“Father of Lies”
was hands-down the most brutal shoot I’ve ever been the director
on. Don’t get me wrong, we had a lot of fun while filming and the
footage I’ve seen is amazing, but like every project it had its
problems.
Lowrie (Producer)
and I have a superstition that actually seems to work. If we mention
something out loud that could happen to mess up a shoot, it doesn’t
happen. We joke that the Film Gods either answer our “prayers” or
just decide that we know to expect it and come up with something new
to throw at us. This ever-growing list includes everything we can
think of from A to Z , although we have learned that sometimes you
have to be very specific for the prayer to work. (We’ve been
joking that next time we are going to hire someone whose only job is
to continuously call out everything that could possibly happen on the
set.)
We were already
prepared to face the heat and bugs while living on the location in
primitive cabins, but nothing could have prepared us for some of the
other obstacles we had to overcome over the four-day shoot.
Here are a few
highlights:
PASTRY SQUIRREL
The morning of the
first day a cast member found a squirrel that had managed to get
inside a box of pastries on the craft services table and the little
bugger refused to leave. After that, every morning that squirrel
would show up and steal a danish from the table before we could get
everything back into a cabin after breakfast.
FIRE AND THUNDER
On the third day of
shooting, many of the actors were unable to get to the set on time
due to a brush fire that broke out in the wilderness park where we
were filming. Meanwhile the majority of the cast and crew were
already inside the park and weren’t being told exactly where the
fire was! At the same time, we learned that the actor playing Thor
would not be arriving at all, which threatened to derail the whole
project. Fortunately, we were able to replace him at the last
minute with a crew member who had stage fighting experience and we
were able to get caught up with the schedule.
THE DRONE WARS
We had several
drone-related mishaps while filming, including finding out that the
spot we picked for filming a few scenes was located near a field
where drone races were being held. Our own drone behaved perfectly
for the one planned shot we had for it, but refused to take direction
for most of the on-the-fly shots we came up with while filming.
THE CAULDRON OF DOOM
Our set designers
insisted that we have a cook-fire pit in one of the interior sets
which proved to be quite painful. While setting it up, the heavy
cast-iron cauldron fell on one person’s head. Later, during a fight
scene on that set, another person literally landed into the mock fire
pit while performing a stunt. (Fortunately the iron cauldron didn’t
fall that time!)
ODIN’S DISCO
SHOWER
On paper, the set
for Odin’s Throne Room looked amazing with ice-like walls and eerie
lighting. In reality, once all the fabric was hung and the lights
were put up it looked we were inside a psychedelic curtained shower
stall. The decision was quickly made to move Odin to an exterior
location instead.
SMOKING IN THE
THRONE ROOM
After finding the
perfect spot to relocate Odin’s set, we had a problem with the fog
machines only being able to keep the eerie atmosphere for about 30
seconds at a time. While on a break to figure out what to do, one
crew member noticed that his cigarette smoke drifting in front of the
camera created the effect that we were looking for. So for the rest
of the filming on that set, we went through several packs of
cigarettes with everyone smoking while standing in various places out
of frame.
DICK CHICKEN
Everything on the
dining table on the Loki’s Home set had been previously frozen so
it would withstand the heat of lights. During a fight scene an actor
got the idea to throw a plate of prop food at his opponent after
being pushed back to the dining table. While demonstrating the idea
he threw the plate at the wall and a frozen chicken breast flew
across the room and hit his opponent directly in the crotch. We had
to take a fifteen minute break after that.
DIRECTOR’S CRASH
LANDING
I played one of the
fighting characters myself and we intentionally scheduled all the
fight scenes on the last day because we knew there was a risk of
injury on a set that had a concrete floor. Sure enough, I managed to
miscalculate during a stunt and landed hard on my left elbow. Knowing
that I wouldn’t be able to perform for much longer, we rolled the
cameras and I got through the scene one more time giving it
everything I had while in an enormous amount of pain. Afterward I
took off the Viking-style ring belt I was wearing and fashioned it
into a sling for my arm before moving on to the next scene.
