So, around May last year, I got a call. I had been in a habit of not answering my phone to numbers I didn't know, due to an increase in scam calls and stuff going around. Thank god I answered this one though.
(Kattegat at around 5:50am. I loved it out here and am looking forward to season 3)
Backstory
I was working with a lad who hadn't been around yet to collect me, so I was expecting a call any minute, the phone rang I answered and it was one of the ADs working for the spin-off to The Vikings, Vikings: Valhalla. Which I had signed up for just as the lockdowns were starting to happen here in Ireland.
The call went something like this. "Hello, I'm calling on behalf of Vikings: Valhalla, which you signed up for. Are you still available?" "Ehhh, yeah." "Brilliant write this date down." Grabs pen starts writing on my arm. "On such and such date. Come in for a fitting and PCR test." "Okay cheers." Hangs up, begins to have a mini panic attack.
I had heard about the tests but never had one before, I knew though that they were nasty. In total I had over 70 PCR tests, it was worth it considering they actually paid us to do them. So a sore nose and the occasional gag were kind of worth it. lol.
Anyway, on with the photos.
This was one of my first days out with them, most days I was out there, the weather was like this. Couldn't have asked for a better time to be out working for them really.
I think this was the first picture I took when I got back home. I was a dead body, as you can tell from the blood. It was horrible as the fake blood is so sticky and everything in the forest stuck to me, I had twigs, bugs, and whatever else all over me. But, I got to see a frog hopping around, so that was cool.
My first days with them were for pick-up shots for Season 1 then we went directly into Season 2. So I have no idea how much I'm in this season as I haven't watched it yet.
Speaking of fake blood, I was in the lineup one morning, waiting to sign in and we were told they were looking for men who didn't mind being topless. So I asked if we'd be outside and they said no we're on the sound stage, so I thought grand, is there extra money? Yep, 50 euro extra. Sound, I'll get my tits out for that. I was a Russian Boxer who'd been in a previous fight. So bit of blood. That's alright I thought.
Nope, they covered me in the stuff. But, between being comfortable and 50 euro extra... I'd always go for the thing that has extra money attached. I was called a whore by some mates of mine, but, I didn't care haha.
Animals
Most days out on Vikings it was like being in a zoo, they had so many different kinds of animals.
Horses were around every day... Bit scary to be fair.
Then there were Rain deer out on the Russian set. They were cute and I pet one. But, I walked behind a bunch of people when I saw it point its head down and scrape its hoof on the ground.
This owl I didn't think was real until I was looking at it and it turned to stare at me.
Lemurs are so cute, I saw these two while on the Kattegat set.
They had kind of working farms on one of the sets, which was cool me and some of the lads just dossed around here for a bit feeding the animals.
These goats, they were out nearly every day with us. They even had babies during the production and even brought them out on set, they were so cute.
They were even climbing the cliffside at one point.
One day we were in the rain and wearing these poncho rain cover things you get at gigs. When all of a sudden I was being tugged. I thought it was one of the lads messing, no, it was the goat and it ate a big chunk out of the back of mine. They were always causing trouble.
The Sets
I can't really remember why we were on this set, but, it was cool. Just a tiny forest kind of settlement. The attention to detail was great while being out with the Vikings. There are so many talented people involved in bringing the Sets and Costumes to life.
We were on the Russian set as a balloon floated on by. Pretty cool, I'd never seen one in real life before.
This was one of my favourite sets, it was a man-made lake, surrounded on all sides by a cliff. I spent so much time out on this one. The only bad thing was there was no cover from the sun. They were good at giving us sunblock but, I didn't get any on my hair and I got sunburnt in my parting. Not fun.
Here's the London set, we were there for a hanging on this day. (It was a fake person but, looked fairly real.) My god, every day. Not joking, every day in the London set it rained, no idea how or why.
The Russian set was cool, they had all this fake snow. Which actually tricked me a few times into thinking it was cold.
I was a fisherman one day and decided to grab this picture in between takes, I love the ships. I heard they are all made down in Wexford. I saw a truck leave the studio one day with a bunch of them on the back of it, bringing them to another set.
This day I went in and was told I was a noble, everyone was getting messed up with the dirty makeup as I was being pampered, they blew dry my hair and gave me a fancy silk shirt.
Little did I know as I laughed, that when everyone got to get sent home at 1 pm that afternoon I was walked down with twenty others to continue shooting inside, I was a servant so I think will be seen in the background of the shot. I didn't mind staying late. Since I got overtime.
Usually, the days were 6 - 6 or 7 so that's what I always expected, sometimes though, we'd get out early and still be paid full. For example, if you go in and for whatever reason, the day doesn't go ahead you'll be sent home and paid in full which is cool. Never happened to me, but, it's good to know.
One of the days while out there I was put in the wool seller stall, so handy, because I got to hide from the sun. We had two weeks of a heatwave and we were all out in all the gear all day. I had about 3 or 4 layers of wool on me, but all of us that went through it all had a bit of comradery.
The Russian Gear was so warm as well, but I thought it was really cool looking and the set was deadly too.
This costume had to be my favourite one, Constantinople. I was one of the guards to the emperor. Which was my second last day, the costume was so heavy. Not only because of all the layers but, also the chest piece, and all were real metal. Coupled with the sword, shield, and spear it was so heavy, but, it was a great way to end the Season.
I have a lot more pictures but, thought I'd share these ones, I'm going to watch season one of Valhalla soon and see if I can spot myself I'll do a review of it and add in any pictures if I see myself.
During my time out with the Vikings, I got to meet a lot of really cool people and even went on to do a short film with a bunch of them after we wrapped, can't wait to see everyone again.
Bring on Season 3, Skol!
That's pretty damn cool!! I can see from the photos that you had a really great time too, and probably made a few new friends for life. And you're Irish! I am Dutch but lived in Ireland for 10 years till November 2021. In County Mayo.
I know I'm Dutch, but part of my heart is Irish, and from a very good Irish friend's words: "There's more Irish in you than the gross of the Irish born here"...I believe him haha. Well, anyway, it's nice to meet you!
Haha that's deadly, I've never been to Mayo but, I've written and directed a few short films with an Actor I met who's from Mayo I think it would be a really cool county to visit. I lived in a squat with my parents in the Netherlands when I was about 2, I had my 3rd birthday over there, in a place called.. (I'm most likely going to spell it wrong but I'll write it like it sounds.) Annalydan. When we came back to Ireland they said one of the first things I asked my Nan was "Can I have a Gilder for an icecream." Most likely spelt that wrong too haha.
The Vikings was a great experience, their studio is only about a 15 minute drive from me, that was my first season with them. But, I'll be back out with them again soon for to start filming season 3 and I can't wait. All the people out there were amazing, it really felt more like being at a festival than being at work. Everyone out there are very like minded too and there were so many ex film students and aspiring actors so I was able to work with a bunch of them on a film I wrote when we wrapped in November, which should be finished Post-production soon.
WOW! That's badass bro. This is a super cool post and the photography is good as well. I bet it was a lot of fun! I will have to watch and keep an eye out for you. Cheers or should i say Skol!
Thanks so much, it was so fun being out there, I'll be in Season 2 a lot more than this season. But, I'll be in a couple episodes. To be honest during the first lockdown here I turned into a bit of a recluse. But, the Vikings helped me get back to normal in a way, since I went from being around only 3 or 4 people to being around a couple hundred most days haha
Right... the lockdowns sucked. Fortunately for me... i was already a recluse. But i'm glad that you got a bit of normalcy back. My chick's mom was telling me recently i need to check out Valhalla... now i know what she was talking about. So, i have a lot of catching up to do. I can't wait to tell them and show them your post. They will get a kick out of it!
Epic shots
Thanks so much man, glad you liked them!
What a crazy cool experience! Thank you so much for giving us a "peek" behind the scenes of such a great show!
It was great! Happy to share the experience up here and I'm glad you liked it!
This is amazing
Gif Source
Thanks so much, glad you liked it! It was a lot of fun being out there.
Congratulations @killerwot! You received a personal badge!
Participate in the next Power Up Day and try to power-up more HIVE to get a bigger Power-Bee.
May the Hive Power be with you!
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 3/23) Liquid rewards.
Thanks for the curation!
Cool!
oh my......!!!!! glad it paid off anyway. reblogged; such a splendid, excellent stuff. and - why don't you use #creativecoin to get more curation for your post? (#ccc doesnt mean CCC tokens, you need to use #creativecoin for earning those).
!BEER
Oh, I didn't realise that, thanks for letting me know. I got so used to the PCR tests after a while that it was fine haha.
he, he. I managed to escape of all this activity (and all the travelling too), only once spent 2k roubles for the test, for nothing xD
glad my info was useful to you. cheers! 🤸♀️
View or trade
BEER.Hey @killerwot, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @qwerrie for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.\o\
I would wear those costumes everyday, so cool. I wonder how expensive it might be to produce all those plates and swords and stuff
It would cost tons of money, I know that the budget for the show is a lot.
Woaaahhh. That's a hell lot of experience. I can't imagine the joy of being someone in the production team bringing the set alive. There were quite a lot of stuff I thought was real and turned out to be fake, and some I thought was fake but was actually real. I thought the lake was real but it's man-made??? Such amazing work they did there. Also the metal I would've thought it was fake but goddamn it's real! Do the actors who have action scenes use a real metal for a sword fight?? Sounds dangerous 😲
I can tell you had fun changing roles, more roles than Johnny Sins hahah. Curious tho, do they not show the faces in the scenes? Cos dunno maybe someone in the audience would notice you're the same noble guy who's now a wool seller that became a boxer? lol
Also love your narration, it was fun reading it LOL
It's such a surprise seeing some of the things in the show, there are sets which are all real buildings you can walk inside of, but, looking at it in the show they have digital extensions that give the settlements a grand scale. Then there are even places where they film on location by a lake and then splice the lake set with the settlement set and then add all the background stuff to extend it, it's so interesting.
Alot of the costumes are made of leather and wool, but the metal armour I wore was new to the show so I heard they had to rent it. I think they will most likely try and make them out of a light weight material in future because it was a bit of a nightmare wearing the stuff for 12 hours. Funny though, I felt like I was floating when I took the stuff off. We also weren't allowed to put our weapons and shields down and walk away because if we lost them we'd be in serious trouble haha
As for the swords, the swords and stuff are fake when people are fighting as it would be dangerous to use real ones, but then they would bring out the "hero" weapon which is real, but that would only be used for close ups. It was cool, the prop master would bring it out and stand by to take it away between shots.
Because of the lockdown there were limits on how many people could be out each day and a limit on how many extras they could have working for them, so yeah I think the same faces will be seen a lot. They will most likely get around it by having the background out of focus, but we'll most likely still be seen. Nobody will pay too much attention to it though with everything else going on, on the screen.
It was so much fun working on the show and I felt lucky to be one of the few hundred extras used during the filming we all got a lot of work out of it which in previous years is unheard of. Extra work is usually very sparatic.
Haha that must suck wearing that metal but I'm happy you got paid right. Ahh yeah that makes total sense. Although it's really impressive that it's not obvious that the swords are fake during fights haha I bet the training or rehearsal for it was fun too!
Thank you for sharing your experience!
I find that really interesting too, but, in fairness, even the fake ones look real. Glad you enjoyed my story. !PIZZA
Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more
Perfect mate
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@killerwot(1/5) tipped @hiddenblade (x1)
Please vote for pizza.witness!
nice series of photos.
Thanks, it was a lot of fun being out there!