12th Feb (day 31)

Hmmmmmm. Had a lovely long lie in ‘til 10.15.

Got some shit done last night – but not as much as we’d hoped. Robbie wasn’t going up the derrick ‘til 4 or 5 am so we hit the hay around 2.30. We decided to risk getting our last pick ups on the last night. A bit chancy, but should be OK as long as the rig doesn’t break down.

Did manage to film Brandon, the worm, who’s hat they graffited, getting dressed in the mud room with the other roughnecks. I was expecting a huge rumpus when he noticed, but he doffed his hat and walked straight out. For at least half an hour he wondered round the rig totally oblivious to the huge worm scrawled on his helmet. When someone finally told him I chanced to be filming him at the time and he looked like he was about to burst into tears as he desperately tried to scrub it off with spit and his fingers!!!!!! (I felt kind of sorry for him, even though he is a very annoying, classic American geek. Besides he’s been going on about how he expects to be ‘wormed’ and he’ll deal with it. And also how he did it to the ‘worms’ in the lumberjack business he does in Summer – so I guess he deserves it). It was even funnier when he started debating with Tommy how he thought Billy had done it and how he was gonna fix him – altho of course it was Tommy all along. All very childish, I know, like being at school, but in a place this remote, I guess you’ve got to make your own amusement. Good to film, too.

Also filmed the sample collecting – which was kind of interesting….sort of….. The shake room is great – very warm and cosy. Plus the whole room vibrates, so much that your inner ears tickle and you feel like you’re being massaged all over. And the shakers bounce the mud and slop from the hole, so vigorously that you get these amazing intereference patterns in the liquid as the grit slides along a conveyor belt. Very relaxing room. And fun to film arty GVs in.

Saw THE MOST AMAZING Northern Lights last night, too. Not just shimmering, but swirling and spiralling right above my head, and out across the entire night sky – in definite, but subtle shades of silver, green and red. And really fast, too. Looks like bright sunlight from underwater, diffused into rays like tentacles. You can see each ignition, spread across the sky, and the patterns fizz and reshape continuously. Really started to feel dizzy and disorientated watching after a while, and very hypnotised – really unbelievable – nearly fell over. Very trippy indeed. Alien and beautiful.

Spent most of today script writing, while Sam logs. (I’m missing my edit prep week, so I figure it’s best to get the script done here. In the edit straight off next week.) Kind of strange to be on location writing the script. Especially when the program is so far form the reality. I’m still filming with the people I’m turning into fictional characters back in my room. Odd job.

I find the scripts easier to write if you ventriloquise in a very cheesy American accent. (See first draft of opening below).


24 hours of darkness………80 mile an hour blizzards…………and temperatures of over 100 below – this is The North Slope of Alaska.

Situated within The Arctic Circle, it is one of the most extreme environments on the planet.

With the quest for oil pushing men and machines to ever greater extremes, the remote regions of The North Slope have become the target for a daring new, exploratory drilling mission.

It’s a mission that’s gonna push one team of drillers to the very limits of human endurance.

See, told you it was cheesy. Try it with an American accent – bizarrely enough it makes more sense!