The trouble with shuriken
During pre-production, one of our props guys ordered decorative shuriken, aka ninja throwing stars, for reference. Result? Customs stopped one of the packages and local police fined him for importing a weapon! Now, the throwing star in question wasn’t sharp although it was made of metal. It looked like the one above here. What do you think? Lethal weapon or cheesy collector’s item? I guess it’s a case of potato/potatoe.
Here’s an excerpt of the indictment letter we got:
The highlight states that he imported from Malaysia one throwing star.
And here’s the funny part (except for the fine, which we paid btw.):
That’s right, one throwing star confiscated for the benefit of the state coffers.
I hope the Government can put it to good use!
Final weeks of editing
Time for an update on the progress of the movie itself.
Right now, we’re in the last few weeks of editing – which is a crucial time for any movie – and I’m very happy with what we’re doing and where the movie is going. The editing is spearheaded by the duo of lead editor Simen Gengenbach and co-editor Anders Bergland, working with director Thomas down at post production house Drømmesuiten in Oslo.
Supervising sound editor Gisle Tveito (left) and sound designer Fredric Vogel working on the teaser. Photo by Eric Vogel.
Also contributing in a big way are the VFX and post sound crews, who feed the ever-hungry editing machine with their work, producing VFX shots and sound ranging from quick’n'dirty to complete, depending on the need. Our composer Gaute Tønder has recently started working on the score too, so it can influence and enrich the editing in just the right way.
We’re starting to make final decisions on how scenes will play out, what to leave in and what to cut. It’s pretty intense – it always is. Will our audience get this little hint? Do we need more emphasis on this line of dialogue or should we linger 12 frames longer on the reaction? Should we drop this scene altogether? What happens when you put samba music on the scene instead? How does this other little scene over here work now, compared to yesterday’s version?
Editor Simen Gengenbach (left) and director Thomas Cappelen Malling in the editing suite.
The guys in the editing room go through literally hundreds of decisions and considerations like this every day. As producer I come in to the editing room every few days to go through what’s been done, offer comments and have discussions. Sometimes I spend twenty minutes there, sometimes a full day. Plus I keep in touch with the other departments, and try to keep an eye on what’s coming up in the time ahead. I love that stuff, seeing all the little bits and pieces come together and to help push the movie along in any way I can. It’s a very special privilege to follow a process like this, and editing is one of my favorite parts of making a movie. It’s the magic of montage.
PS: After the editing we’ll still have several months of sound, music and VFX work to do before the movie is finished. Just realized I should point that out.
T-shirt gallery
Just for fun, here’s a gallery of t-shirts worn by our crew on set. In the winter cold it’s nice to be reminded of warmer days. All photos by Ellen Ugelstad.
Underwater sequence done. Almost.
A big hello to new and old readers. We’re thrilled about your responses to our teaser. Most of you call it a trailer. Some say teaser trailer. Only nerds know the difference.
Heh. It’s like advertising-people discussing whether Coca-Cola is a “Brand”; “Super-brand” or “Hyper-brand”, and whether Diet Coke is a “Sub-brand” or a “Sibling”. Hey, how do you like this sub-brand? Uhh – I’m just thirsty…
To us, the “teaser” was a chance to show something without boring you with details. Some viewers thought the clip strange or disturbing and indeed, a fathom of torpedo-riding Ninjas is kind of strange. But this is a true story. And as you know, or should know, there was a lot of action in the Norwegian fjords in the 80’s.
TODAY
Our Editor and I sent a fully edited film-sequence to the VFX guys today. It’s the sequence you’ve seen a clip from in our “teaser”. Obviously it depicts Commander Treholt and his Ninjas roaming the fjords looking for trouble. How does it end? It ends!
Now its up to the hard-working, hard-thinking Ludde and Christian of Sement & Betong to continue applying their teaser magic on the entire sequence. Well, actually it’ll end up even better, as we aim to achieve a hard, documentary look by re-shooting the finished images afterwards with a handheld grid-scanning camera thing. I’m not sure how it works but I know what it does. Shooting rough war-correspondent-style would have caused severe problems if done during the original shoot, see!
Thanks for reading our blog.
Thomas.
A collage of the historical torpedo-riding boys Decima Flottiglia Mezzi d'Assalto, also known as La Decima or Xª MAS (Italian for "10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla"), who operated during WWII. The spirit of these guys is very hard to comprehend. Top left image: The Commmander's torso, photo by Trond Høines.
Do You Want To Know More?
About La Decima, about manned torpedoes.
Wanted: Norwegian Ninjas!
Hi guys,
Please help making our movie better: By being in it. That’s right – got an old snapshot of yourself dressed up as a Ninja as a kid?
All will become clear when you see your photo in the movie. So if you have a snapshot and wouldn’t mind appearing in our movie for a few seconds, please get in touch with us by using this email address (remove the text about spam) for further details. I look forward to studying your photo. It doesn’t matter how old it is or what condition it’s in.
Deadline: February 1st 2010.
A big thanks to all who contribute, and remember – real kids never grow up!
Thomas.
Photo: Yours truly and Tanja sharing some information in Rondane, 1978.
Production design #1
The sets and props were handled by production designer Are Sjaastad and his team (see below). To create a believable and distinct world for the movie to play out in, many objects and spaces were built from the ground up, from original designs. In the case of already existing props and vehicles, they were often heavily customized. Here are just a few details to feast your eyes on! More examples and musings on production design will be posted in the future. All photos by Ellen Ugelstad.
Art Department:
Production designer - Are Sjaastad
Property master – Elin Våg
Set props and prop maker – Thomas Nes
Special effects and set design - Jannicke Johansen
Carpenter – Pål A. Nilsen
Vehicles – Håvard Lillehaug
Art department assistant - Ivar Sjaastad
Art department assistant - Sebastian Koren
Art department assistant – Jill Leikvoll
Art department assistant – Simon Lombardi
Art department assistant – Ulises Garay Martinez
Art department assistant - Ivan Garay Martinez
Origins
This is an essay on how this project began on my part.
Let me take you back to 2005. It’s getting close to Christmas, and I’m out doing last minute shopping. Oslo is cold and snowy, and decorated with the gaudy lights and street decorations typical for the Christmas season. I decide to visit the legendary bookstore Tronsmo, which since the early seventies has been ground zero for alternative literature and comics here in Norway. (If you’re ever in these parts make sure to stop by!)
On this particular afternoon, the cramped store is filled with other shoppers so it’s a little hard to move around. But there – just a few meters inside from the entrance – is a smallish table set aside for titles recommended by the staff, as well as the best selling titles. On a sort of pedestal, one book is elevated above the others. I take a closer look. “Ninjateknikk II: Usynlighet i Strid 1978 av Arne Treholt“.
Front cover of "Ninjateknikk II..." (Oktober Forlag hardcover edition).
Wait a minute. Arne Treholt? The defendant in Norway’s biggest ever espionage case in the mid eighties, the man who according to the media and jury at the time sold state secrets to the Soviet Union and Iraq, and was demonized as a greedy, high-living gambler and womanizer? Still, even among his enemies, he was known as a skilled diplomat, highly intelligent and charismatic. A bona fide wonderboy of Norwegian political life and foreign affairs until his spectacular fall in a highly controversial court case. Was he a ninja?
I remember thinking: “Someone is having a laugh here”, and picked up the book for a closer look. It was a military instructional manual for ninja techniques, including stealth, invisibility, evasion and spiritual techniques. Illustrated by photos that reminded me of my dad’s Jiu Jitsu manual of the same late seventies era, and perhaps the photo novellas of my grandmother’s weekly celebrity magazines. The presentation was impeccable, and totally believable. The text was terse and down to earth, matter of factly dispensing out its words of wisdom to the aspiring ninja. And the imprint read “© Specialkommandoen 1978″ and had a catalog number just like any other military manual (UD 17-45).
Collage of images from the book.
My brain got simultaneously bombarded with two things – signals that this was all real, and signals that this was an elaborate hoax. Because it just couldn’t be! But… it could, too! Treholt is a man greatly mythologized, especially by those out to get him. I didn’t know whether to laugh it off or get paranoid about how little I knew about the world, Arne Treholt and what goes on in secret military units.
In the end, I set the book down. I couldn’t buy it then. It was too disturbing.
I wouldn’t find my peace with the book, and its idea that Treholt was a secret military ninja commander, until almost one year later. So lets jump forward to September of 2006. It’s the gala premiére night of my first feature film as producer, “Sønner” (“Sons”). In the audience were cast, crew, friends and family. It was great. One of the people I made sure to invite was photographer Ellen Ugelstad, who I’d met on holiday in San Francisco in the late 90s through a mutual friend. When she had her first exhibition in Norway, she sent me an invitation. So when I had my debut, I was happy to reciprocate.
A few days later, Ellen calls me and says: “I have a friend you should meet. He’s got this movie project”. Now, let’s stop right here for a minute. I get this a lot. It comes with the territory of my job as a producer. A lot of people tend to have the perfect friend (or friend of a friend, or distant relative) with a project that I just have to check out. I most cases, say 9 out of 10, this doesn’t pan out – for any number of reasons. But you never know, in this mysterious world of ours, how connections are made that will last for a long time. So most of the time, if I’m not too busy or focused on other things, I actually will check out these things. Who knows what may come up, right?
Mads Ousdal as "Kommandør Arne Treholt". Photo by Ellen Ugelstad
So the follow-up went something like this: I asked Ellen what kind of a project this was, she says it was a ninja movie (okay, this is getting interesting) and furthermore, that it was written by “the same guy who did the Treholt book”. BANG! That’s the sound of my brain connecting the dots. The half-finished process in my cortex that had started the year before but never reached its conclusion, suddenly came rushing back. The questions: is it real? Is it fake? Who is this guy? What’s the story? What the hell?
Following this, I received a document by email entitled “Kommandør Treholt & Ninjatroppen”, by Thomas Cappelen Malling. A pitch for a movie that described itself as a “Documentarian / Nature punk / Sci-Fi/ Steampunk / Roadmovie / Comedy / Satire“. With Norwegian ninjas led by Arne Treholt. No less! It was delicious, and needless to say I was thoroughly hooked.
Then, on October the 18th, 2006 (according to my calendar), Thomas and I met for the first time, and began the process of developing the project.
Over the course of the three years that have passed since then, I’ve met many people who’ve had the same, uneasy reaction to the book as myself. It’s quite powerful, because it simply doesn’t add up. In the same way that many enigmas of the Treholt case still linger and itch, the book – and hopefully the movie – can force you to realize that the notion of truth, of historic fact, is just as plastic and mutable as any work of fiction – depending on your point of view. It’s a rich and confusing world out there. Let’s embrace and accept that.
Just like the ninjas.
Photographic evidence #4
Snapshot from location shooting. Actor Jon Øigarden (left) and director Thomas Cappelen Malling. Photo by Ellen Ugelstad
The making of a true story
Welcome to the official production blog for Kommandør Treholt & Ninjatroppen. In English known as Norwegian Ninja. This is your source of news, rumors and exclusive sneak peeks into the making of the first Norwegian ninja movie for the big screen. Your hosts are writer/director Thomas Cappelen Malling and producer Eric Vogel.
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