Unseen Asgard Project Footage

Behind the scenes on Baffin Island plus some of the story behind the film.

Some time between the making of the Asgard Project and it being re-cut after its award-winning Kendal premiere, I popped up to deepest, darkest Lancashire to visit film-maker Alastair Lee to talk mountain films and the Asgard Project in particular.

I've known Al for a while now and it's been fascinating to see his film-making evolving from what was basically a high quality  home movie – Twice Upon A Time In Bolivia, a documentary of northern climbers taking on quite normal routes in the Andes – through to Asgard, which has a bold, epic, professional feel that's light years away from his early stuff.

Amusingly, Al, who spent a week or more living on a sheer wall filming Houlding and co in action, was still togged out in his Berghaus hoodie and seemed still to be half on Baffin Island. The great thing about Lee is his enthusiasm. I could wade through and transcribe the interview, but actually the high points stick out like mountain peaks in a sea of cloud.

What no-one, I think, has pointed out, is that the film cost 'just' £60,000 to make and the money was contributed equally by Lee, Houlding and the two sponsors, Berghaus and Nokia. The air drop, apparently, was just paid for on the spot. That figure might sound a lot, but given the quality of the film and the epic feel of the final cut, it's actually naff all. To the point in fact, that Lee found that the BBC simply didn't believe it was possible on that budget and wanted to know who the real sponsors were...

How did it work? Bloody mindedness really. Alastair dragged weighty pro camera equipment up the wall with him and filmed with fixed-length lenses to give the incredble sharpness you see in the film. And then there's the post production work – wondering how those shots of the plane above Mount Asgard were filmed? Special effects.

Lee is also effusively enthusiastic about working with Leo Houlding. He first worked with Leo during the making of On Sight and was immediately impressed with his sheer professionalism combined with bucket-loads of charisma – he just, he says, enjoyed working with him, so when Houlding, flush from his recent television series, mooted Asgard, it was a bit of a no-brainer for Lee.

The other thing he mentions about climbing with Houlding – Lee was generally jumaring fixed lines to get into filming positions – is the combination of incredible ability and innate trust in his gear, ropes, hardware and so on. 

All of which sounds great, except that if you've watched the film, you'll know that wintry conditions meant at one point that just getting onto the route was problematic and even when the team were making good progress, there was a point where  a blizzard swept in, Leo hurt his hand and everything hung in the balance.

The crux of the film is the point where Sean 'Stanley' Leary throws himself at a hard pitch high on the face and bludgeons his way through. You get a taste of it in the film, but the reality, says Lee was quite awesome, as was the language.

One thing that's not immediately apparent from the film, or at least the version I saw, is what happened to Spanish climber, Carlos Suarez who dives in with Leo and Stanley, but then disappears from the action. What's not shown is that the team climbed a far easier route to the summit of Asgard both for training and to recce the BASE jump launch site, Carlos apparently, made that climb and then decided given the risks of the main route, that was enough for him. 

You can in fact see him looking up at the wall in one of the later scenes.  If you've not seen the film yet, it's highly recommended, arguably the best climbing film I've watched and best viewed on a big, big screen. Failing that, you can buy it on DVD from Alastair's web site at www.posingproductions.com.