The making of “The Loneliest Road in Iceland”

The film people know us for was the one I nearly abandoned. Four days in, the light never rose above a bruise on the horizon, both batteries were dying inside an hour, and the road I had planned the whole route around was closed by drift.

Two cameras, one bag

Everything had to fit in a tank bag and a 30-litre roll top. One body stayed on a wide prime for the riding plates, the second lived in an inside pocket at body temperature and came out only for the interviews. Cold does not kill a camera; condensation does, so nothing warm ever went into a cold bag.

Sound is the thing that dates a film

Wind on a lapel mic is the fastest way to make travel footage look amateur. Every interview in the cut was recorded inside (a kitchen, a cab, a boat shed) and every exterior line was re-recorded in the same room a day later.

What I would do differently

Shoot fewer plates and more people. The edit is 31 minutes long and the four minutes viewers write to me about are all faces. The landscape is why they clicked; it is not why they stayed.