We just ate our second dinner here. (Helle, who owns the house, made a lovely soup for us last night.)
Our dinner used the following local ingredients (OH MY!):
Uchiki Kuri Squash (from a local farm) roasted with beets (from a self-serve farmstand we got to by bike), tossed with rosemary and sage (both from backyard).
What a relief to be able to grab some food and spices grown right on this plot of land! This house is amazingly beautiful! We’ll post some pictures soon.
Thank you for reading our blog! It makes us so happy to share our adventures with you!
We’ve had an extremely busy past couple of weeks. (Which explains the blog silence. We’re going to try to fix that!) We’ve had between one and three shoots every single day! We’ve literally gone from one end of Denmark to the other in the past week, filming beautiful islands, corporate amusement parks, regular amusement parks, gigantic coal-fired power plants, various professional folks, and much, much more!
Today was a very exciting day in particular. We began the day by touring the new corporate headquarters for Ramboll, which is an engineering consultancy firm that does a lot of advising for sustainable projects, buildings, district heating projects, and other sundries. The headquarters are halfway through construction, so we got to gaze up into seven storeys of scaffolds and glass, and learn about all the interesting and common-sense ideas the building employs to save energy. Then, we went up to Ramboll’s current offices and interviewed three people. The first consults with municipalities for how to plan for rising sea levels. (Scary!) The next designed the district heating system for all of Copenhagen! The third helped to calculate what Copenhagen could do to become “carbon-neutral” by 2025.
As if that weren’t enough, we zoomed home by the S-Train after that to get to another meeting. This one was with the head of logistics for the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference, which takes place in December in Copenhagen. This interview really shook up our filmmaking plans because we feel like we’ve stumbled onto a WONDERFUL film subject. I’ll post some of the best moments from the interview tomorrow. Anyway, to sum it up, there is a mountain of logistical work going on to make this massive climate conference happen. The logistical team is balancing both trying to be “green” about conducting the conference with a deep hope that the outcome of the conference is a good one. They absolutely want everything to run smoothly and delegates to be happy (and caffeinated with the best coffee in Denmark!) because they feel our planet is in the balance.
Now, we’re hoping to come back for a few weeks in November and December to film some of the major logistical efforts, the construction of a two week convention for between 12,000-15,000 people from all over the world. Will the logistical team get through without any major hitches? Can the member states come to a real agreement about climate change?
I’m super excited already! However, this opens up a whole new can of logistical worms for Jenny and Aaron, your trusty filmmakers. Now we’ve got to find new funding for this extended wing of the film (or maybe it’s a film of its own). Things have just gotten much bigger…I have a very strong vision for this film coming to be. So “the great work begins”, as Tony Kushner says. We’ve got to find a way to manifest this opportunity that has hit us over the heads like a two-by-four.
We went twice to this place – the Open Air Museum – a free museum out about a 30 minute bus ride in a town called Lyngby (pronounced something like loong-bu or thereabouts). It was very nice to be able to get out of the city itself, although it’s not like Lyngby is out in nowhere, it’s more like a suburb or something. The Open Air Museum is free and what it is, is all these old houses, from mostly around 1600 til maybe sometime in the 18th century. They’re from all over Denmark, Sweden, Germany. They’re the actual houses. What they did is they went and numbered every single part of the house, then took it apart, and painstakingly recreated it on the grounds of this museum. They also recreate the surrounding area, say the miller’s house, they recreate how it was in the woods down a hill, near the water, etc. They all have signs describing the history of the place, who lived there, etc. A lot of them are farm houses, one was a fisherman’s place, and there are 3 old windmills (and a water mill). We went mainly for the windmills, but the water mill turned out a useful and relevant shoot too.
First we went there in the week, and found out the windmills are open to see inside and have people to tell you about them on Sundays, so we shot a lot of stuff then came back Sunday and talked to the watermill people and the windmill people, all of whom were very knowledgeable volunteers.
Of course we also took some pictures!
I thought the way they make these woven branch fences was interesting
Crazy construction, eh?
Another old farm house and their field.
Peering through the woods across the road to the farm house!
Jenny puts together the spider brace for shooting on Tuesday.
Windmill. They were used for grinding grain into flower. This one’s from 1600 and something.
Sneaking up behind the windmill on Tuesday, when they had no sails/ie: were closed.
The windmill with sails on. Pretty eh?
Jenny is hard at work!
This is what she’s shooting. The windmill with sails on!
Trotting down the road to the miller’s house.
Peering down the road some more.
The inner yard of a fancier bigger slightly more recent farm.
Inside this farm house it’s almost like a garage, where there are wagons and stables.
Here is a really cool old wagon!
And next to it, another cool old wagon!
Looking out into the blazing sun near those wagons!
Maybe I can get some vittles in there.
The fisherman’s family must have been short, because this house is TINY inside!
Here’s the wall of the fisherman’s house. It’s maybe 5 and a half feet tall that wall.
Today was an absolutely amazing day. We got up and got ourselves ready, and met our friends Jørn and Hans Peter to drive to the electrical windmills where the harbour meets the Oresund. (We met Hans Peter at the Frilands Museet (open air museum), where we visited to film the old water mill and post mill, which were used for grinding grain. Hans, who was volunteering that day, graciously showed us around the old post mill. Then, he introduced us via email to Jørn, a fellow Frilands Museet volunteer who not only also loves the old mills, but also owns a share in an electrical windmill cooperative.)
So that’s how we ended up HERE!
This is one of the seven or so ladders up the 30-storeys of windmill!
(Many thanks to Hans Peter for the excellent pictures!) This is the interior of the electrical windmill. It is 150 meters tall. Jørn shut off the motion of the windmill so we could climb up to the very, very top. For me it was a great exercise in not being scared! (Read: I was a little bit scared.) There was a series of ladders we all climbed up, with platforms between them to rest (and to make a possible fall much shorter, of course). I had never climbed so many ladders before in my life!
Aaron seems very well adjusted to this sort of activity
I too seem well-adjusted!
Eventually we all made it to the very top, where Jørn opened up the turbine housing of the generator compartment so we’d have a place to stand and look out at the most BEAUTIFUL view of Copenhagen, the ocean, and beyond! We could even see all the way to Sweden!
Of course, we rolled a lot of video, which you will see soon!
This is my AMAZED face.
Here is the view!
Here you see the windmills as well as a waste water treatment facility in the background with the harbor on the right.
After about twenty minutes up at the top taking it all in, we headed down to the bottom, where we found out a little more from Jørn about the windmill cooperative. Thirteen years ago, around 900 Copenhagen residents bought shares to construct the four windmills we visited today. Each of the 3,000 or so shares cost about 1,150 U.S. dollars. Because of the money brought in from power production, the windmills paid themselves off to the shareholders in seven years, and have been accruing dividends every year since then. Jørn tells us the lifespan of one of these windmills is usually 20 years, (at least until repairs become too expensive to maintain) but it might be more.
On an good windy day, a windmill produces around 600 kilowatt hours per hour. In Denmark, the average house uses between 2,500-3,000 kWh per year. It’s really neat to think how five hours of one running windmill can cover one family’s electric consumption for a full year. (We’ll definitely go over this again in our movie!)
Aaron and I interview Jørn about the windmills
All and all, one of the most astonishing days ever. We were at amazing heights, in a truly beautiful and useful machine! Jørn started the windmill up again and I pointed my camera up to capture the motion of the wings, while Aaron caught the gentle “swoosh” of the passing blades, just a little louder than the rushing wind.
This makes me really happy.
Alright, friends, that’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed our big adventure!
I am VERY scared of heights, especially dead-making heights. I think that makes sense. You could fall.
That said, the other day we shot some footage here:
Yes, you can walk to the tippy top. It costs a fee, and you climb a lot of stairs.
This church is about a block from our apartment, and we hear the bells every day. We also walk by it a lot. We finally managed to get to go up in the tower on a nice day and shoot beautiful shots of the city, and the crazy stuff inside was interesting too. It seemed blog worthy. There are so many things that we see that aren’t really topical for the movie, but seem very interesting, and sometimes, as I think about them, I realize how many things really do connect to the topic. Architecture is one of those things that is totally determined by climate and energy usage, and technology, and such.
We didn’t actually climb to the tippy top. That wouldn’t have served our purpose as well as being on that part that’s right before it starts spiraling. We were trying to get some nice shots of the whole entire city, plus we figured we could see the windmills that are in the water from there. We were right!
Here’s Jenny, looking more drunken than scared, but I think it’s just bright out and her eyes are squinty. She says she wasn’t scared up there. (I WAS):
Hi Jenny! Sure, yeah, I'll take your pictureclickofcourseyoudidn'tblinkCANWEGOINSIDENOW????
It’s not like I was going to sit up there snapping away. I really didn’t like it up there! Jenny didn’t mind the outside, but she was scared of this:
Yes, Quasimoto, go into the darkness, and RING THE BELLS (after you fall and break your ankles and camera)
There was a LOT of this. You climbed up and up with all these international people, cooperating as people tried to go the other direction. Every staircase was different and had its own challenges, is what Jenny said.
Somewhere in the belltower passages, a door like this.
Elsewhere, beams like this. Thought my dad might be interested in the constructiony things like this.
Speaking of construction, they're doing some on this church.
I don't know the history of this church, but JEEZE it's tall.
And inside, it's made like this. Jenny attempts to escape!
What IS this for? A clock? The songs the bells play sometimes?
I guess it's lucky this didn't ring right then. OUCH!
Then again I was kind of hoping to record some bells ringing in here. But I really don't know if these are the actual bells you hear from the street or not.
I just love this “uglifying gear” thing! I just wanted to show you what I did today – you didn’t think I was done putting stuff on my gear did you?
Now it seems like I’m not uglifying as much as just “personalizing” but the point, I guess, is to make it undesirable because of having little or no resale value! HA! It’s amazing fun to have an excuse to do this kind of thing to gear I would otherwise have been VERY reluctant to de-class. Declassify? No that’s something else.
My recorder belt pack actually WAS getting ratty (fast!) so it actually sort of needed some tape. Then I put the NQuit logo and sharpied out the Aeroneb stuff.
Had to write the NQuit logo and web address on the pistol grip, and put some stickers. We bought stickers at a hobby shop.
While I'm at it, better put a skull sticker on the mic and write the logo on the connector.
Does it look like I drew that with silver sharpie? Well I can't really draw, those are stickers! So cool! From Holland, these stickers. Oh this is my laptop, in case you couldn't tell.
This is my favorite. I don't know why I love this SOOOO MUCH!!!!
Saturday we took the day off and went to this huge huge park called Frederiksberg Park, which is the castle park of King Frederik – a quote from the wikipedia:
“Frederiksberg Park was laid out when Frederik IV provided for the construction of Frederiksberg Palace as the palace garden of his new summer retreat.”
Man this place made me feel like I was in a movie, holy moly. And god I love green spaces. I love “nature”, as it were. No wonder I want to be involved in a documentary about the “green movement” somewhere.
This and the night before were very European feeling. The park felt so French, like King Louis or something. We brought a picnic and a not all that informal operatic concert was being performed nearby, and we laid around in the trees and grass eating stuff and watching kids like true lounging Euros! The night before I felt so Italian, drinking champagne on our friend Tove’s (Tove is instrumental, in fact, to our shooting/living here, basically undoable without her amazing help) balcony looking at our canal/street at night, talking of things and stuff.
Here’s my/Jenny’s array of pics!
We have come upon the castle. Hark, there is a castle there. A castle in the distance, high on the hill, where we can see and be seen.
Forsoothe, Lady Darla! Let us hide in the king's forrest, and fall in love to the goose song! Follow me down this questionable path!
No, my dear sir! Let us follow down THIS path, and fall in love to the song of duck!
Is this a moat? A moat with a boat? Let us all sunbathe in the king's lawn. The king shall be pleased that we are tan.
Hark! Close don't counteth lest in horseshoes and handeth grendades, and also this similar Danish game, good sirs!
Is this paradise, dearest Darla? Does that creepy side building in the distance containeth a toilet?
Dearest Donald, if you needeth to peeth, I shall go check in the castle for a bathroom!
Hath King Frederik made some sort of arrangement with the Orient? What magic has built this pagoda like bridge?
Dearest Darla, what are these darling children in funny pajamas? Do they love the song of ducklings too?
Hath there been centuries going by? How did it become 1952? And are these our great great grandchildren getting married?
No, Donald. Our great great great great grandson is the chauffeur.
The happy couple is probably in that thing! What glorious vanity! Oh Darla! Oh Donald!
Hello! Busy busy! Just thought I’d make an entry where I post a few pictures of random stuff I wanted to show various people.
Here I am going to the movies in the park! It's 9 minutes 55 seconds til it starts!
They like to watch movies outdoors for free here. This was the second time we’d done it in a few days. This park was by the beach, and we came better prepared. We had a blanket, warm jackets with hoods, and a lot of picnic stuff! Including way too much ice cream. The funny thing about movies outside with huge loudspeakers for me is, when a character gets mad and yells, you hear it echo throughout the land. Little advice though, if you’re watching Revolutionary Road, leave at intermission.
I love pictures like this. A beautiful sunset out our window.
Did these bikes crash, disintegrating the riders into oblivion in front of this comic book store?
This is what Danish money looks like! Don't throw it into the Monopoly box! It didn't cost all this money to buy that bus/train ticket, but close.
AHH!! A ghostly tree form hath appeared in the ether of your MIIINNNDDD!!!!
Speaking of that comic book store, maybe the bikes crashed because they saw this scary Ent warrior tree man in the window! Or, maybe it was the dragon attacking the viking:
RAAA! CLANG! LAYER THIS YOU PHOTOSHOP FREAK!!
Actually we didn’t do any photoshop layering, we just happened to take this picture through the window of the store.
I just wanted you to see some Danish text in action.
For all you Pittsburg Steeler fans and Pittsburg Penguins – well any team in Pittsburg – here’s a store in your colors! Not your language though. Seriously, I really did just want to show some Danish text, ’cause I think it looks weird.
Did we already show you this? It's a theater, I think.
My dad was asking if we were interested in architecture type things enough to take pictures, and that made me want to post up pictures of old crazy buildings in various forms. So I found this one. See all the bikes? Lot of bikes here. I think we may have already shown you this on Jenny’s Flickr account – not sure.
Man a lot of people love to walk in the street and shop!
This is the Strøget. Did we mention this already? It’s apparently the longest (and oldest?) pedestrian only street in the world – or Europe – or something. It’s the inspiration for a lot of open air shopping malls around these days (I’m remembering buying a Dallas Cowboys kiddie uniform in Denver once…). It amazes me how much stuff is outdoor oriented here. Then again, get AS MUCH SUN AS YOU CAN WHILE YOU CAN when in Denmark!
Here's an arty thing, and some old buildings, and crowds. It's a big square a ways down the Strøget.
It’s really nice to walk around and not get run over by cars and then find a big square of uncar stuff where there are not cars. This pedestrian street thing and this notion of large swaths of area in the city not build built to accomodate cars is fascinating to me, and I think relevant to our subject. After all, one of the many issues creating our climate situation is an over emphasis on cars. So is this Denmark going forward, or is it because they’re older? I think these pedestrian oriented places come from before cars, actually. So perhaps there’s a lot from the PAST to inform us about our possible future. I’ve said that before, I’m sure.
Finally, an image we have on video, and who knows, it could possibly make the final movie:
A beatiful image of nature, sullied by the evil of smoke stacks? Perhaps, perhaps not...
I’m not sure if we’re going to actually find out on this trip what the environmental impact of this incinerator is, but it’s not what I thought it was. I figured (being used to places like Pasadena, Texas) it was a chemical plant or something. But actually it’s an incinerator which incinerates burnable waste (say like relatively clean wood leftovers and such), and then pipes the heat into homes around Copenhagen. No doubt that burning is not the best, but burning wood is better than burning coal, and this is one of the ways Denmark deals with waste besides burying it in the ground. They bury a pretty small percentage of things in the ground in dumps. Unfortunately most of that is the most poisonous nasty stuff, but according to a guy we interviewed at a recycling plant, that stuff is buried in a sealed area, then sealed on top and marked on a map. He said that the hope was eventually they’d know how to reuse or actually dispose of this stuff safely and it would become more like a mine. That was his vision, though, and I’m not sure if that’s the intent, say, of the government or not.
But, nevertheless, here’s a beautiful lake and nature, and some incinerators which may or may not be doing a sort of “green” thing. You can also see a teepee and a solar panel in this shot, if you look carefully.
