Matt's guest blog - First few days on Hoy

Hi, I'm Matt Pycroft and I'm working on the Hoy shoot as a cameraman. I've put a quick post together to show you what's been going on since we arrived on the island.

Well the first few days on Hoy have been pretty exciting. The ‘ME cottage’ we are staying in is really swish, and is by no means the rundown bothy I was expecting.

'ME Cottage'

After arriving on Thursday night we packed our bags and grabbed a few hours sleep before heading out towards the crag on Friday morning. Between us we have a huge amount of kit, and as a result the walk in on Friday morning was a painful one when coupled with the initial section involving 400m of height gain on 45 degree terrain.

It's hard to keep up with Dave Macleod

Once we had made it to the coast, Diff and I shot some footage of Dave and Andy arriving at the crag, as well as capturing the moment where Andy saw the route for the first time. The crag is the biggest continuous sea cliff in Britain, and is an incredibly imposing piece of rock. From the promontory where I will be shooting some of my wide shots the line looks extremely impressive.

The view from the peninsula

Diff, Guy, Lukasz and I spent much of the day scouting out shooting locations and angles, whilst Dave and Andy checked out the route and had one last look at the moves (which, incidentally, was Andy’s first chance to catch a glimpse of the line close up).

Guy, Diff, Lukasz and Dave on the route

Whilst hammering in the stakes for the ropes at the top of the crag, there was a minor setback. I’ve put together a quick edit of the mishap below:

Hoy shoot - Behind the scenes from Hot Aches Productions on Vimeo.

As everyone became confident that they were ready for the shoot, people started to filter off back to the ME cottage to sort out gear and pack bags. It got to around 10pm and eventually it was just Dave and I left at the crag. After sorting out our gear we headed off towards the car. The sunset was stunning, and considering the crag is West facing it made for some great footage as we walked out.

Sunset over Hoy. Hard to beat.

We spent Saturday just chilling out and resting to be fully prepared for the shoot today (Sunday), but unfortunately we woke up this morning to an island coated in drizzly mist. Dave and Andy reluctantly called it off at around 10am, and we made the decision to head up tomorrow, weather dependant.

Dave and Andy, having just called it off.

An interview with Dave Macleod will follow this post on the Hot Aches Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hotaches

Check out the team's blogs here:

Climbers:
http://www.davemacleod.blogspot.com/
http://andyturnerclimbing.blogspot.com/

Crew:
http://hotaches.blogspot.com/
http://blog.lwimages.co.uk/
http://mattpycroft.wordpress.com/