On location
I didn't know they made aeroplane seats from shiny plastic and I also thought that all aeroplane seats reclined. Three long flights over 30 hours and I arrived rather tired in Temuco, south of Santiago the capital of Chile.
The director Sophie and cameraman Ed had travelled out the day before for a recce so when they met me at the airport they had sort of recovered. I also met our 'fixer' Graham who I was slightly surprised to discover claimed he 'couldn't really' speak Spanish.
We'd come to make 2 short films. The first was about Monkey puzzle trees which are endangered in the wild and the second was about Nothofagus antarctica, the Southern Beech which I'm using in my garden at Chelsea. The clever researcher back at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in London had found somewhere that they grow side by side so they were able to make the trip economically worthwhile.
Day 1 and we drove for about 2 hours to a region near the coast to meet a conservationist who is replanting monkey puzzles. It was fascinating for me as a gardener and there were lots of familiar garden plants like Eryngium, Podocarpus and Desfontainia growing in the wild. But today I also learned something I didn't know I needed to know: In Chile the radio frequencies are unregulated which means that radio mics don't work properly. The cameraman was having to double up as a soundman so that meant every take took about three times as long as it should do because of hisses and crackles on the tape. This is when we first started to fall behind schedule.
Tonight we returned to our hotel which was basic but adequate. An early start and we were off to the Conguillio National Park which has its own active Volcano called Llaima. Driving through the countryside into the foothills of the Andes the scenery seems somewhat European, almost alpine with Lombardy poplars turning bright yellow with the onset of autumn. The weather which started grey and overcast is now like an English summer.
And when the park proper started we were driving over colossal lava flows long since cooled with patches of green beginning to colonise them. As we climbed higher to about 900 metres we were into a forest of deep green monkey puzzle trees with an understorey of bright red Nothofagus in their autumn colours. It was spectacular and all of us wandered around muttering to ourselves how amazing it was and how lucky we were to be there. On one of our journeys we took the opportunity to see if they had any for sale...
Everything was going well until our 'fixer' told the park guides we didn't need them anymore. He said it was okay as he'd got directions from them and then took us for a 2 hour hike in completely the wrong direction. Humping cameras and tripods we eventually came out into a clearing which turned out to be a car park so we could have driven there. For some reason we all found this extremely funny. We were now at least a day behind so that night we stayed in the park to avoid 6 hours travelling each day.
The wooden hut in the forest, despite the large hole in the bathroom floor, was idyllic but it made our basic hotel look positively luxurious. We stayed up late writing scripts for the following day and drinking Chilean wine. I had my own room but all the others shared. The fixer snored all night and kept the others awake. Somehow everyone found that funny too, but not until much later.
The director Sophie and cameraman Ed had travelled out the day before for a recce so when they met me at the airport they had sort of recovered. I also met our 'fixer' Graham who I was slightly surprised to discover claimed he 'couldn't really' speak Spanish.
We'd come to make 2 short films. The first was about Monkey puzzle trees which are endangered in the wild and the second was about Nothofagus antarctica, the Southern Beech which I'm using in my garden at Chelsea. The clever researcher back at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in London had found somewhere that they grow side by side so they were able to make the trip economically worthwhile.
Day 1 and we drove for about 2 hours to a region near the coast to meet a conservationist who is replanting monkey puzzles. It was fascinating for me as a gardener and there were lots of familiar garden plants like Eryngium, Podocarpus and Desfontainia growing in the wild. But today I also learned something I didn't know I needed to know: In Chile the radio frequencies are unregulated which means that radio mics don't work properly. The cameraman was having to double up as a soundman so that meant every take took about three times as long as it should do because of hisses and crackles on the tape. This is when we first started to fall behind schedule.
Tonight we returned to our hotel which was basic but adequate. An early start and we were off to the Conguillio National Park which has its own active Volcano called Llaima. Driving through the countryside into the foothills of the Andes the scenery seems somewhat European, almost alpine with Lombardy poplars turning bright yellow with the onset of autumn. The weather which started grey and overcast is now like an English summer.
And when the park proper started we were driving over colossal lava flows long since cooled with patches of green beginning to colonise them. As we climbed higher to about 900 metres we were into a forest of deep green monkey puzzle trees with an understorey of bright red Nothofagus in their autumn colours. It was spectacular and all of us wandered around muttering to ourselves how amazing it was and how lucky we were to be there. On one of our journeys we took the opportunity to see if they had any for sale...
Everything was going well until our 'fixer' told the park guides we didn't need them anymore. He said it was okay as he'd got directions from them and then took us for a 2 hour hike in completely the wrong direction. Humping cameras and tripods we eventually came out into a clearing which turned out to be a car park so we could have driven there. For some reason we all found this extremely funny. We were now at least a day behind so that night we stayed in the park to avoid 6 hours travelling each day.
The wooden hut in the forest, despite the large hole in the bathroom floor, was idyllic but it made our basic hotel look positively luxurious. We stayed up late writing scripts for the following day and drinking Chilean wine. I had my own room but all the others shared. The fixer snored all night and kept the others awake. Somehow everyone found that funny too, but not until much later.
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