We were actually using planes, trains, and automobiles.
The purpose of this trip was to shoot footage for an Allianz film. Friday was a travel day, Saturday was for filming, and Sunday was a little bit of filming before our noon-time flight back to Germany. There was no time for lolly-gagging – this was work.
They say you get four seasons in one day in Scotland. The locals repeat it like a mantra. If its true every one of their seasons is bloody cold. The other seasons? Windy, cloudy, and rainy.
We went up and down fairways and into bunkers on the Old Course looking for the exact scenery we needed. The course was open for a normal day of golf so we were dodging play balls while we were looking around. No injuries, so we never had to find out if a German film crew is in play.
When we were finished, we punched the address for our bed and breakfast into the GPS – no rooms available in town. We followed the directions, going from a main road to a side road to a dirt road, until we arrive at a horse farm. The GPS was either unreliable or our B&B was very remote.
Stuck in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, we called the B&B. This did not help because I didn't know where we were and that's a good starting point for getting directions.
Google had the right answer in the end. We arrived at our countryside, wifi-free B&B, which was run by a kind mother and a son.
The director, sipping the host's homemade beer, thought it felt like a really fun sitcom. The producer squinted suspiciously around at the farms that surrounded the house and said it was more like a horror movie.
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| Scouting for spots as golfers play through. |
Day 2 – Shooting the Course, Drinking Irn Bru, and Remaining Conscious
Today is the day I also discovered Irn Bru (pronounced Iron Brew). A fluorescent orange energy drink that got me through a day that started at 5am.
It was already bright out when I awoke to begin the shooting day. But the brightness didn't bother me as much as the cold did.
It being June, I didn't think I would need any wool sweaters. Amateur move, Bellamy! Not only was it as cold as balls on the coast, it was windy as well. I had several layers underneath a windproof jacket, none of those were a match of the fierce Scottish weather. I learned the hard way why all those Scots wear wool sweaters.
And those clouds! The sky was a uniform, thick-as-pea-soup grey, which maintained its gloom all day. Oh, and there were bleachers and TV camera towers littered all over the Old Course for the British Open, preventing the clear landscape beauty shots that we required.
But! We progressed and persevered in the face of wind, rain, sleet, and British Open infrastructure. We got our shots and I got the chance to chip one out of Hell bunker. It's famous, but it also reminded me that golf can be an easy way to get angry.
Plus, despite the rain, our film crew managed to unpack its drone and buzz it around for a few shots of the Old Course, which was closed for maintenance that day. It's a loud contraption with eight propellers and a moveable camera.
I thought it was pretty cool, while all the St. Andrews' employees were unfazed as they worked away on the course. When you've seen one flying spider robot, you've seen them all, I guess.
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| The German film crew sneaks up on the unsuspecting groundskeepers. |
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| Making sand castles in one of St. Andrews Links' infamous Bunkers. |
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| A flying spider robot has been sighted over St. Andrews. |
Day 3 – Scotch Tasting on the Run
Sunday. A day of rest for some people in some parts. Not for us.
We came to the 18th hole at the Old Course bright and early at 6am to get some rare St. Andrew's footage with no people in it. But we got it, just as the first tourists were approaching to get their photos with a stone bridge.
Oh, and we managed to get a homemade Scottish breakfast at the B&B in the process – something we missed out on the day before.
Then! Everything was hauled into the rental vehicles and we automobiled to Edinburgh to catch our plane to Cologne where a train waited to return us to the Dorf. But! Before we boarded our plane, we managed to sneak in some scotch samples at the Duty Free, chased with Irn Bru.
See you again Scotland, hopefully in a non-work-related manner.
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