[Regia-NA] Fw: Nydam Film

[Yolli]

I'm glad to see they cock it up just like they can here...

Roll.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Zacharov" <Zacharov@mail.tdcadsl.dk>
To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@pfepc.post.tele.dk>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 7:20 AM
Subject: Nydam Film


> I'm sending this to various friends, which is why it is in English:
>
> We are involved in the fighting scenes in a documentary about the Nydam
> boat, being made for German tv.
> The boat itself was rather mysterious; a slender mastless warship (more or
> less like a 'prototype' of a Saxon / Jute or even Viking warship). It was
> partly composed of really low quality parts, and it had been deliberately
> sunk as an offering. Possibly it was *built* as an offering.
> We were supposed to portray the fighters in a scenario in which a group of
> warriors from (for example) southern Sweden rowed to and attacked a
village
> in Nydam. It is now close to the German / Danish border, but then was over
> the Germanic side of the (waning) Roman Empire.
> For the filming, they used the old Viking ship replica; Sibbe Als. It
about
> 500 years too late, somewhat to small, and has somewhat different lines,
but
> what else could they use?
> We were given a lot of detailed instructions about Iron Age equipment. We
> could use some of our Viking stuff, and we could make new things (like
> trousers), which we could later use for our Viking hobby because of the
> paucity of Viking trouser finds. We were told to favour 'earth colours',
to
> avoid patches, and that leather was not OK (which is odd, because there
are
> quite a lot of Germanic leather clothes).
> So we turned up, and a tv woman selected certain combinations of clothes,
> armour, helmets, etc. Some of the choices were odd, for example I had made
> Iron Age sandals specifically for this film. They were not used, because
my
> Viking shoes 'looked better'. OK.
> Next morning the ship crew arrived and were kitted out with... theatrical
> costumes from Lübeck; knitted string mail, lots of fluffy sheepskin, a
> basinet (a helmet from over 1000 years later), jute sacking and completely
> cartoon wigs.
> The idea is that the public expects a certain style, so anything accurate
> would look wrong, so the cycle continues. Having said that, I'll bet that
> filming the ship under oars from under water will be a striking image -
the
> film people do have some wonderful ideas.
> I suspect that the continuity will be up the creek. Having played 'one of
> the attackers' for one day, I had to play 'one of the celebrating
villagers'
> on the next. I changed to some other clothes, but just looked 'wealthier'
> than all the others, so the director asked me to play the front man as the
> villagers offer the spoils of war to their God(s). There are no actors,
and
> I was encouraged to improvise in Danish. I hate this. I am not an actor
> myself, and Danish is not my first language. They then told me to dedicate
> it to Odin... er I don't think that Odin was top Germanic God in AD 300.
I'm
> pretty sure Tir should have got the swords cast into the Nydam Marsh.
Things
> were hung up for Odin (???).
> Oh well, we do the combat scenes next week, which is after all what we are
> good at.
> The whole project could be a fiasco, but maybe with enough 'night' filters
> it will look suitably atmospheric, and maybe the public don't care about
> accuracy - but it is supposed to be a documentary.
>
> We also got a whole weekend away from the war.
>
> More to follow.
>
> Oleg.
>
> Our new email is:
> zacharov@mail.tdcadsl.dk
> The old get2net will continue to work for some time.
>