FILM DIARY

Saturday 18th March:
Arrived Saturday evening too late to catch the last train up to Kleine Scheidegg but at least I got to watch the England-Wales match which was a let down. Anyone know who won the Grand Prix (where did Lewis Hamilton come) and any news of England in the cricket welcome as have no TV, radio or papers here and its doing my head in!
Up to the Bellevue Hotel, a rather grand old lady of a place, refined, slightly careworn, a bit snooty but much better than my usual lodgings in the mountains. In fact the last time I stayed here was the night Ray and I came down off the north face after witnessing the deaths of two lads in a storm. I seem to be in the same room with a window filling view of the face. The conditions on Saturday were extraordinary. I was amazed to see that there was no snow covering until just before reaching Scheidegg and that the meadows around Alpiglen were green grass and as summery as you like. The face itself looking in superb condition. It had been climbed solo by Ueli Steck only about ten days ago in the unbelievable time of 3 3/4 hours. He took only 1 1/2 hours to reach Death Bivouac! A helicopter could be seen taking Ran Fiennes and his guide from the summit after their successful charity climb.
The Ice Hose was fat, all the ice fields perfect white consolidated snow, the ramp mostly free of snow and the Exit Cracks also appeared dry. Although not true neve ice Brian Hall said conditions near the Stollenloch (a tunnel doorway leading onto the face at 2000! Height) were such that one kick formed perfect steps. Things could not have been better since we were worried how to shoot from the face and pretend it was in July if the valley was full of snow - problem solved it would seem. And already a lurking excitement has been building about Ray and I coming here next year for what would be our 7th attempt on the face. Local info is that the best time to climb it is in March not late April as I suspected. Although shorter days and colder, there tends to be longer settled weather periods, whereas in April weather patterns began to destabilise and break towards their commonly unstable summer conditions. It has also been unseasonably warm.
Brian Hall has found excellent locations for the scenes. There is an overhanging wall three minutes walk from the Eigergletcher station perfect for the re-enactment's of the abseil descent from the Swallows Nest, the avalanche, Hinterstoisser’s fatal fall, and the whole party being dragged down, the Kurtz hanging and attempted rescue. We have ice field locations not far from the Jungfraujoch station with excellent similarity to the 2nd ice field in form and height. We shall also be working on the face itself from the Stollenloch up as high as the Hinterstoisser traverse and the 1st ice field. Going any higher would require long-lining in by helicopter which is prohibitively expensive, dangerous and no guarantee if the weather changes suddenly of getting a film crew off.
So all was well until it clouded in Sunday night and by Monday morning a hoolie was blowing in hard. In a break of the cloud at mid-day we could see complete snow cover down to Grindlewald and below so that jiggers our summer meadows shot. I spent the morning filming, packing, reading and doing train travel shots while the overhang was being rigged.

Tuesday 20th march:
Morning and at least 2 foot of snow had falling and it was blowing hard. We trudged up to the location and I did a number of narrative pieces to cameras, all the more realistic it would seem for constant powder snow slides. The 4 young Swiss guides playing Angerer, Rainier, Hinterstoisser and Kurz appeared in all their contemporary gear looking great. Erika, the make-up & costumer is amazing. She does remarkable things with fake blood and the costumes do look very good. Unfortunately she is insisting that I get my face exfoliated, moisturised, sun screened and wax sealed every morning. She got me on Monday but I ducked out of the waxing and managed to give her the slip Tuesday and today. Trouble is I awoke with a cold sore on my lip today so she will probably go spare. She did a fantastic job on the lads and it was hilarious going up on the train with them made up covered in blood and bandages and in 1930's gear and all these Jap tourists goggling and taking photos like crazy!!
Kurz was disturbingly like the real character after a haircut and make up job. It was quite surreal to see the four of them in period costume climbing off up and around a buttress in deep snow to reach the point where they began their abseils. As they left the camera position and the people dressed in brightly coloured gore-Tex the first powder slides whipped past and they looked like some ghostly appearance from the past. They really got into the whole deal, probably enjoying themselves too much for Louise (director) as they were supposed to be fighting deaths door instead of laughing hysterically every time another powder avalanche engulfed the ground crew. The rushes were excellent and some of the abseil and lowering scenes looked very real and very dramatic. Everyone down late, tired and very cold, but with only a few technical sound problems from short circuits. Powder gets driven in everywhere!
Today is also filthy but not so windy which makes the cold more bearable - wind chill must have been close to -15 degrees yesterday. Snow fall is over a metre so I doubt the meadows will clear before we leave. Shooting on the face itself will not happen for another ten days so with luck we may get some sun to burn off and consolidate all of this powder, although avalanche conditions will not be pleasant. They are all on the cliff doing the death falls and hanging shots this morning and I go up in about an hour to do real time narration. At the moment I feel a little left out as my climbing roles do not happen until later and doing all this narration is making me feel like a Jackanory presenter. At least Louise is giving me a clear idea of how we are putting it all together and how my role works, not quite story boarding but not far off which is so much better than doing Void when we were in the dark from start to finish and that created a lot of frustration and anger. It is also a happy crew. I know all the safety guys (Brian, Cubby, Keith, Rory and Paul) both from my climbing days and the Void film. So despite the weather things are looking good right now but unfortunately that doesn't take away from the fact that filming has to be one of the most tedious, time consuming and utterly boring occupations, made worse by standing endlessly in freezing conditions doing bugger all!
I will keep you posted as the days go on but don't want to bore you as much as this is boring me - only 16 more days to go! Trying to interest the crew in some Texas No-Limit Hold 'Em but they a bit wary right now!!

Weds 21st march:
Weather is bad which is good for storm sequences, avalanches and snowy deaths but not much else! I've got streaming cold, open cast mining on lips due to cold sores and murderous mood owing to terminal lassitude brought on by film making, and now speaking like Homer Simpson!!
At least am using my spare time and finishing the edits! It’s an odd thing since it was so long since I wrote it I keep thinking who the hell wrote this? And why?
Back on April 6th hopefully without having to return but in present conditions I cannot see us filming on the face as far up as the Hinterstoisser and the Swallows Nest. Me and the safety crew could get there but serious doubts about the film crew and if it craps out it could be a nightmare getting them down again but we shall see. It is not over until the fat lady plunges from the Gallery window as they say.

Thursday 22nd march:
The storm forecast for last night never arrived. The team returned to the Eigergletcher wall to film Angerer’s death, Kurz fall, using smoke machines and blowers to create storm effects. Lots of powder around to create mini avalanches.
The guys playing the climbers are Berthod Cyrille – Rainer, Dres Abegglen – Angerer, Roger Schali – Kurz, Simon Anthamatten – Hinterstoisser. They seem thoroughly likeable, high spirited and frighteningly competent lads. I suspect Louise thinks they are enjoying it too much. Between shots to alleviate boredom they have taken to quick ski runs or have been bolting a dry tooling line they spotted on the location cliff.
I came up at lunch time to do a series of pieces to camera feeling a little out of sorts. By its very nature we had to film these storm shots when we had storms so it leaves little for me to do and rather self conscious when I walk over do the ‘talking bollocks bit’ then amble back to the bar for a beer and a read while everyone else works themselves into the ground. I had a good talk with Louise trying to get my head around how all the filming sections fit together since right now my role seems a little confused. It is much clearer now but I suspect a few more long waiting days ahead before I really have to get into it.
I know long days lie ahead especially filming the ice field scenes of me up near the Jungfraujoch and then climbing on the face with a scratch team and only Keith as cameraman and no Louise to direct me. I know we will talk it through and she will list what I have to say and do but I hope I can get it right as we will not have many chances on the face – none at all if it remains like this. It is nearly 500m from the Stollenloch to the Swallows Nest and unless this snow blows or burns off I doubt we will make it. Still at least it will be a lot more interesting than mooching around like a wet leek…
Finished chapter 3 today, read the paper from end to end, finished the 2nd Patrick O’Brian book Post Captain and well into HMS Surprise which is worrying cos only got 3 left and have been here only 5 days.
Have managed to avoid Erika, the make up lady for the 4th day in a row, still feeling very moist from the 1st day and no intention of doing it again. Suspect she has other plans once I get fully involved. Because everything is back to front exhausted death scenes 1st she has to make the lads up to look rough and shagged and then pamper them like crazy to make sure that they still look youthfully boyish when they do the scenes starting up the face. They seem to revel in the face massages at the end of the day but why the assistant director and art director needed one as well I don’t know – maybe they were just feeling horny!!
England play Israel on Saturday and we have neither TV nor radio – probably a damn good thing really.

Friday 23rd march:
God but making a film has got to be the most tedious boring frustrating thing anyone can do! It’s snowing again and I have today and tomorrow off which is infuriating. Having spent upwards of 9 weeks Eiger watching in Grindlewald in the past the place has nothing of interest to make me want to take the train down and have a mooch around. Laughing at the strange antics of Japanese tourists only goes so far. I could go boarding except it would be pretty irresponsible in these conditions. Flat light and my less than expert skill could mean an injury which the film company wouldn’t find very amusing. If it is fine tomorrow though, I’ll definitely be on the powder. In fact it must be good tomorrow! Ideally if the weather had been good from the start we would have been filming on the face proper this week and the green meadows of Alpiglen would have looked as if it were July 1936. Because of the storms, and we wanted some storms, we have been filming the end of the film first – the descent, abseils, death falls, avalanches etc but now we need good hot sunny weather preferably with a couple of days high winds to blast the powder from the face. The meadows will never clear before we leave and I doubt the powder will consolidate much on the face. Although not a true north face the icy night temperatures and weak sun in late afternoon will have little effect on the powder plastering the lower face. At the end of next week I am due on the face with Keith Partridge (climbing camera) and the safety team to get shots on the Difficult Crack, The Hinterstoisser traverse and the 1st ice field. At present we would be fighting just to get the Stollenloch door open. The nasty spectre of having to return for a week later in April is beginning to loom large.
A vicious cold is doing the rounds. I have sinusitis and Erika (make-up/costume) has just gone down with tonsillitis which is a pity for her but makes avoiding the exfoliating moisturising sessions a little easier.
Will run out of books soon but at least should finish edits on the 1st part of the novel this week. Have failed miserably to give up the cigs – must do better. It’s very Swiss here which makes you feel very wholesome and healthy and responsible and neat and then unutterably bored… think I should try harder to set up a poker school… wonder whether there is a casino in Grindlewald hmmmnn…that’s an idea

Saturday 24th march:
The good news: The foul weather has meant that the dramatic storm sequences have gone very well. Everyone very pleased with yesterdays takes particularly the avalanche shots. Loaded tarpaulins tipped onto the lads were more than effective. No acting needed as they were simply blasted off their stances and apparently the rushes look great. Plus there were the usual mystified tourists as half of Tokyo crammed onto the morning train and gawped at four lads dressed in 1930’s gear made up with gruesome head injuries and plastered with artificial snow and blood. On which point Erika(make up) has been ordered to bed for two days by the doctor; that’s where daily exfoliation and moisturising leads to – the inevitable dilution of moral fibre, softening of physic, and hence to bedridden malingering… harrumph..
Rest day today. Snowing lightly but brightening, may go out for a half day on the board if I can find anyone! What we need is 2 or 3 days high winds to blast the powder away and bright sun and high temperatures at altitude otherwise we will have…
The bad news: We need to get the four lads and me out of the Stollenloch door, up past the difficult crack to film on the Hinterstoisser and at the Swallows Nest. Right now the face is plastered and Hans Ruedi checked from the Stollenloch door to find that dangerous wind slab avalanche conditions presently make this impossible. It could be possible to insert the team by helicopter at the Swallows Nest and hence be above the avalanche slopes. Indeed we could probably trigger them as we worked backwards and down towards the Stollenloch (but more about helicopters later).
In the meantime we can do the 2nd ice field takes near the Jungfraujoch and possibly back up shots of similar locations to the Hinterstoisser but really we need the face to clear. The whole point of the project is to be on the face where it all happened recreating the climbing and my narration from the actual face – a substitute location would completely lose the power of the film… but what to do?
Discussing options with Brian Hall last night threw up a few ideas. One was using helicopters to by pass the wind-slab. The second was for a scratch team, me, Keith Partridge (climbing cameraman), Brian, Cubby, Rory and Paul (safety guides) to return in the fortnight after the shoot ends to get the face shots if we get a weather window. Problem is everyone has other commitments. My talking engagements are sort of okay as far as a window is concerned but Keith Partridge (camera) has another shoot on the other side of the world and Brian’s team are pretty committed to on going projects. If we can find a time slot to suit us all then speed will be of the essence. Brian mooted the idea of helicoptering everyone and gear straight into the Swallows Nest where we can immediately get the actual abseils shots, 1st Ice Field, and climbing on the Hinterstoisser. We could then abseil directly down possibly get takes on the Difficult Crack and descend via the Stollenloch, or off by helicopter again.
Brian made the point that the way in would be by Long Line technique which is effective but terrifying – with Long Line you are suspended 180 feet beneath the helicopter and flown into the Swallows Nest. He assured me that the only reason anyone would wish to do this was for the buzz certainly not to get a job done because it is so sphincter twisting scary that you would be insane to do it as a regular form of transport. I have been taken off the Dru on a wire cable and found the experience deeply thought provoking. 60 foot of 5mm wire cable looks silk thin when there is a 4 thousand foot drop beneath you! I can’t imagine what looking up 180 feet of it would be like – hanging by a hair springs to mind. Brian said it was very worrying which is worrying in itself given all the alarmingly worrying things he has done in his life. Rory then cheerfully informed me that once the winch-man began lowering you from the helicopter he held a wire guillotine in his other hand; the aircraft always comes first – in the event of any problem the wire is immediately cut and one person sacrificed to save the rest which makes sense so long as you’re not on the wire at the time. Brian asked whether I would do it, which of course, I enthusiastically and stupidly agreed, flushed with the excitement of the potential adrenalin buzz until I awoke this morning with a crashing hangover and have found myself in a little more reflective mood. I wonder whether wearing a base jumping canopy might help. I wonder how a paraglider handles with 180 feet of wire cable thrashing down onto it… hmmmnn
Anyway, for the moment it is only slightly worrying speculation. We need the weather, hot windy weather… now! Things are getting a little less boring…
…on that note I thought I’d better go and do something with the day and booted and boarded had an entertaining couple of hours trying to catch up with Emma (line producer) and James (art director) who had skied off into the gloom half an hour before me. A series of texts and mobile calls ensured that I was always one lift behind them, although privately I suspect they hadn’t moved at all and were in the après ski bar at Scheidegg all the time. Still, a pleasant board down beneath the north face of the Eiger for a beer on the terrace at Alpiglen was better than a kick in the nuts with an iron boot but then again fortunately most things are. The expected sunny afternoon descended into flat light and snow fall and after a couple of hours groping round in the clouds I decided to call it a day ostensibly because to injure myself in flat light while on a film shoot was grossly irresponsible when in fact the truth was that it was boring the tits off me. I seem to have been born with the attention span of an attention deficit disorder suffering gopher who has just dropped one too many acid tabs… ah well… anyway snow board back in the shop sod that for a game of soldiers… talking of games it is the England-Israel game tonight and there is not TV or Radio here… can’t hotfoot it down to Grindlewald because game ends after the last train back. Still, the silver lining is that James plays poker so we may just get a school together yet.
Think the plan tomorrow is to return to the Eigergletcher wall and film Kurz dying, all stunts, falls, avalanches already in the bag. Ideally we want a gloomy morning then blazing sun… unfortunately it means nothing for me to do again but we should be up on the Jungfraujoch on Tuesday filming 2nd ice field scenes. The slopes will be loaded but we can trigger the avalanches ourselves from above. I did ask Brian if we could get some explosives from the guides and blow the whole slope but he looked at me in a quizzical manner. The hostel at the Eigergletcher would be an ideal place to stay if Ray and I decide to come back here next march for a wee look at the face. Only £25 a night half board and perfectly placed to start the climb. I took a brochure and all seemed fine until I read on the front cover that it was an ideal place for ‘Ausgangspunkt’ in summer or winter which certainly makes you wonder especially when my poor German translates it as ‘out going spunkt?’. Hey ho, each to their own I suppose! I did tell you it was boring here but Swiss dogging is perhaps pushing it a little far…
Latest thinking is to let the young pups out of the Stollenloch cos they’re so fit and have so much energy to burn they will have ropes fixed to the Hinterstoisser in no time… Christ, they don’t half make you feel old. I remember when I was like that; sadly it was 25 years ago.
So happy campers before your glazed eyes droop shut I shall let you go and return with another scintillating report over the next few days. Let me know the score as it happens will ya…

Sunday 25th march:
England 0 Israel 0. Thanks for telling me guys or was it really that bad?
10am blue skies and spindrift powder snow blowing across the beginner’s slopes beneath my window indicate that we may be getting the weather turn around that we need. The team are up on the location filming Kurz’s drawn out final moments and Roger who is playing him is being encouraged to stop smiling and try to look a little less cheerful since he is after all in the last throes of a particularly torturous death. I’m sure this well meaning effort will only have elicited guffaws of merriment from our happy victim. It would appear that I have nothing to do again. Now I don’t want to whinge too much but a total of 4 hours work in 8 days is just a little frustrating. Apart from the fact that there is nothing to do its hard not to think of all the speaking engagements we cancelled to do this shoot and the fact that everyone else is working so hard they are too knackered to take to the idea of a Texas Hold ‘Em poker school.
Oddly enough I actually think the crew are feeling a little embarrassed about this since normally we are issued with a Drama Day list each evening specifying where and when we will be needed. Nothing appeared last night and I could elicit no information about what my job was today. It was pretty obvious that there wasn’t one. At breakfast everyone had up and gone by the time I appeared at 8am shuffled off up to the location hoping perhaps I hadn’t noticed. I understand why the weather has forced this re-jigging of the schedule but it does make me wonder why I was allotted 3 weeks out here since clearly there would have been a week whether at start or finish when my services would not be needed. Brian did mutter something about doing publicity shots with the Eiger in the background Clint Eastwood style no doubt and I muttered back what I thought of publicity. I shall slope unheralded down the debauched delights of Grindlewald this afternoon to see if I can get hold of the Sunday Times and whether the Casino is open…there must be one in Interlaken..
If the weather holds I think the plan now is to use the four climber/actor lads to force a way up to the Hinterstoisser. They have so much irrepressible energy they would probably climb the entire face in the morning if we didn’t hold them back.
So it looks like a morning of editing in the sun on the front patio then down to Grindlewald for a paper. Ray’s attempts to post me my boots and some hardware seem to have crashed landed into the labyrinthine world of Swiss customs and duty forms. Since Switzerland is not part of the EC I have to pay VAT on the boots but no-one knows where they are – good thing I haven’t needed them to date.
Sod it I’m so bored I shall spend the morning pretending to be a Japanese tourist following the first up held umbrella I see, taking photographs, smiling inanely and generally assimilating myself into one of the starling like flocks of tourists that swirl around the train station and restaurants here. I will get strange looks at first but feel sure that if I persist in mimicking their behaviour exactly I will soon be absorbed into the amoeba like identity of the mother group and no one will notice my slight delay in pointing excitedly at something completely innocuous and then laughing like a drain for no apparent reason as I take hundreds of photographs of a sign post saying Grund. If successful I hope to get a free lunch, a trip up to the Jungfraujoch, a coach ride to Interlaken and an evening of Swiss culture – lederhosen and potato rosti’s. Failing that I might try indulging in a little winter ‘Ausgangspunkt’ with the first Japanese cutie that giggles and points her camcorder at me. At least being arrested might help pass the time…

Monday 26th march:
The tourists saw through me straight away closed rank and I was ejected from the flock faster that you could say Sayonara. A mooch down to Grindlewald was equally unproductive as there were no Sunday papers and as I came back up on the train the idiocy of the last 8 days really began to piss me off. I should know by now that film companies are amazingly disorganised and for some strange reason remain convinced that the rest of the world also behaves in this manner. We kept the whole of March and April free on their request even though they knew that they could only ever budget for a 3 week shoot. The consequent loss of earnings from cancelled speaking engagements is about what I shall make from the film. Things are compounded when I find there was always going to be at least one week, at beginning or end, when I would not be required so we only ever really needed to keep a fortnight free. With luck the final Death Bivi shots, Angerer injured etc will be done today and from now on I shall probably be insanely busy – if not then I shall go quietly insane! I did point out to Louise (director) that it was no longer a matter of being bored but rather more seriously I am beginning to lose interest in the project altogether. I wasn’t angry either which is a dangerous sign usually meaning that I am deadly serious. I think she was rather alarmed.
Just heard the riveting news that this coming week end they are having a big festival up here at snowy Kleine Scheidegg. They are building the stage right outside our hotel as I write. Barely able to control myself I asked who the headline act was and collapsed into a state of near suicidal depression when I was told that it was none other than Bryan Adams. Bryan bloody Adams howling outside the window all weekend good grief whatever next? Why couldn’t it be Moby or the Artic Monkeys or anyone but Bryan bleeding Adams. I can’t stand Bryan Adams music. In fact I rank him very close to Boney M in general levels of awfulness. Don’t worry I was reassured he is not playing the whole weekend just the Saturday night. Thank god for that but I yet still may go and invest in a catapult. A thwack in the knackers shouldn’t be beyond my ability given how close the stage is to the hotel. When I asked who was playing on the Sunday night I was told that it was the Swiss Bryan Adams tribute band! An imitation Bryan Adams! This project is going down the plughole fast.
Looking out of the window at the ski school on the beginners slopes I had forgotten how very odd beginners look when just starting to ski. They all have that rather constipated crouch as if they haven’t had a decent bowel movement in the last month. This is compounded by the new teaching method of not giving them ski poles and making them hold their arms out horizontally in front of them. At the moment of making a turn they raise their arms above their heads and bring them down with varying degrees of excitement and competence then raise to the horizontal again. There’s a whole bunch of adults doing it right now clearly unaware of how utterly silly they look. They have a little slalom course set up and there is a constant stream of constipated people waving their arms up and down as if desperately trying to squeeze something out in postures you could only assume if someone has super-glued a toilet bowl to your arse! Ha. Cracking! One bloke has just totalled a slalom gate and his nuts by the look of the way he went legs astride the wooden post. He is writhing on the ground in some discomfort. Its either his nuts or he still hasn’t managed to squeeze one out. I have absolutely no sympathy though because he clearly thinks he’s a step above his fellow pupils. He hasn’t been doing the arm movements for the last two runs, cheating bastard, what did he expect? He’s getting up now…no doubt about the injury, he’s bent double again. His fellow pupils are all skiing past him arms out up, down, bum out their utter contempt for him is quite clear. No arms up, no sympathy, that’s the message.
The kids are best, the really small ones that is. For a start they appear to have absolutely no idea that these idiotic adults are actually trying to learn something and simply shoot straight through the school. They seem to be about three feet high and consist almost entirely of helmet. Their technique is to go straight and fast removing adults with their helmets and displaying not a bit of the gut twisted terror of the grown ups. They also seem to bounce a lot when they fall which is entertaining.
There is also a snow boarding class going on but in the last hour not a single pupil has managed to get up the drag lift without falling off. There goes another…reminds me of Mike and Jeff last year. Actually that’s a bit unfair Mike was a hell of a lot worse than this lot…

Tuesday 27th march:
We didn’t quite get the weather that we craved yesterday. Typical föhn weather really. An anticyclone sweeping moist warm air in from the south sat atop the Lauterbronnen wall all day marking where it collided with the cold dry air to the north. This appears to be breaking now although it is snowing softly this morning and should clear. I go up to do climbing sequences at the Eigergletcher, close up work on axe, crampons, handholds etc which Keith won’t have time to do on the face. Brian goes up to the Stollenloch with Keith and Hansruedi to check on conditions and if the avalanche danger is not too bad to try and fix ropes up to the Difficult Crack. If it goes well we should film from there tomorrow with the lads racing up to the Hinterstoisser and Keith getting long shots of them while at the same time filming Cubby and I climbing the walls below the Stollenloch and then above towards the Difficult Crack. The weather craps out again on Friday so we are hoping to get stuff done on the Hinterstoisser on Thursday but its getting very tight not helped by the fact that we only have a budget for 4 face days as the team are paid double for ‘danger’ work on face days. Saturday is a write off because of this daft Snow-Alpen festival. Rather ruins the 1930’s atmosphere when you have that prick Bryan Adams howling ‘Everything I do I do for you’ at top volume!
At least I am doing something at last after ten days of terminal boredom. Tomorrow and Thursday should be rather thought provoking as I still have a streaming cold and sinusitis and I haven’t climbed for three years… bloody hell Bryan Adams is beginning to sound quite good!
….well that blew the cobwebs away. I last I have been doing something! Cubby Cuthbertson and I have spent the day doing approach scenes and lower face climbing takes and am now back in the hotel with the tired glow of satisfaction at actually doing some work. I looked at the monitor as they filmed Kurz dying this morning (it’s only taken him 9 days the tough bastard!) and was very moved. The drama scenes are really very good, costumes spot on, and Roger who plays Kurz acts very well helped by despairing cries and death rattle in angry guttural Swiss. I watched as Erika sprayed his hands to simulate frostbite and the way he hung back on the rope with one hooked arm and it felt disturbing familiar – had to walk away cos got something in my contact lens. What a truly awful dying that young lad had, awful, like a messenger from the past appearing for just long enough to tell everyone what had happened and then dying within reach of sanctuary – pitiable and scary, what could have been.
Had fun day with Cubby. He worked with us on the film in Peru, lovely man brilliant climber. When I was at University in Edinburgh he put up Requiem on Dunbarton Rocks then the hardest rock route in the world and was my hero at the time. Now years later we were laughing at the strangeness of it all. Two lives led climbing the world and here we were pretending to climb the very face we had both wanted to climb and never did; life deals you some very strange hands.
A working plan has been set for the next 3 days. Brian fixed ropes up to the Difficult Crack this afternoon, deep powder, hard going but not dangerous. Cubby and I go on the face via the Stollenloch (StL) tomorrow to shoot scenes of climbing up to the wall below the Stollenloch and up towards the DC. The lads will be shot at a distance heading up in that direction. Thursday, wind permitting, Cubby, Hansruedi, me, Keith (camera) and another guide will be long lined by chopper into the Swallows Nest and film takes on the 1st ice field, Hinterstoisser etc. Am hoping we can abseil down to the StL and descend that way as all of us are in mortal fear of the long line. Paul Moores and Brian who have experienced it have said it is very worrying which is their speak for sphincter looseningly terrifying!! Friday, Cubby, Hansruedi, me do another long line in so they can take helicopter shots of us on the Hinterstoisser with Hansruedi hiding under a white blanket at the Swallows Nest. If we can get that in the bag then we are cooking on gas but if I am honest I am scared of the long line. I know I can do it but it scares me because you can never get worse case scenario out of your mind – being cut loose by the winch man – I can tell myself it won’t happen but in my experience your mind refuses to believe you so you just deal with the horrible vulnerable feelings and hope you won’t make a tit of yourself in front of your mates which would probably be worse! Helicopter lands near hotel and we are flown up on the wire from there which may be better than being lowered out from 3,000ft – better than what? Think it will be eyes shut, thumb up bum and mind in neutral moment!
John Smithson comes out tomorrow with some bigwig from Ch4 , apparently a nice guy but am suspicious of these sorts, think we should present them with some incontinence pants and tell them they are joining us on the face on Thursday. Hope they will refuse cos I need the pants.
Only cloud on the horizon is my left ankle smashed in 1990. Something seemed to sheer today. Very acute pain as if a pea sized lump of bone although more probably scar tissue has snapped off. Can’t really do anything about it. I can do the climbing but pain is bad. Hoping ibuprofen and rum will work. It is only 3 days so will be okay but suspect need to get it x-rayed later. Bollocks!
And of course we have Bryan Adams to look forward to… hey ho.

Wednesday 28th March:
A long hard but successful day working out of the Stollenloch. Dave ‘Cubby’ Cuthbertson lowered down the wall and climbed up towards the ST filmed by both cameras. What should have been easy climbing and rubble scrambling turned into desperate floundering in banked unstable snow, dry tooling, hooking invisible edges, wobbling precariously and generally looking incompetent or so we thought although Keith thought it would look very good. I capped it off by taking a leader fall when the axe picks popped and I flew over backwards ten feet into the air to land comfy and embarrassed in a snowdrift. Never fallen on the Eiger and now I go and do it when we are not even climbing the damn thing! Quite a wake up call after ten easy days and not that pleasant with a 1,500 foot drop underneath you but every one else enjoyed themselves tremendously. Then we climbed past the ST and up three short pitches to the start of the Difficult Crack which was fiendishly difficult, at least for us two, climbed about thirty feet Cubby leading and to my delight very nearly falling off. No food or drink all day and just got in at 6pm now quite bollixed.
Tomorrow is looming large. Helicopter Long Line from outside the hotel at 8am is not my perfect start to the day although the prospect should ensure excellent bowel movements. Cubby, me, Keith, Rory, Paul Moores and Hansruedi are the mugs to go – seriously not looking forward to it. Maybe the pain in my ankle might take my mind off it but I doubt it. We come down the same way which at least is a fast route to the beer and better than abseiling all the way down to the ST. Dosed up on 4 ibuprofen and a whack of voltorol and it sort of did the trick till the end of the day. Limping like a good ‘un now. Stiff rum and coke should sort…

Thursday 29th March:
Up at six skipped breakfast and decided that coffee and cigarettes would be better. All geared up waiting to go at 7am but light snow and very few blue sky patches meant that by a nervous 9.30am the order to cancel the flights was made and we wandered off to undress and prepare for whatever else we were going to do. I had a little light breakfast, juice, and was happily enjoying another pot of coffee, a smoke and reading yesterdays paper when Brian Hall appeared and said a weather window had appeared and that Hansruedi, Cubby and I would fly into the face – no climbing cameraman, and we would do scenes on the 1st ice field and the Hinterstoisser which would be filmed from the helicopter. The chopper was due in ten minutes. Scrambled gearing up ensued and after the quickest of briefs we were airborne both much more nervous than earlier when we had had plenty of time to adjust to what we were doing. Psychologically this was a bit of a bombshell and a little mean! We came in very close to the 1st ice field and wired in from a bit over seventy feet which was quite thought provoking but not as bad as expected. It did take a little time to adjust to the suddenly very exposed position. Cubby and I climbed out onto the ice field which was in perfect nick compared to what we had been ploughing through only 500 feet lower down yesterday. Then I climbed down and halfway across the Hinterstoisser hung around for ages while the film crew changed helicopters and we did the scene in one take. The lift off was seriously more frightening. We had become attuned to the 2000 feet drop but that also meant we were very aware of it and the last thing you want to do is unclip from a perfectly safe anchor and be hauled into space, wire crackling on its drum and Eiger scenery spinning madly around. I found it very unsettling then got my crampon points trapped in the skids and my rucksack jammed against the winch man for what seemed like an age. Cubby came second looking thankful as alarmed as I was.
Then it was down to Scheidegg, a quick snack and drink then taken up to the summit of a peak called Chukin. Alarming step out off the skids onto a pointy summit and knife edged ridge and left there to do the opening shot – the chopper flying up towards us walking the summit ridge from the valley then zooming over our heads filming as the minor peak disappears beneath it and there plum it front of it is the vast pyramid of the Eigerwand. Good theory but it was so close overhead that it was hard not to flinch and duck and once the rotor wash nearly blew us off. A hair raising pick up involving us lying on the summit as the chopper flew straight at us convincing me that we were about to be chopped in half. Tremendous noise, blasting powder snow then the front skid nuzzles the summit and we creep slowly into the safety of its belly. I finished the day walking a ridge in front of the Eiger while the chopper did Apocalypse Now style swoops across me as I pretended to be studying the face. It is nearly impossible not to turn at the last minute as the noise reaches a crescendo and you become convinced that you are about to be banged off the ridge by a low flying skid. Managed it in the end, then staggered down for a beer. Feel knackered – a lot of it I suspect is stress related, it was quite a character building day!! Think more to come tomorrow then Bryan Adams – Aha, we have a catapult. Black Widow is its name and very powerful. The lads have been using it to recreate stone fall sounds, and bone breaking sound. One lad experimentally fired a battery towards the stage directly in front of the hotel but a long way away expecting it to fall short. To general amazement it bounced across the stage and the roadies putting the props together looked a little confused. Typical roadies, huge bellies, big beards, tattoos etc who luckily didn’t connect the battery strike with the group of climbers and film crew skulking surreptitiously away in the back ground so a Bryan Adams receiving a direct impact in the knackers is still on the cards unless of course Emma hasn’t nicked the catapult to fire her knickers at the stage!!

Friday 30th & Saturday 31st March:
I went up to the Jungfraujoch on Friday morning with John Smithson (head of Darlow Smithson) and Ralph Lee (commissioning editor, History, at Channel 4, despite looking 12 and a half) mainly because they said I had the day off, unless of course they changed their minds about the afternoon which meant that I didn’t have the day off but had to hang around the entire day until they didn’t change their mind and there was nothing left to do with the day!! It was -15 at the Jungfraujoch which was good to know because we are filming 2nd ice field scenes up there next week so I now know its full winter woollies time. Hanging around for hours in a wind in those temperatures will not be fun.
John and Ralph headed back to London after a flying two day visit. It was good to see John again and he and Ralph got to buzz the face in a helicopter while we were doing the scenes on Thursday and seemed suitably impressed. John told me that he had secured the rights to make another survival documentary epic which they are both very excited about. I was pleased for them although not for poor the poor bugger who will be the subject of it. I don’t suppose he has any inkling of quite how mind alteringly dull film making can be – never again, I swear I’ll never do this again. It is two weeks today and yet it feels like two months only another month to go then!!
No filming today, Saturday, as it is a rest day for all and Bryan Adams is warbling all day so it wouldn’t sound quite right on the Eigerwand. Even now at 9am beer bellied bearded roadies are going ‘one, two… one, two…’ into the microphones and occasionally bashing out a Black Sabbath riff on the drums!! Can’t see us getting much done on Sunday either if the Bryan Adams tribute band is going to be howling away all day. Beautiful weather today so what a waste.
Plan is to get back on the face as soon as possible, probably Monday. Cubby, Hansruedi, Keith Partridge, Paul Moores and me to be wired into the Swallows Nest (SW) and the boys to climb up to the start of the Hinterstoisser Traverse (HT) from the Stollenloch in their 1930’s gear. The plan being to film them from the ST crossing the Traverse, while Keith films scenes of us on the 1st ice field. I spotted a line directly down from the SN where the boys of ’35 would have started their abseils with the injured Angerer. So I may abseil alone one rope length down commenting on the ground, what it looks like, how difficult it would have been 80 years ago etc. The face is very quiet with all the new snow and I have yet to hear one rock fall but this line would have been directly in line with any avalanches and rock-falls coming off the 2nd Icefield and down the first and this is clearly what swept them away. So we shall decide if it is safe to descend this on the day.
When the lads are done on the HT Keith and I will cross to the start for him to film me traversing, commentating to camera how Hinterstoisser would have done it using a high piton placement to make a tension traverse across the more blank sections. I noticed on Thursday an utterly blank area of rock about 20 feet wide which is where I am certain Hinterstoisser repeatedly fell as he tried to cross the now ice glazed rock without the aid of a tension traverse. There is no high piton placement going back to enable this crucial assistance. I also noticed looking straight down, which I didn’t bother doing in September 2000 since I was in the teeth of a deluge at the time, the incredibly steep line that they attempted to abseil down. After about one and a half rope lengths it disappears over what clearly is the overhanging nose of the base of the HT so recognisable in photographs since then. Then we only have to do the absolutely bowel twisting wire off into the helicopter and we are done with the face. I keep thinking that having done it once it won’t be so bad the second time but something keeps telling me that the wire off will be just as bad if not worse!! Hansruedi told me after the flying day on Thursday that they recently grounded all rescue helicopters after a wire got snagged in the winch mechanism during a rescue. The rescue guide, doctor and victim fell to their deaths. Thanks Hans!!
After that we have the 2nd ice field shots and should be done except film crews have an uncanny habit of never being done… I want to go home…

Sunday 1st April:
Another semi wasted day! Did nothing until something like 3pm then did super close-ups of axe picks, crampons etc, then an approach shot and a final walking down out of the tunnel shot. All in all I’m just about ready to quit. I reckon I have done less than 3 days work in the last 14 and I suppose if I didn’t feel so much pressure to get home for personal reasons I might be a bit more sanguine about things but this utter disorganisation and misuse of time, (standard in filming!), has driven me right to the edge. It is more than boring – utterly infuriating. I have changed my flight times to head home on Friday with the rest of the team which is something I suppose but since we are set to fly into the face 1st thing in the morning I’m so tempted just to bugger off on Tuesday – they probably won’t know I’ve gone until Thursday!
Tomorrow will be hectic. As we have 2 teams on the face filmed from 3 positions. Cubby Keith and I shall go in 1st film talk through, POV and close-ups on the HT, and the 1st Icefield. We have to be in and out by chopper by 1pm latest so the boys in their traditional gear can leave the SL and be filmed from there and from the valley up to the HT and then on long shots from the valley on the 1st ice field. They then will be choppered off and Hansruedi and Paul may abseil the face and half strip the fixed ropes. It is going to be very tight – as will be my asshole since the helicopter stuff doesn’t appeal.
Bryan Adams was truly himself, utterly forgettable. The day only enlivened by the assistant director hurling his underwear from the top balcony of the hotel where we were watching the day unfold. Possibly because the stage was a long way away, possibly because his shreddies were filthy, they just fell straight down, landing besides two lasses eating their lunch. They took it very well, perhaps pleased at the compliment; its not often young men throw their underwear at them, which resulted in a hail of underwear. Much laughter and no one paying much mind to Bryan warbling manfully in the background to the tune of ‘summer of ‘69’ and ‘whatever I do, I do for money’.
Missed the Bryan Adams tribute band today which was not such a bad thing…

Monday 2nd March:
Well, this time the weather behaved itself and our gallows walk was somewhat quicker and more efficient than Saddam’s, with considerably less religious invective which is never a bad thing. We were all in place at the Swallows Nest SW by 8.40 and filming by 9am. We had a very useful meeting last night which meant we not only knew exactly what was required, in what order and in what time span, but we knew exactly what order we should be wired in so reducing the chaos in a small cramped place of uncoiling ropes, cameras and cameraman positions arranged, belayers and safety team in the right place. In five hours we got everything done, (CU's, POV's, GV's and LGFO's - lets get the fuck out of here shots) and we were all wired off by 1.15 only 15 minutes overdue which is miraculous for a film company. It is deeply satisfying completing a complicated, pressured and potential dangerous assignment swiftly, efficiently, and above all, safely. Good humour helped enormously. Although my sound check of singing ‘It’s my belay and I’ll die if I want to’ didn’t go down so well for some reason. The Stollenloch team were in position as we left and the third, valley camera got good long shots though possibly affected by a heat haze effect.
Cubby’s sack was so big he couldn’t fit into the chopper on the way down so he was hung mournfully on the outside as we swooped down for beers and goulash soup. A few pieces to camera this evening brings the total of work completed to 3 and a half days in 15 – yup, this sure is not my milieu. I took a copy of Patrick O’Brien up with me but didn’t have time to read but it will be in the sack tomorrow when we head up to the Jungfraujoch to do 2nd Icefield pieces and slow mo climbing sequences. Should be about -15, so the down duvet goes too. Only three working (ha!!) days to go, roll on Sheffield. To think I was on the verge of walking out on this last night if Claire hadn’t persuaded me otherwise. It would have been a prattish thing to do but my patience has gone totally and with it my interest. Being left out of the loop for so long has an insidiously corrosive effect on enthusiasm. Then again I always knew that efficiency, organisation and man management were never high on a film crews priorities!!
Grindlewald and the mountains surrounding Kleine Scheidegg are breathtakingly beautiful but it is amazing how quickly you can become bored of paradise…

Tuesday 3rdmarch:
The weather has definitely socked in and despite us all up at the crack of sparrow fart waiting to board the helicopters the steadily increasing snow meant the Jungfraujoch day was cancelled. The lads went up to the location but any chance of recreating them crossing the 2nd Icefield with dramatic fall away shots was scotched by visibility down to 5 metres. Consequently I have spent an especially tedious day doing docu-drama pieces to camera in the hotel only enlivened by bureaucratic Swiss waiters telling us not to film here. The fact that 30 of us have spent a fortune staying in the half empty hotel for the last three weeks seems to have completely passed them by. There is general hope that we can get up the mountain tomorrow but my guess is that this weather is very likely to stay until the end of the shoot.
A few sneaked shots in a corridor, a packing rucksack and walking out door scene, a sat on a chair in silhouette (don’t ask, felt like something off crime watch with an actor mimicking my words as I describe been assaulted by a man with enormous buttocks and a strange glint to his eye only saved at the last minute when said buttocks became jammed in a ginnel…. Sorry, very bored), and a final walking down a platform and getting on a train farewell shot (only just managing to get off before it buggered off to Wengen!).
So, two working (!) days to go. I don’t believe it. This will eventually come to an end, this weird limbo existence in a strangely antiseptic Swiss hotel world and the occasional bizarrely terrifying appearance in the middle of the north face of the Eiger. It seems the only thing they haven’t got, and may not yet, is the Jungfraujoch Icefield location but think they can get round that (how? I don’t honestly know, it is a very dark art) which with the complexity of the film and the vulnerability to weather is pretty good going. The undercurrent is that they have good stuff although many on the team by this time don’t give a rat’s armpit what they have and just want to get home asap – that I believe is normal if such a word can be associated with making a film.
My personal levels of frustration and impatience have been simply that – a result of the difficulties of scheduling filming which I totally understand – but it is impossible not to feel this way after a while. The team have been good fun to work with, highly professional, particularly Brian Hall and the safety team, but the film crew as well even if I suspect they are somewhat touched.
Bad weather tomorrow with a possible improvement on Thursday which isn’t what we want as we have to pack for an early departure on Friday morning and a long day on the summit of a mountain freezing our cojones off ain’t what the doctor ordered, but, sod’s law, that is exactly what will happen!

Wednesday 4th March:
Yup, looks like its losing cojones time tomorrow after all. Totally clagged in today which again meant long hours reading interspersed with ludicrous plonks past the camera in knee deep snow and earnest peering up at the Eigerwand which was in fact just a cloud – dark arts again I suspect. It has started to clear from about 4pm with a strong inversion forming in the valley below and blue sky clearings so we are all aboard the train at 8am for our last chance at a 2nd Icefield shot. If that works its back down to the hotel for the whole crew to dress up in period costumes and do a terrace scene around the telescope drinking champagne and watching Kurz die. Then a frantic packing of bags before getting bladdered at the end of shoot party and off to Geneva 1st thing Friday morning. There is already an end of term feel to things even in the odd little pick up bits I keep doing to camera, the filling in of anything we may have missed, the sense I think that overall it has been a success, we have got nearly all we wanted, which for mountain filming is never a certainty. It is now apparent that we were so lucky to get that last shot on the face last Monday. Everyone has worked incredibly hard, except me, and been fun to work with and good humoured... err except me. Actually I only had one or two grumps which isn’t bad having spent 15 days out of 21 doing nothing… well I edited the novel, read countless papers, and five O’Brien books… and took a lot of photographs, wrote a 10,000 word diary, oh…and saw Bryan Adams…

Thursday5th March:
Well, we must be the luckiest shoot of the year. A perfect day, windless blue skies and we got all the takes on the Jungfrau that we needed. Cubby and I started with a ridge climb and some impressive blown spindrift back lit by the sun to match in with the helicopter shots of us taken on the Chukin. The summit pose was suitably daft as increasingly idiotic instructions came over the radio. ‘Can Cubby stand a bit to the right and slightly lower than Joe?’ Cubby looks anxiously at the cornice and the 3,000 foot drop to his right and calmly says it is not a good idea. More calls to step right calmly dealt with by the ever professional Cubby while I wave my arms and swear enthusiastically at the assistant director far below. ‘Can he get a little lower?’ ‘Course he ‘effing can’t you moron unless its 3,000 feet.’ ‘ I’ll dig a hole,’ says Cubby quietly and assumes a bone burying dog posture. A small circular hole appears in the ridge.
‘Okay go down 20 feet and then walk up to the summit and take your positions again,’ comes the garbled radio call. We troop back to the summit. The radio squawks. ‘Have to do it again lads, Cubby stumbled.’
‘He stepped into his hole you pillock,’ I yelled. ‘We’ll do it again.’ Cubby says calmly into the radio and we troop down the ridge. By the time they are satisfied with the take Cubby has dug a circular hole almost waist deep and somehow perfected a technique of stepping into it without appearing either to stumble or lose height suddenly. I am amazed and we plonk back down the ridge.
Then I am lowered down a steep ice face supposed to look similar to the 2nd ice field, which it does in a surprising sort of way since it is a hell of a lot steeper than the second ice field and there is a 3,000 foot drop to the glacier. I climb up and down wondering why Brian told me that it wasn’t brittle, as shards of ice three inches thick and the size of doors keep plunging down beneath my feet. A series of closed up shots on axe and crampon points and I am free to go. It is a wrap as they say, and actually did!
The lads now descent the ice field and start to climb it with 1930’s gear and one axe each while we throw lumps of cork at them to simulate rock fall. It is soberingly realistic. I watch Erika make up Angerer’s head wound and am suitably impressed. Within a very short time she has created a fairly sickening looking head injury in his hair line then shouting across to James Tovell (art director) she asks, ‘What kind of blood do you want?’ James thinks seriously for a moment impressively unfazed by the question. ‘I have fresh blood, hour old blood, coagulated, scabbed, pus and plasma…’ Erika adds helpfully. ‘Put some hour old on and give as a bottle of fresh blood for later,’ James replies… I told you it was a dark art!
What was the high point? The guys playing Kurz and the lads, absolute stars in every sense and I hope this film does them justice. The mountain. I had quite forgotten what a magnetic attraction it holds for me. Being landed at the Swallows Nest by wire – Alton Towers eat your heart out. Doing a good professional job safely and that’s all down to Brian Hall, Cubby Cuthbertson, Keith Partridge, Rory Gregory, Paul Moores, Bush, Olly Ryall, Hansruedi Gertsch and the pilots and winch men; I would put my life in their hands any day of the week. Realising that Louise Edmonds is as good as everyone told me she was. The unfailing good humour of Jeremy Hewson, Olly Astle-Jones, Ian Chisholm (camera & sound, & asst camera). The fun, patience and expertise of Emma Parsons (line producer), Erika Okvist (production designer), Oliver Robinson (asst dir) and James Tovell (art director and underwear dropper). It would have been a complete bastard without the humour and patience of these people whose dedication to making a good film embarrasses me.
It’s like being in an early twentieth century time warp this hotel, quite bizarre really and it is time to go home.

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