Behind the scenes with solymi – A real feature film set

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Hello Cineasts and movie fans!

This is the second time I post in the Cinetv community, and I had many nice comments on my previous post and given the nice reception I will drop another BTS (behind the scenes) for you to enjoy.
For good reasons I can not disclose any personal information here but you can find a lot of Info on crew united.

The Title of the Movie is Ein ganzes Leben which means: a whole life

And tells the story based on a book by Robert Seethaler. The movie tells the story of a life of a simple labourer in the Alps. After a long life of hardship and only a few happy moments with his wife, he looks back with reconciliation as he is at the end of his life.

All pictures are taken by me unless stated otherwise.

We have been shooting in South Tirol which is a part of Italy but everyone speaks 2 languages German and Italian. However for this part of the shoot we went back to the highest mountain in Austria the Grossglockner

In my previous post I showed you the basecamp and a little bit of the WW2 bunker.
Today I would like to give you some impressions on how it looked on the Grossglockner and maybe I can show you our nice Prop car we had?
I also encountered some marmots and they where really sweet.

Let' start with the road to the location.

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Source: Googlemaps

It was a nice ride upwards and we could take some time to do pictures.

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A nice little waterfall in one of the curves. Astounding how we can achieve to build roads in such environments. It must have been a huge project back in the days.

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The highest peak you can see on the right of the picture is the Grossglockner wich is 3798 Meters =
12460.63 Feet high. It is carrying about 180 square kilometers of glacier ice on it. When we arrived at the top we had our lunch break and I must say it was a bit windy but I could not withstand to eat on the terrace with this view. The soup was great and I also played a few Splinterlands battles here.

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This is the view without food.

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On the right hand side you can see the remains of the glacier. I have been here 20 years ago and unfortunately I did not take any photos back then. All I know that the glacier was way further down the mountain. But since it has been getting warmer each year the glacier went back quite a bit.

After lunch we went to the park deck to shoot our actor getting out of the bus. This is already when he is older so we shot with the great August Zirner who plays the hero in his old days.
No photos of the actors but you can check them all out on Crew United or IMDB.

The bus is from a private collection, and the driver also played the driver in the movie.
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The bus was built in 1949 and has 90 horsepower it can go with about 60 miles per our tops. However when we drove up the mountain road it only could go about 20-25 MpH.

The bus was used as a delivery truck until the late 80ies and then got purchased by the owner right now. They completely had to take it appart and rebuild the back from scratch to make it look as it looks today. Over 2000 hours of work went into this baby.

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I really love the interior as well. You can see the effort and the love that created this beauty.

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Later on I was sent uphill to block off the few tourists that where in our shot. On the bottom right you can see the crew working. And the bus in the middle. The view was amazing and it started to get chilly as well. We also had some issues since we where depending on the sun light.

Anyways after sending the hikers in other directions than our set I had some time to check out my surroundings more and I found this little fella

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There is a ton of marmots living in the area and they seem to be used to the sight of humans. This pic was taken only from a few meters away.
Then I saw a couple and I had to take a video.

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After we finished on top of the park deck it was time to roll down and bring the actors back to the base. I am used to drive mountain roads but I had some idiot in front of me constantly standing on his breaks and I could not overtake them. Meaning I had to use my breaks more than I liked to and it had its consequences, when we arrived at the bottom base my breaks where smoking and for an instance I thought they would catch fire and incinerate the car. Always use the motor as a break when rolling downhill!

As last pic I have some gear porn for those who like the techy stuff.
This is a modified Mercedes AMG with a built on so called "russian arm" it is used to do follow shots of cars horses or anything with speed that is hard to catch up with on foot. Sorry for the blue dots but I have to protect the privacy of our crew members. The red circle indicates where the camera operator sits and handles the movement of the cam with those steering wheels. It is not an easy task at all, and I tried it once and it confuses you quite a bit since you have a wheel for each axis the cam can move on.
You can also see there is 2 monitors 1 shows the actual recorded picture the other give you an almost 180 degree view to the front so you can see where you are headed.

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I hope you peeps enjoyed my little behind the scenes trip. I am now searching through my old photos to prepare the next BTS post with solymi

Thanks for taking the time to read to the end of my post.
Cheers
solymi
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15 comments
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It´s been ages ago that I was in Austria we often went to Neukirchen but I know I have seen that big boy too ...probably on a day trip or something....way too long ago. !CTP

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If you visit again let me know! We can grab a coffee or a beer in Vienna :) You can also meet up with a few other hiveans. We have a meetup today

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Definitely will do so, although it might take a while. Going back to The Netherlands this month is probably all the holidays I will take this year. But then as A Dutchie living in Spain its Holiday every day 😁

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For me the only holiday I spend his year will also be in the NL. Going to Rotterdam for a few days

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HAH! You're Dutch too! I had NO idea!
Where do you live in Spain?
All these Dutchies going to move to Spain haha.
And if it's not Spain, they move to Mexico like me! :)

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Granada Andalusia, yeah I know. That´s where I met those that are currently moving to Spain we go back years. But I 've been in Andalusia for over 10 years. Still, my Spanish sucks as I use it way too little, but I can sobre vivir. Hope to one day move a bit closer your way I love that continent below the US border

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those that are currently moving to Spain
😆
I had NO idea!!
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, I was expecting that my Spanish would be better by now, after almost 7 months here but I speak it too little too due to most people speaking English here.
Can't wait to travel here though, there will definitely be places where they don't speak any English...Then we'll have to hehe.

Hope to one day move a bit closer your way I love that continent below the US border

Yeah, this country is pretty damn cool. And I haven't even been anywhere here yet, other than Acapulco, Tijuana, and Quintana Roo.

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I ve been to Nicaragua many years ago, but I would not mind living in Costa Rica or the Nederlandse Antillen in a couple of years

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What a beautiful place! Those views from the top are stunning! And the bus is classic!

There must have been too much pressure on the brakes while you were traversing downhill. The other car should have let you go first hehe

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(Edited)

Yeah actually the car had to go to the mechanic today to get some new breaks. The other car should have not even come up the hill lol.
I hope I can go back soon, I might get a new position as 2nd assistant director

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Oh, sorry to hear. I hope it's not serious.
The driver must be really scared he kept stalling in front of you, lol!

I hope I can go back soon, I might get a new position as 2nd assistant director

That's fantastic! Congratulations!

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I went to Austria a long time ago. Your beautiful pictures brought back lots of good memories. Thanks for sharing.

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You are very welcome! Will you visit again any time soon?

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Amazing scenery. I love those Marmots. Always have. Are they called that in English too?
Aren't they like ground hogs or similar?
I drove through Austria once. Well, twice, back again too haha.
I hated the road works but loved the way they'd put smileys up to show if it was still
long to get through. I HATE driving inside the tunnels though. With a passion.
Some are SO long!!

Anyway, you have quite an interesting job this way. I once dreamed of being in those shoes, but took to writing behind the scenes instead hehe.

Thanks for sharing!

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I was looking up the Murmeltier and found Marmots and groundhogs with marmots indicated as the mire common term. I was not shure if its right though.
They never stop building the roads in Austria. And yes some of the tunnels can be awfully long.
I like being on all these exciting locations but being in the movie industry takes a toll on your family life, I am glad I found a job now where i can work from home.

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