The Way the Wind Blows

It’s hard to believe that it’s mid-September. The last time I actually thought about the time of year was probably back in July. First day of shooting for Legend of Oz was on the 18th and the rest is kind of a blur.For Oz, principal photography ended a week ago [blog post coming] and like Oz is now, Untamed Lands was in pickups at this time.

Pickups, for those not in the know, are those shots and/or scenes that we didn’t get to as scheduled within the principal photography window.

The weekend of Sep 13 and 14, 2008, was the official end of production on Untamed Lands. This was the weekend that marked the end of full weekends. Full weekends that had been ongoing since mid-May four months earlier. We had shooting days after that weekend, but only one was even close to a full day. There were no more 2-day weekends. Production was dwindling down.

Honestly, when I looked at the call sheets, and started writing this latest flashback, I didn’t remember that. Really, I didn’t really remember much about the weekend at all – call it the end of a long summer, the fact that I had just started school at that time, or the jumbled nature of pickups just confusing me for a bit. So I started to write about some mundane happenings and the more I thought about it, the more I remembered. Once I realized what this weekend represented, I knew exactly what to flashback about. [I also remembered that nothing in Untamed Lands was mundane. ]

A year ago this weekend saw two of the most momentous “how did I not remember that right away” events in the production of Untamed Lands.

The first… haha, Penguin, how I love thee.

Penguin is pretty infamous for a lot of reasons and Sep 13, 2008 is key in its notoriety.

For the climax of Untamed Lands we used these three, large, pyramid-topped obelisks. Measuring five feet tall and about eight inches in length/width, they were weighted down with sand so as to stay upright. They were awkward to carry but up the steep hills of Penguin trod we.

We celebrated wrap that day with an Obelisk Toss. The idea was, rather than carry them down the hill, we’d throw them. We were done with them and it was time for some fun destruction.

The first was tossed, and made it about half way down the hill before skidding to a stop. Friction, what can you do? Andrea (Mora) decided to take a run and help it along by kicking it the rest of the way down. There were cheers. One down, one to go.

The second was tossed with an identical result. Half way down the hill, it skidded to a stop. This time it was Sam (one of our PAs, near Andrea’s age) who ran in to help it along.

The Obelisk won.

Where Andrea had slowed herself down before reaching the Obelisk, Sam plowed into the Obelisk at full speed. She tripped, flipped, and landed further down the hill than the Obelisk. In what was the single greatest injury in the production of Untamed Lands, she made a mess of her hand on the gravel and scraped up her leg but she was laughing all the while. [Not so much when we got home and I spent an hour plus cleaning and digging rocks out of her hand.]

Down at the bottom, we finished demolition on the Obelisks undaunted and stuffed them in the garbage cans.

The next day, September 14th. What we were celebrating as the last official full day of production, we were back at Stony Swamp. Stony is a wonderful location with a diverse ecosystem (big science word of the day) and we were there for probably about 60% of the shoot.

Not unlike the Obelisks, we had a big awkward set piece in use at Stony. It was the Bouldox, AKA the Box-rock. It was a giant boulder pedestal. Shorter than the Obelisks at maybe 3.5 feet tall but it was almost 3 feet in length and width. *Really* awkward to carry. Stony, for the record, has no hills. Instead it has flat, very rocky paths (hence the name). And shooting tends to be an average of 20 minutes away from parking.

At wrap, we were all too happy to smash the Bouldox.

With a sledge hammer.

Which is where the story really starts.

Because the big event of the day was the Hammer Throw.

Some background: Crow’s weapon in Untamed Lands, one of the few things that poses a threat to Mora, is a powerful war hammer called the Spirit of the Sea. The prop hammer is actually pretty light and wasn’t an accurate guage of how to wield it as a weapon. To correct that, what I did was to bring in a 12lb sledge (borrowed from Andrea) as a base comparison. From then on in that was our benchmark for how the SoS would be wielded in battle. Ian (Crow) now had a feel for a weapon with its weight distribution way up on the head, as opposed to one with the head and shaft close to the same weight as in the case of the prop.

Now in Untamed Lands, the hammer is thrown. And that’s where the debate began. The decision was made that the hammer was best thrown underhand, like in the Olympic hammer toss. This, which came to be called the Ballerina Toss, is how the hammer is thrown in Untamed Lands. But VG (Roarke) always argued that the hammer would be more effective as a weapon if it were thrown overhand.

The argument went like this: Underhand you couldn’t really throw the hammer with accuracy (VG), but it had a lot more momentum to carry it (Ian). Overhand, the hammer throw could be more accurate (VG), but you couldn’t really throw it that far because it relied entirely on your own strength (Ian).

On the 14th, after wrap, with the sledge present, both Ian and VG stated their cases one last time before each throwing the hammer according to their style. The result… Well, nothing was actually settled. Both guys were right, and they still couldn’t agree.

My position, by the way, was with Ian since I’m the one who had him throwing the hammer that way. As to the accuracy issue – it was a MAGICAL hammer.

Still, good times.

And to celebrate the anniversary of this weekend, I give you, friendly blog readers, a choice. Both of those events are video documented. I’ll track down and post one. You decide which.

Comment below and tell us whether you want to see the Hammer Throw debate or the Obelisk Toss and Sam’s fall at Penguin. You have till the end of September. After commenting, check out the production stills over on Facebook (and fan up), or visit the Untamed Lands website.

And for you Untamed alum, tell us your memories – of those events or of any others – in honour of this one year anniversary.

[And so you all know, the smashing of the Bouldox actually went off without any injury or alarm. It was cathartic, but uneventful.]