I struggled long and hard on this, not sure whether or not you all were ready for another dose of Uwe-blog. Then I thought, no. No they’re not. THEN I thought, well, what if just one of you is waiting with baited breath to discover what’s going on with TUNNEL RATS, Uwe Boll’s bid to make PLATOON look like a useless piece of chicken-scratch. I can’t let that one person down, so here is chapter 3 of Uwe’s diary.
When we last left off HERE, Uwe was explaining his admiration for the Vietcong’s elaborate system of tunnels, shrugging off the fact that his crew is constantly dealing with various explosion-related injuries and trauma, and rattling off Boll-isms like “It is very important for me to show that every single soldier who is participating actively in a war is guilty by being an active part due to his profession to be a soldier.”
Let’s face it, the man is a poet. And that’s why we read these things! (and by “we,” I mean me and that one other dude) I especially like the part where all of their water is used to douse a flaming food tent. Enjoy!
PRODUCTION BLOG OF TUNNELRATS PART THREE
The last production days in the jungle luckily passed by without any major catastrophees and were are able to shoot excellent material for the movie. Everybody is was highly motivated, this is an extraodinary crew.
Our plan, before we started shooting, was to have about 50% of the scenes happening in tunnels, but after the incredible jungle scenes we have been able to shoot, it will be more realistic that 40% of the material will be tunnel sets in the final version.
On our last jungle day first the kitchen tent started to burn and the water truck had hurry up and use all its water to extinguish the fire. A little later almost one of our fire throwers exploded. And than, just before one of our actors had to crawl into one of the tunnel, a Black Mamba blocked the entrance to the tunnel. We had a break of 10 minutes and waited for the snake to crawl away from the entrance of the tunnel. Before we continued to shoot, the area around that particular set was strip searched for more Black Mambas. That particular day was one of our longest jungle days, we stopped shooting around 03:00 a.m. At night the jungle is totally different to daylight. Goes without saying the noises and sounds one can hear are quite exciting too.
On Saturday we fly from Durban which is situated northeastern coast at the Indian Ocean, back to largest city and melting pot of South Africa: Cape Town. Goes without saying I did not swim in the ocean as the coast of South Africa as famous for being the breeding habitat of Great White Sharks. The ones in South Africa are slightly different to the ones in Australia or New Zealand, the sharks in the Southafrican Sea love to jump out of the water while they are hunting or having fun. So I decide to stay on the beach and enjoy the beautiful coastal landscape. I am a fast director, but definitely no fast food!
The following Sunday we decided to do a little sight seeing tour and started to explore the famous Table Mountain that protects Cape Town from the North. Our small group had to march for about an hour steeply onwards before we reached the big plateau. From there is was about 4 km before we finally reached the cable railway that took us back to down to Cape Town.
My Directing Assistant, Bryan Knigh, had dicided visit the famous prison island in the Bay of the Cape of Good Hope, named Robben Island. Some of you might recall it was twenty-seven years the „home“ of Nelson Mandela. This prison cell is still there, his former prisoner number 46664 is today the name of Mandela’s AIDS-charity. Bryan told us that every visitor learns that Mandela for the first fithteen years had one prison overal only and no shoes. When the overal was in the laundry, Mandela was naked until his overal was returned to him. Also Mandela was not allowed to have visitors and a restriction only allowed him to write and receive two letters per year. Four letters in total, for years. No television, no radio or internet. Underlines a little more what an amazing character Nelson Mandela is. I still wonder how he managed to stay that normal under such brutal conditions.
Our director of steadycam photography, Volker Koeber, is originally Swabian, but decided to move to South Africa about eight years ago. He, like many, many others, told us that South Africa generally is much more chaotic and unsecure today than it used to be five years ago. Only in Cape Town one is really safe, one can walk on the streets, even at night. In Johannisburg for example at night one is not safe on the street. Pretoria, the capital of South Africa is administratively only. The important things happen in Cape Town, Durban and Johannisburg. It is said that 15% only pay taxes here, so the majority of the people do live on the brink to poverness. Quite absurd for a country that is so rich of raw materials and beautiful landscapes. To me it all looks fine, so far I have met only nice people. We have not been experiencing bad things, all was safe and sound.
A big disadvantage of making business in South Africa is: One is not allowed to take the money back that one brought into the country. Meaning all money over US-$ 5,000 has to stay in the country. The South African government generally blocks all money transfers over the amount of US-$ 5,000. Kristanna Loken for example owes a house in Cape Town. If, one day, she decides to sell it, she cannot get the money, as she is only allowed to transfer US-$ 5,000 maximum from South Africa per year. That’s paradox especially as the money originally came from the USA to buy that house, but she cannot get it out of the country. It’s South Africa’s desperate try to keep people from selling their properties and investing the money abroad. It is also said to help the Rand, South Africa’s currency, to stabilize. Unfortunately without any major success so far.
Last Monday we started to shoot in a studio in Cape Town which will be our home for the next two weeks. Daylight is something that we will not see much during that part of the production as most shots will now take place inside of tunnels. The studio is an old theater which we could rent on much lower conditions than a real studio. Inside this facility they have built up and constructed over 100 m of different tunnels. Tunnels that can collapse, very narrow tunnels, tunnels with open sides enabling us to shoot from a total different ankle, tunnels with open tops, tunnels going downwards, tunnels with trapdoors, tunnels inside a watertank enabling us to flood them, tunnels with prepared skeletons, tunnels with crossings, tunnels with rats, snakes or giant spiders as well as some wider tunnels enabling us to be able to shoot with the steadycam. Everything is dark, dirty, musty and slippery when wet.
The production now is much more routine than it was like outside in the jungle. So everything is now a bit slower and a little bit boring. Communication is tricky as the actors have to crawl into the tunnels, so they cannot hear everything we tell them to do. We have decided to have the studio that way because the real tunnel system was like that. The only light they have inside the tunnel is coming from their flash lights to have it as real as possible.
After receiving the first material back from the film lab some of the stuff was not sharp due to the lack of light, so we had to re-shoot some of the scenes. We decide to use a little more light to avoid the same problem again. The following material from the film lab was beyond our expectation, we all were overwhelmed by the effects on the raw material. All looks great! The claustrophobic tunnel effects are new. Tunnel Rats will be a unique war movie.
And lest we forget, Uwe’s also making Bloodrayne 2, with the fine Natassia Malthe.