Royal filming

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I recently had the great honour of filming His Royal Highness Haakon, the crown prince of Norway.
It was very exciting filming in the Royal palace in the center of Oslo, where Monocle had been granted an exclusive interview in the crownprince’s private office.

The greatest challenge was finding a good solution despite a number of limitations:

• time - only 45 min set-up time
• location - full of natural light from the huge windows; certain areas were not allowed to be visible
• 2 camera - both the crown prince and the interviewer were to be filmed
• equipment - as everything had to be transported, there was only space for a limited amount of lamps
• time - only 45 min set-up time
• no change - once the interview started, there was no stopping
• just one cameraman - me - and just one gaffer - me
• time - did I mention that there was only 45 min set-up time?

Fortunately I had long learned that there is no point in fighting natural light, instead one should use it to its advantage. I thus used only a kinoflo Divalite 4 bank 4 footer (with half the tubes tungsten- the other two daylight-balanced) to lighten up the shadow side (and get some fill on the interviewer), and added a dedolight spot to give a little shine on the Crown-prince’s hair.

The full interview is currently available on the Monocle Website.

Given the circumstances, I am quite happy with the result. It was also interesting working in a suit - and having 4 young men in uniform carry the equipment was something I could definately get used to.

P.S: Uncredited in the film, the soundrecordist was Einar Bakke.