On Location: A Field Producer’s travelogue of Gothenburg, Sweden

One of the best parts about our job is that we get to work and then hang with the coolest people. We also get to enjoy the most interesting, beautiful and fun places.

So we’d like to share a little bit about our experiences on set and around.

Starting with one of our favorite shoots: House Hunters International in Gothenburg, where I was the fixer/field producer and Erin the director.

We live in Stockholm but both of our husbands come from Gothenburg, so it’s a little bit like a second home to us. But we had never been there together before, so besides getting to shoot one of our favorite projects there, we got a little coven trip.

When we checked in at our hotel right by the water we were greeted by this guy (aka sign from the universe that we’re at the right place ;):

Before we met up with the rest of the crew, we took the opportunity to take a little walk downtown, checking out a few locations where we were going to shoot. We decided to take one of Gothenburg’s many public transport ferries. And now comes a (line) producers favorite part about it: IT WAS FREE! Making our journey extra sweet!

Shoot day 1 started out strong - Scene: Our contributor meets the real estate agent.

Location: A classic American diner called Egg & Milk that made the Americans on the crew and cast feel (almost) right at home.

Fun fact: Both Erin and our contributor Holden had lived in Brooklyn before moving to Sweden. Just a few blocks away from each other! Of course nothing beats NYC bagels, but it was goooood! 

It was so good that we not only had crew lunch there after the scene, we came back on day 2 as well! 

And it was a good thing we did, because when we were munching on our delicious lunch, our DoP noticed the lamp from the scene the day before was still clamped up! 

Two-fer: Amazing lunch and clamp retrieval.

Speaking of American crew and cast: We got to hang and vibe with the most energetic and fun real estate agent and good friend of Erin’s: KAT 

Like Erin, she’s an American who’s married to a Gothenburgian. And she is a total vibe! She’s just such a warmhearted, energetic and fun person to be around.

Kat noticed how often I just sing or jam a little while packing up, just vibin’. And she always matched my vibe and joined in! Prior to that I’d never really noticed how often I do it! Probably because I’m focused on packing haha.

I have this thing. If someone says a phrase or even just a word that reminds me of a tune, I feel the urge to sing it just a tiny little bit. Kat is a dancer and apparently has her thing where if someone bursts out in song, she bursts out in dance. Needless to say, we had tons of fun on this shoot! Just look at Kat and Erin! :)

All this fun made the challenges we faced a little easier to overcome. We shot this episode at the end of November. In Sweden, more specifically the west coast, this means sunsets at 3:30 PM, ice cold whistling winds, rain or snow… 

For us it meant: Having to film stand up interviews in the streets with whipping gusts of wind. Try that with a relaxed face! And the feeling of having the * perfect * line ruined by wind. Going from “yessss” to anxiously looking at our Soundie and him just shaking his head like “sorry, but no…”. 

Trying to grab b-roll of bustling tourist areas, but finding them empty because it was rainy and cold - the Swedes call it pissväder (väder = weather, I leave the rest to you). And having to work around the darkness or limited daylight hours when having to make schedule adjustments. But that’s when we really work our production manager magic and make it happen.

But I don’t wanna complain, I do love a challenge! And as I mentioned another thing I absolutely love about being a (field) producer is that we get to meet so many wonderful and interesting people and places and we get to see and learn so many different things! 

Interesting, curious, challenging, frightening, fun, exciting, hilarious… No shoot is like the other!

But the gold medal for the most unexpected moment on this shoot went to our contributor Holden’s cat. We got to witness (and capture on camera) her peeing in the toilet. The toilet for humans! Apparently this is a thing you can train your cat to do.

You can totally say Kat and Cat made this episode of House Hunters International pretty memorable!

So if you need a producer/crew to send on an interesting, curious, challenging, frightening, fun, exciting, hilarious … shoot, HIT US UP!