Part one of the filming journey - The Beach

One thing is for sure. When you go filming a short film to a beach in the middle of nowhere the whole concept of "beach" is changed forever. Even thought everything went well and everyone is alive, it wasn´t your average beach holiday that´s for sure.

Day 1: The first day we arrived the weather wasn´t exactly as we were hoping for. It was quite cloudy and it rained a little here and there. The sunset that was the most important thing to get filmed wasn´t going to happen, but we decided to film couple of pictures anyway. When we eventually started filming, it was already raining a bit and the sunset went under he horizon faster than we expected. Although we were able to film most of the shots we wanted there just wasn´t enough light to get all the shots that night. As soon as we got the filming duties done, we started to build our camp. At that point the rain started to get heavier and at the same moment we found out that one of our tent hadn´t got any outer shield with it. It was just some fabric that wasnt waterproof at all. Luckily we bought some shower curtains in the case of rain and after an long struggle we were able to cover the tent with them.. (that we had to fix in the middle of the night after the rain and wind almost tore the whole thing off) At this point it was clear that it even thought it was going to be an memorable trip, it wasn´t going to be easy.

Day 2: The morning was something in the between of sunshine and cloudy. Not bad compared to the night before, but still not the kind we were looking for. We started to organize things and after a while the filming was well on it´s way. The second day was maybe the longest in shooting wise. Thought it was cloudy the light was on our side. We were very pleased with the material we got and even thought the night was a bit rainy again, it was most certainly better than the night before. At this point we found out that sand is something you just have to get used to when you live on the beach. Our food, sleeping bags, clothes and tents were full of it but at this point it was still more or less funny.

For our surprise and kinda bad luck, there was some kind of festival going on at the nearest town of Salacgriva that made everyday a trip to get some neccessary food and suppliment. On Friday we made our trip in the evening and we were in a little hurry to catch the possible sunset. About 5km before the city of couple of thousand peolpe was just packed with festival folk. The only road leading to the city wasn´t moving anywhere and with the driving culture of Latvia it was some what an exotic situation to find yourself in. The car line moved approximately 5km per hour and after 45min of waiting part of our crew jumped out of our "papmobile" (Paprika mobile) and headed to the shops by foot. We had to get a ticket for a bus to one of our actors and cause of the festivals we wanted to buy well before it was leaving. Other than that, we needed some water, milk and some beverages aswell. After some running organizing and planning we had everything else with us other than the bus ticket. There was only one ticket left for the bus and thanks to some weird and confuseing webbank systems we failed to get the ticket and it looked much like there was going to be lot of driving on sunday to get our actor off the beach and on the bus from the next city to catch the boat to Helsinki. (Pärnu that was about 100km away from our location was our next best chance. but more of that later on)

After our shopping trip, we found out that we missed the sunset partially cause of the weather but also were super late to shoot the other shots planned for that evening. It also raid a bit again and there was the basic hassel that you have to go through with when you live in tents in the middle of nowhere and have a short film to film with really small crew. We got some shots but we already knew that we had to film some of those again if the conditions got better. The night was still long and after we got our filming done, that was some where between 01:00 and 03:00 in the morning we had the pleasure to witness one of the most amazing moonlights in our lives. The nigth was quite long and we had one of the best nights yet to come around the little bonfire that kept us warm and the stories that made us laugh.

That´s all for now. There´s so many stories and experiences that it would take the whole day to tell all about them in one time. We are already in Riga and been filming some pickup shots and scouting for locations. There´s been some miss fortune for example our car is still at the beach and such but more about that later.

IF YOU HAPPEN TO READ THIS AND YOU ARE IN RIGA HIT US WITH AN E-MAIL OR SO. We are still looking for some statistics for the main filming day that is on saturday, so if you want to have part in our film give us a hint. Till later

www.silentpaprikafilms.com

-SPF