This was another one of those “horse stories”.
Irina had come up with a part of the film that should be shot in an abandonned meat plant. The location was a little dodgy; a meat plant that had been shut down about 10 years ago, undergoing some SERIOUS deconstruction and repurposing. There was a large “lion” dog guarding the entrance to the place and the owners looked from afar as if they were not to happy with us rolling up unexpected.
Of course, these first impressions were a bit off. The people working at the ex-plant were VERY nice and helpful (at one point even bringing us extra extension cords and hot coffee!). The plant itself was a little dilapidated, but really, nothing THAT bad.
The dog was mean though. He did, at one point, fend off a pack of wild dogs running through the plant backroads.. but I wasnt about to show my thanks in a typical dog/pet sort of way.
GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP
We shot there for about 10 hours in various locations and destroyed rooms. At one point, Irina asked if we could get on the roof and throw dirt through some holes. There was really no roof access so Gus and I spent a half hour filling up bags of dirt so we could chuck em from the ground level to the roof around where they were. Needless to say it didnt work. We did get some beautiful shots later when we figured out exactly how to make it work.
10 hours later, 2 hours of footage more, and we were finished with the meat plant. It is a scary and ominous look back at the perestroika period of Russia.
