It has been a while since my last post. I have been her for a month now, and so far it has been pretty good. I like it here, the scenery is just amazing and the people are sooo warm and friendly. A big plus is that I have moved out of the hotel and moved into a fully furnished two bedroom apt. Every day starts and finishes with a 35 minute drive that I have affectionately named "The white knuckle drive". The first part of the drive follows the Sageunay river and the road twist and turns. It has been so cold that the river steams in the morning and has created some spectacular images with the rising sun shimmering through the fog. The drive then heads for the mountains the first hill is awesome as the river disappears behind the mountains. On a nice day it is a beautiful drive, The white knuckle part comes in on snowy days, it becomes quite a scary drive.
The film is going quite well, we are two days ahead of schedule which has allowed for two day weekends, no one is complaining. This week we were scheduled to shoot a stunt but the day of the stunt was a beautiful day, when the other scenes in the stunt were shot on grey snowy days so we scrambled and shot other stuff. This week has been incredibly cold somewhere between -25 to - 30C. Yesterday we shot an ice fishing scene on the Saguenay river, we hired ski-doos with trailers and brought all the equipment and about 70 crew and actors out on to the river. There is an actual ice fishing village, they have these cabins that are like mini homes and spend their weekends on the river. The cabins have everything, kitchen with a stove, fireplace, dining table, and some even have couches. Then you pull down the stairs like in an attic and the bedroom is on the second level. Did I mention the view? You are on the Saguenay river in the middle of a fjord. The river has a tide and the ice falls and rises about 12 feet everyday absolutely spectacular!!!
We have sort of taken over Ste-Rose du Nord which is the village we are using as a film set. The residents love it, as we are employing a lot of them to work with us as extra's, all the extras in the movie are residents of the village. We have been renting ski-doos and trailers and are paying them to drive them. Every department has been hiring locals to work with them as well. My department has at least 10 locals with us everyday. As I mentioned before the people here are wonderful. They are very kind hearted and so friendly it is a pleasure to work with them. The mayor of the village who we deal with on a daily basis is quite a character. He makes sure we have everything we need and more, we are even using the village snow plough in the movie, and if a street is to slippery we have the snow plough operators number we call him and he is there in 15 minutes spreading sand. Thank god we have these people, we would not be able to pull it off without them.
My office which is usually in a trailer, is in the basement of a bed and breakfast that we have taken over and converted into wardrobe, hair and make-up and in the basement is the production office. We step outside and have a beautiful view of the river and the village. This week the daily temperature of our office has been 10C because of all the people coming in and out and the frigid temperatures outside. We have hired a local couple who own a cafe as our craft, which is basically providing breakfast and snacks to the crew. Every morning people arrive and go to craft and Linda has been cooking up amazing breakfasts. It is the first time I see people show up half an hour early for work so they can have breakfast first. We also have a catered lunch, which a local restaurant has been providing and it has been typical Quebecois cuisine which is perfect for the conditions we are in. I came here hoping to loose a little weight But with the excellent food we have been having, it is tough to resist.
I love my apartment, I have a fireplace and a lazy boy sometimes a dangerous mix lol. Last weekend I went out and bought some wood it was freezing outside came home and got the fireplace going and jumped into the lazy boy. Within an hour the apartment was toasty warm and I was snoring in the lazyboy. That scenario has been repeated a few times since. It is convenient to have an apartment I have a washer and dryer and do my own laundry. Besides coffee every morning I have not used the kitchen much. I am rarely here always at work. Chicoutimi is a really nice little city that I am falling in love with. I am definitely going to have to try and come here in the summer. Over all it has been a great experience that I am happy to be living. Hopefully now that I have my computer back I will be checking in a little more often
Ciao for now
Kevin
