene.  We were freezing in the forest for at least two if not three hours.

I took a photo with the actors after the filming was over and what I love most about this photo is the fact that the actors – especially Nina and Annamarie – are clearly freezing their butts off and I’m grinning like an idiot while wearing a super warm coat.  I’m not just a sadist, I’m clearly a selfish one.  To be fair though I often took off my coat or didn’t wear one on other cold shoots to go through what the actors were going through – but only if I had a tripod, because I have trouble holding the camera steady on a good day. 

The poor actors were so cold that when we got back to the my house they were still shivering.  The Homestead had this wonderful long radiator with a thick marble slab on top that was perfect to sit on and warm up.  The actors’ hand were so cold to the touch that I heated up towels and wrapped their hands in them.  I made a pot of hot tea and did my best to thaw them out.  I was worried they might get sick from being out in the cold so long.

But they did thaw out eventually and none of them lost any fingers or toes or ended up with pneumonia, so it worked out well in the end.

Thank you to Annamarie MacLeod, Nina Samii, and Danny Skirvin – the brave warriors who fought the cold (as well as each other) on the very first frozen film shoot!  The next time I find a marble-topped radiator I’ll call you and we can have a hot tea and towel reunion.