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[a continuation of my own experiences on the making of the film "GallowWalker". You can read part 1 here]

With Wesley Snipes officially on-board, things really started moving fast. The film’s line-producer was in place, in Namibia, setting up a production base in the town of Swakopmund. Basically, if you are shooting anywhere near the western side of Namibia, you either set up your base in Swakopmund or Walvis Bay. “10,000 BC” had already set themselves up in Walvis Bay, so we settled with the former, cleverly avoiding the fairly constant smell of raw sewage and fish, but being cursed with a thick fog and cold that held over the town for most of the day every day.

The Art Department headed down shortly afterward, leaving the rest of us to work in the UK on last-minute casting, storyboards, concept design and other crucial aspects of the production, such as the non-existent 2-perf cameras that we’d settled on for providing an undeniable Spaghetti Western look to the production. D.O.P. Henner Hofmann still insisted that we didn’t need to worry about it, that he would pull the cameras out of thin air, but we were understandably concerned and nearly every day started with hopeful optimism and ended with a discussion alternate plans, as the completion bond and insurance of the production hinged on dependable cameras that would last the duration of the shoot without breaking down, especially in the desert climate of West Africa.

With so much of the production still up in the air, the core crew began boarding flights to Namibia. The script was pretty much locked, except for one minor change resulting from an initial assessment from the production designer on location that the money slotted into the budget for set design would definitely not cover both the slaughterhouse (where a bulk of the story takes place) and the town of Enoch’s Hammer (where Kansa, the main baddie of the film is introduced). We had been spoiled, with previous location choices like Almeria, Spain and Santa Fe, New Mexico, in that both already had standing Western town sets that we could just move into and start shooting. This was the first western to be shot in Namibia (commercials don’t count), so there was nothing like this waiting for us.

Writer/producer Joanne Reay and Andrew Goth had a creative think about it and came up with the idea that rather than have a typical western town with western settlers, Enoch’s Hammer would be populated by a nomadic group of hyper-religious nutjobs that would help, even more, to stress the surreal aspect of the film as a whole. Rather than buildings, they would have large tents, and in their God-assigned task of ridding the world of sinners, the focal point of their town would be a massive gallows — well in keeping with the theme and title of the film.

So, it just goes to show you, no matter what problems you are up against, if you have the energy and the conviction, there is always a creative solution.

The official start of pre-production in Namibia was smooth. With most of the key crew there, director Goth scheduled a couple of very motivational tours of all the locations we’d be shooting at. It was an inspired idea, considering that so much time over the coming months would be spent indoors, in fog-shrouded Swakopmund. If you turned a blind eye to the odd ostrich, oryx and baboon, it really did look like Sergio Leone’s old west. Just the absolutely massive scale was the thing that was so impressive. So much more freedom than other locations which offered only a very limited field of view in which to place the camera to avoid modern landmarks such as cell phone towers.

Despite the frenzied activity and inspiring locations, however, it didn’t take long for cracks to begin to show in the production on the whole. I can’t even pinpoint exactly when that started or what event it started with. I guess it just always seemed like we’d been flying along on the seat of our pants for so long that it was normal. It was really like an infectious plague more than anything else, and it started at the east end of our production offices; this is where the Art Department had set up, long before anyone else had arrived, and the Line Producer and First A.D. across from them. Daily, the production designer would report that there was less money to do what was required than the day before, which just didn’t make sense. He would say, well this has changed, or that had changed, when, in reality, the script had been locked down for quite some time. “Well, I didn’t quite understand that that’s what you wanted”, he would say.

Then the Line Producer took up the cause: number of shooting days had to be cut, 2-perf cameras could not be used, no matter what the cost savings or creative results were, second unit (my responsibility once pre-production ended) could not exist as more than a director and one camera man, borrowing a camera from main unit and only for a couple of weeks. The First A.D., strangely, soon sided with him, against the director, but understandable, I guess, as the Line Producer had recommended her highly for the job.

The east end of the production offices soon became a place to avoid if you wanted to have a fulfilling, creative day, but bad news had legs and negativity would soon find you no matter where in the building you were.

One ray of sunlight did, however, manage to break through the fog of pre-production in Swakopmund and that was news from Henner Hofmann that Panavision would manufacture 2-perf cameras for us (well, for him specifically). I just couldn’t believe it. Then we got a DVD of test footage, shot in L.A. by Hofmann and it looked, at least, like that problem was solved, and solved beautifully. Coming when if did, this footage of a parking lot outside Panavision’s labs looked incredible and it seemed like maybe any problem that we had could be eventually solved as smoothly as this one, if only we kept faith …

Continued in Making GallowWalker - Part 3.

Related posts:

1. Making “GallowWalker” - part 1
   In 2006, I was approached by Joanne Reay and Andrew Goth to do some concept work and storyboards on a...
2. Making “GallowWalker” - part 3 (with video!)
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3. Wrapping Up GallowWalker
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