INTREPID CINEMA
Making the Film
In August 2009 the Intrepid Cinema crew set sail on a 38ft yacht from Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, to follow the guga hunters of Ness into the gales of the North Atlantic.
The crew were uniquely qualified for the task. Director, Mike, is a qualified yacht skipper and his brother Matt is an ex-GBR Olympic team sailor and RYA Coach. Both have ocean sailing experience, but filming the guga hunters would prove a great test of their experience.
The team also included a marine engineer, Will Brown (who came in very handy!). Will also has extensive offshore sailing experience. Finally, Crewman Aaron Sterritt joined the boat after sailing across the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Panama. Producer Andy Maas was having his first nautical experience and was about to have a baptism of fire to say the least.
Spending weeks at sea the crew of five endured almost continual gales and breakages to follow the guga hunters who were catching young gannets on the desolate rocky isle of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles offshore in the North Atlantic.
The film features 35mm cinematography filmed with a Letus Ultimate. Mike shot the film mostly on various vintage prime lenses, giving a rich cinematic feel to the film. You can see more about how the film was shot in an interview for BBC2 below.
An original sound track was also created for the film by the Dead Rat Orchestra. A year after filming Mike and the DRO camped out on a decommissioned light house ship on the River Colne for a week and worked to arrange a soundtrack that featured traditional melodies from Ness as well as field recordings of a local choir. The sound track will shortly be released as an album. Updates will follow here on the Intrepid Cinema website as we get them.
You can watch the crew battle the odds over a 36 hour period below...
Ness is the last place in the UK where young gannets, known in Gaelic as Guga, are hunted for their meat. The hunting of sea birds was outlawed in 1954 in the UK, but the community of Ness on the Isle of Lewis continue to be granted the only exemption under UK and EU law allowing them to hold the annual hunt.
Every August ten men from Ness set sail for Sula Sgeir, a desolate island far out in the Atlantic. Following in the footsteps of countless generations, they leave their normal lives behind to journey through storms and high seas to reach the remote hunting ground.
The men live on the island for two exhausting weeks, sleeping in old stone bothies among ruins built by monks over a thousand years ago. They work ceaselessly, catching, killing and processing 2000 birds using traditional methods before returning home with this rare meat so cherished by the people of Ness.
This unique documentary feature had its broadcast premiere in January 2011 on BBC2.
BBC Interviews with Mike
Part of a BBC feature on the making of The Guga Hunters of Ness and the cinematography techniques used in the making of the film you can see the whole article and extra footage from the film here...
“a gorgeously shot documentary feature that takes viewers into the heart of this ancient tradition, celebrating its longevity and lamenting its decline without once being patronising, overly worthy or dull.
The Guga Hunters Of Ness is poetic, haunting, its beautiful imagery making it hard to look away. It's rare to see a story so effectively combine this evocative romance with the rough reality of working men's lives. The hunters come across as utterly grounded and real, yet Sula Sgeir seems to give them a license to dream. The film has an existential quality that only enhances the impact of its blunt message about the ephemerality of all human endeavour.”
-Eye for Film 2011
