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LMGI COMPASS
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Winter 2025
Handling expectations
It's also important to manage the project's creative vision.
"I had one producer who came to me with a storyboard and
about 30 images of Iceland from the internet (some of which I'd
taken myself) showing four different seasons in every corner of
the country, incorporating the Northern Lights and midnight
sun, saying they wanted all of it, but only had a four-day shoot,"
laughs Jason Roberts, owner of PolarX, based in Svalbard, a
Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic.
LM Stacy Kane/LMGI, co-owner of Kane House Films, adds: "We
get producers just saying they want to shoot in Alaska, and I
ask them where and what type. We have tundra, rainforests,
Arctic conditions, etc. We take them around the region so they
can get their head around it, factoring in the best place for
getting equipment, infrastructure and matching the budget."
SLM Doug Dresser/LMGI says: "I just completed a movie in
Colorado where the director wanted to film at a specific snowy
mountain cabin during a snowstorm. But we had to travel on
snowcats in four feet of snow, which then surrounded the
cabin, and so we rejected it."
Sometimes the country won't work. For the TV series True
Detective: Night Country, the story was based in Alaska, but
the production team filmed in Iceland instead. "Temperatures
can drop to -40 degrees in Alaska, which is not sustainable for
filming," says Jethro Ensor/LMGI, one of the SLMs on the series.
The fact that Alaska lost its financial incentive for filming has
also been a huge factor. "We're not getting as many big-studio
features because of it, more indie projects and nature docs,"
concedes Kane.
Right time
Timing of productions is also important. Many arrive to
scout a few months before the shoot when the landscape and
conditions are completely different.
"I stood once on a fjord in the middle of August in heavy rain
trying to explain that by winter, it will be frozen and white,"
says Roberts.
"For True Detective: Night Country, there was no snow through
prep up to Christmas. We then had a break and the day we left,
Iceland had a huge snowdrop, which meant we could film in the
new year. But the snow was up to our waists. It was the perfect
setting for our crime scene, but difficult to operate in. We had
to actually remove a level of the snow to prep everything, while
making sure it still looked virgin. It was tough," admits Ensor.
Not many know that in the Arctic summer, there's not much
snow and actually quite bare rock. "If they give a storyboard
Vatnajökull, Iceland. Photo by Elli Cassata/LMGI
