After much work organising a boat, trailer, and car, not to mention arranging help with filming from Astrid, it has finally been possible to do some filming for my Australian desert boat project.
The logistics of this were quite complex. Laura had kindly (and perhaps quite foolishly) agreed to let me borrow her car. I had to pick it up in Alkmaar though, where her mum lives.
Now, I hate driving in any case, mostly because I’m not very good at it. Not only that, but I have never driven on the right side (or for British people, the wrong side) of the road before, and in fact not on any side of any road for more than three years. I spent about twenty minutes driving around Alkmaar trying to find my way onto the motorway, time which was probably in fact quite well spent getting to grips with this new state of affairs. Countless times I cursed as I smashed my left hand into the door trying to change gear, since the gear stick is of course on the right.
Sweating and trying to keep it calm, I headed south towards the tiny village of Nieuwland between Utrecht and Gorinchem, where I had arranged to pick up a trailer from Astrid’s cousin Arjan (who I had met a few weeks ago). In the end I had decided that his boat was just a bit too big – a decision which proved later to be correct – and had instead arranged to borrow the other boat that I had seen recently. This meant driving a little further to Gorinchem to pick it up.
With boat, trailer, and Astrid collected, the last journey of the evening was back north towards the Lange Duinen near Soest, where the filming was to take place. With absolutely no spare cash for anything so extravagant as a hotel room, we instead set up my tiny tent in the car park next to the dunes. This is of course niet toegestaan (not allowed), which we were reminded of the next night (keep reading…).
This film work is all about optimism, and my own sometimes unreasonably optimistic outlook showed its downside the next morning. The weather forecast was rain across the whole of the Netherlands, but I had told myself “What do they know? The sun could just as easily shine if it wants to”. Of course it didn’t.
Since the next day did indeed have sun forecast, this did not need to be a disaster. We took the time to try out various shots and camera angles, and to actually see and feel what it was like to drag the little boat over the sand. Despite its size, it was still a big effort to get it moving. This is a good thing though – the strain in my muscles and face in the film will be real. Just as well I went for the smaller of the two boats.
There was not too much to be done with the rest of the day except to head into Soest in search of something good to eat. For what is one of poshest parts of Holland there were in fact precious few restaurants to be found, aside from a Chinese restaurant established in what looks like someone’s living room. The food was nevertheless delicious, and much appreciated after a night and day in the cold. Later we had a drink in what seemed to be the only pub in town. Across the bar, a group of middle-aged men were gambling quite huge amounts of money.
Heading back out into the frosty air, we made our way back to the tent and settled in for a good night’s sleep before Wednesday’s filming. It was thus quite disturbing to be awoken at 3am by headlights and the noise of car engine outside the tent. Sure enough, upon unzipping the tent we were confronted by a dark figure in uniform towering over us. The conversation, roughly translated, went like this:
Policeman: “Good evening. You do realise that you are not allowed to camp here?”
Me: “Uh, um, no, yes, uh, no…”
Policeman: “There’s a wee yellow sign that says so.”
Astrid: “Do you want the long or the short story? The short one is that we’re here to make a film. We’re here with our boat and the car over there and we’re filming here tomorrow.”
Me: “It’s an art film, you know.”
(long pause)
Policeman: “And you’re going away tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes.”
Policeman: “And is there anywhere you can go to now?”
Astrid: “No.”
Policeman: “And there’s no-one else coming?”
Me: “No.”
(long pause)
Policeman: “Well, in that case, I wish you goodnight. OK?”
Both: “Thank you!!!”
And that was the end of the incident. It could have been a lot worse, I can tell you. I suppose it balances out my previous bad experiences with the law in this country, at least a little bit.
On Wednesday morning it had stopped raining, but a new problem had presented itself – the ground was completely frozen solid. Not only did the dunes look even less like an Australian desert than before, but the rock-hard sand would have scratched the little boat to pieces. There was nothing to be done but wait.
By around 12 o’clock, the sun had driven most of the frost from the ground and we were able to beginning filming at last. All the troubles of the preceding days suddenly evaporated as the sun cast a beautiful orange glow on the dunes and the adrenalin hit of actually working at a project kicked in. That sounds terribly clichéd, but it’s true – it’s the feeling that comes so rarely but it’s unmistakable when you have it.
By 4pm, the light and the batteries for the camera were up, and it was time to pack up and go home. What followed was another 3 or 4 hours of driving in the rain to bring everything back to its rightful owners, and finally a very annoying and unscheduled hour of waiting in the middle of Amsterdam for a night bus home. At about 2am, I finally fell exhausted into bed. Only later will it become clear if all this was worth it.
