How a short story started (and almost ended) as a film project

 

In the early months of 2022, while my Norse-myth inspired short film The Wild Huntsman was going through the film festival circuit, I felt so motivated by a recent buying and reading spree of Sword & Sorcery literature that I decided to use this as the basis for my next film project. Although I always intended for it to be more ambitious, complex, and on a much larger scale than the micro-budget two-day shoot of my previous short, I none-the-less quickly settled on a premise that which I knew wouldn't break the bank and chose therefore to tell a magic realism story focused on a Fantasy author rather than attempt my own Conan the Barbarian-style short film. I even set most of my story in a single room—the author's private study, again, for practicality and budget reasons. Granted, it wasn't long before I realised that I did need to let the audience see something in a proper Fantasy setting, so I figured that my author's Conan-inspired Viking warrior, Greywolf, should be allowed a little mini-adventure within a forest early in the story, where some eerie lighting and a few relatively simple props would do the job while still be doable on a small budget.

The script was finished relatively quickly—it is no exaggeration to say that I was riding on a bit of a Fantasy high at the time—and I set about finding people interested in helping me bring the project to reality before spring was over. Confident that some of the people I had worked with before at the London Film Academy would show some interest, I had already set the story in the UK and it was not long before I had a producer who knew their way around the film industry in London. 

This luck would not last, however, and the problems quickly began piling up. Granted there is no such thing as a film production without its hurdles—if anything I've learned that filmmakers tend to get a little anxious if everything runs smoothly. I had been quite disappointed when my first choice for Greywolf turned down the role, but my producer and I merely shrugged off the bad luck and began searching for alternatives. After all, London is a big city. Casting the author, in contrast, was a cinch, and by mid-summer I had my leading man on standby. Where the real source of our mounting troubles truly lay was in a budget that seemed to grow in size day by day. Despite my precautions, the cost quickly proved too big for a private investment (as had been the case with my previous shorts) and we were forced to look for funding from without, something which is never easy with short films. To put it succinctly, there is rarely any money to be made in shorts, so few people are willing to invest in them as there is a slim chance for financial returns. However, by the start of autumn we were still in a positive mindset and continued looking for alternatives.

Eventually autumn turned to winter, and all the steam that had kept the project chugging along seemed to have vanished. Shortly before Christmas my producer, who had already juggled far too many projects at once, was forced to leave what even I had to admit had become a sinking ship.  

Proof-of-concept art commissioned during the pre-production phase of the short film project by Ethan Brown.

In the following months—it was now early 2023—I tried to revive the project locally in Norway, hoping that maybe this project could prove more of a large fish in a small pond-type situation when compared to London, but lacking any real contacts in the local film industry I struggled to find people that were interested. In an attempt to poke a hole in the budget that had previously ballooned out of control, I also re-wrote the script so that my author character, though still an Englishman, had moved to Norway in an ill-fated attempt at reconnecting with his Scandinavian roots in order to inspire his writing. This way I would not have to spend money having to dress things up to look like we were actually in England, and I would only have to cover the travel expenses of my leading man.

By spring I discovered that there were ways to acquire financial help via a local government film fund, though this proved to be more of a hurdle than a solution to my problems and only ended up swallowing up more time. You see, in order to obtain funding you have to follow a set of very strict rules to prove that the project will be a benefit to the Norwegian people (it is government owned after all). Not only does a majority amount of the cast and crew have to be Norwegian citizens (fair enough), the story also needs to have some connection to Norwegian culture (well, I figured Greywolf is a Viking after all), and, the most frustrating aspect of it all, you need to have proper "qualifications" in order to apply in the first place, something which was not made very clear until the rejection letters arrived. Despite running my own independent company, as well as having written, produced and directed several short films, including a few through the London Film Academy, I was simply not professional enough according to their rules as I had never worked for a proper film production company or have a proper university degree.

Feeling quite defeated I felt that I had no other option but to shelve the whole Greywolf project indefinitely.

Not wanting to waste another year I tried to put the whole ordeal behind me and went back to novel writing and by December of 2023 I had finished and published the first book in my new paranormal Professor Korrigan mystery series; The Starseed. At the start of 2024 I felt that I needed a bit of a creative change of pace before I started work on the next installment in the series, so I decided to make a brief return to Sword & Sorcery. Not wanting to let the plot of Greywolf go to waste, I made the decision to adapt the screenplay into a short story. Freed from the constraints of budgets, casting, and government regulations, I was now free to tell the story as I wanted, albeit in a very different medium. Greywolf was published as a Kindle Short Read in July 2024.

Of course, I still very much wish to make Greywolf into a short film as originally intended, and who knows, maybe now that the story is "out there," this is more likely to come to fruition one day. 

If you haven't already read the short story version of Greywolf and would like to do so you can buy it on Amazon Kindle for only $0.99.

How Retired Policemen helped me Research The Starseed

I've previously written about some of the unique challenges that arises when writing about an archeologist, not only for the obvious reason that I am not one myself (though the subject has fascinated me greatly since I was a child), but also how I have had to force myself to focus my research primarily on "outdated" knowledge as any modern information found online would not be relevant when writing about a mid-20th century academic like Professor Korrigan. I wrote about this in another article titled My "Outdated Archaeology Library.

However, since The Starseed is primarily a crime story with elements of archaeology sprinkled in throughout, I was faced with the additional challenge of having to get into the specifics of Norwegian law enforcement in the mid-1970s, something which would never have been possible if not for a handful of people related to the The National Museum of Justice and The Norwegian Police History Society. In this article I would like to add additional thanks to these individuals while also explaining in further detail than what I did in the book's short acknowledgments section on how exactly they helped make my novel as accurate as it is.

The main entrance to the National Museum of Justice in Trondheim, Norway.
Wikimedia Commons photo by Wolfmann.

DIGITAL ARCHIVES AND THE MUSEUM OF JUSTICE

When I first started work on The Starseed I did what most people do when researching any given subject nowadays, I used Google. However, I quickly found that this was quite limiting. I have often found that the internet is rarely the best source of information regarding esoteric subjects here in Norway. Now, if I'd have to solve similar issues related to law enforcement in say, the US or the UK, then it would mostly likely have been a completely different story. The problem with Norway, however, is not so much that the information doesn't exist, but rather that there aren't enough people to allow the information to trickle on to the internet. The population is simply too small. In America, at least when compared to Scandinavia, there is simply no such thing as a niche. Even the smallest and most esoteric of niches, even if the percentage of the population remains as low same as in Norway, you're still likely to find thousands, if not tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people within said niche. America does have a population of over 300 million people after all. Norway in comparison has only 5. 

So, when the internet failed me it became clear that I'd have to go directly to the source of the information that I wanted—which is, let's face it, much more fun anyhow. But where to start?

The extensive digital archives on digitaltmuseum.no proved an invaluable source during the writing process.

Now I must point out that I did have some luck with my online research, mostly thanks to the digital archives at digitaltmuseum.no where I found several photos of items belonging to the police from the middle of the century. However, the labels weren't always too specific on precisely when these items had been used. They preferred to give very broad and general periods of use, usually measured in decades. I did however quickly find that all of them belonged to the same museum, The National Museum of Justice in Trondheim.

Now Trondheim is a fair bit further north in Norway from where I live and at the time going there in person wasn't really an option, but I now had a handful of vaguely labelled photos that I felt gave me a decent sense of what the police men in my current draft would likely use and decided to contact the museum in the hopes that someone there could help me confirm or correct my assumptions. I've found that it's much smarter to ask for corrections than a blank-slate questions that effectively boils down to "do the research for me." I quickly got a reply from Hilde Haaverstad Olsø, the collection administrator and conservator and she not only replied to my list of questions, she also forwarded my request to two individuals with direct experience in law enforcement during the period of my book's setting; retired Kripos investigator Oddmund Dahle & retired police superintendent Magnar Skaret.

Dahle was largely responsible for helping me confirm that my depiction of Kripos, both for The Starseed and a brief appearance in my next book, was largely accurate. Although this book never goes too deep into Kripos operations, it was important to me that the character of Kripos Investigator Harald Hagen, and his function within the story, was completely in line with the duties and jurisdiction of Kripos back in the 1970s. Early in our correspondence it did, however, became apparent that although my depiction of Hagen was very accurate, I had overestimated the full range of Kripos' responsibilities and how they cooperated with other branches of the law. This forced me to make some necessary adjustments to the later chapters in the book where I depict a police raid on the novel's antagonists, the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) eco-terrorists. A bit more on this later.

All in all though, it was really interesting to get to exchange emails with an actual former Kripos investigator, something which I had not expected to happen when I began work on this novel.

TWO TOMES FROM THE POLICE HISTORY SOCIETY

Moving on from Kripos, it must be said that it is Magnar Skaret, a retired police superintendent & chief of staff from Trondheim, who deserves the bulk of the praise when it comes to my depiction of the Norwegian police in the The Starseed. Skaret went beyond simply answering the myriad of questions that I kept sending his way, he was also generous enough to send me copies of two books that he'd written for the The Norwegian Police History Society. Actually, calling them books don't do them justice, they are more like tomes.

After having corresponded with Skaret for a while it became clear to him that the information I was after went well beyond general information about police duties, but ventured into very specific esoterica, something which, thankfully, Skaret was still very much the right man for. Of course, no one can be expected to remember every little detail about police equipment, uniforms, procedures, etc. so he concluded that the best thing to do would be to send me copies of the two books he had written and published at this point. What I received in the mail about a week later were two massive volumes dense with information on every imaginable detail you could imagine related to their broad subject matters. I almost feel a little bad for having since left these two books lying on a shelf where they have remained largely untouched as I only needed a tiny fraction of the knowledge contained within.

Magnar Skaret with his book on police weapons throughout the years.
Photo by S. Aarsbog.

Where these books proved the most useful was for the aforementioned raid depicted towards the end of the novel. After having been corrected by Oddmund Dahle that Kripos would not have been directly responsible for such an operation, I had to figure out exactly who would have been the natural choice. Since Skaret had, among his diverse range of duties over the years worked with Beredskapstroppen, AKA Delta Unit, he recommended I include them in the book. This did pose a bit of a problem as Delta Unit was not made operational until January 11, 1976, about ten months after the setting of my book, I did, for a myriad of reasons that I won't get into here, decide to bend the fact ever-so-slightly in my favour, and include them despite this minor timing anachronism. Yes, there was a somewhat similar unit present before called Østlandstroppen, though I never quite felt that this group had the special kind of training that was required for my fictional raid. Instead I decided to conjure up a secret early trial run of the unit, something which would have been quite plausible as the suggestion to form Delta Unit had been greenlit by the police in January of that same year. 

My depiction of Delta may not be 100% accurate as far as timing is concerned, but their uniforms, equipment, weaponry, and their overall function in the story is completely within the realms of reality had the unit been operation ten months earlier.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fra Varde til SMS: Politiets Sambandshistorie. Oslo: Norsk Politihistorisk Selskap, 2009. The title roughly translates to "From Cairns to SMS: The History of Police Communications."

Politiets Våpen: Fra Morgenstjerne til Moderne Automatvåpen. Oslo: Norsk Politihistorisk Selskap, 2017. The title roughly translates to "Police Weapons: From morning stars* to automatic rifles." 

Skaret's tomes on police communications and weaponry.

I would also like to point out that Skaret recently added a third book to his bibliography, this time focusing on police vehicles titled Til lands og til vans og i luften med Politiets Transportmidler. While I was making the final adjustments on The Starseed and sending my final questions to Skaret (I think it was about Delta Unit communications) he informed me that he just handed in the final draft of this book, at over 600 pages. The book was published a few months later in early 2024 via NPHS.

*In case you were wondering what a morning star is (as referred to in the title of the 2nd book), it refers to several types of club-like weapons consisting of a shaft with a spiked ball attached to the top. These were quite common with the night watchmen ('Vekter' in Norwegian) that up until about 150 years ago patrolled the streets with only said club and a lantern. There's actually a well know statue in my hometown of Stavanger depicting one of these watchmen with a morning star in one hand and a lamp in the other (though the latter, minus the handle, was stolen many years ago). You can see a photo of watchman with a morning star on the cover of the 2nd (green) book above.

I would like to once again thank Magnar Skaret, the late Oddmund Dahle (who passed away April 2024), Hilde Haaverstad Olsø, The National Museum of Justice and The Norwegian Police History Society for their help with my research for The Starseed.

AI is just a monkey with a typewriter

First off I'd like to make it clear that my goal with this blog is, in general, to promote my own work and talk about things within the world of art and entertainment that interest me, so I intend to steer away from these types of critical opinion pieces as much as I can. This is one of those exceptions, as AI has not only become a controversial subject within the art community, but also one wrought with a lot of misconceptions.

Let's start with how the name itself, Artificial Intelligence, is a blatant misnomer. It's a marketing ploy. It sounds cool, like something out of a Sci-Fi movie, and it makes people interested in the product. It sounds futuristic. It promises progress. We may not have the flying cars that cartoons promised us when we were kids, but look! Here's artificial intelligence, just like they had in Star Trek and numerous other Sci-Fi movies, TV series and books. But when you look behind the curtains, you don't find some brilliant supercomputer that knows the secrets of the universe. There's no KITT, Data, or even HAL 900 waiting to greet us. Granted, there is no small man hiding behind there either. There is in fact a machine (in the broad sense of the word), but we must be honest with ourselves and look beyond the misleading and hyperbolic marketing and accept the fact that there is nothing remotely intelligent going on here.

So what's up with my strange title for this article? It is a reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which, in short, states that "a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare." The core idea is basically that if you type random letters for long enough you will eventually, by pure chance, produce complete words. Continue to do this indefinitely, and eventually you should get a complete text seemingly made with creative intent.

You might recall having seen this on an early episode of The Simpsons were Mr. Burns shows Homer that he has a room with a thousand monkeys chained to a thousand typewriters while stating that "Soon, they'll have written the greatest novel known to man." He then inspects what one of the monkeys has written and reads; "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times." Needless to say, Burns was not happy with the outcome of his scheme. 

Before ChatGPT the best you could do was a room full of monkeys.
Copyright © 20th Century Fox Television

So what does this have to do with AI. Well, when you peek behind the curtain and look at text-writing software like ChatGPT or "art" software like Midjourney, what you will find is that so-called artificial intelligence is really just the algorithmic equivalent of a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters, typing for a thousand years until one of them accidentally, by pure mathematical chance, types out the entirety of Hamlet, or at least something quite similar. The only real difference here is that a computer, by the virtue of being a machine, can do this thousand year process in less than a second. And since it is designed to store data and receive feedback from its human users, it can quickly eliminate all the gibberish that is not wanted (such as "blurst") and therefore keep producing facsimiles of writing, paintings, etc.

And this is by no means some crazy theory of mine, this is exactly what has been going on for the past ten years, only that now that these programs have reach a point were they work to a mostly satisfactory degree, even compared to just a few years ago, the people trying to sell it to you tend to skip this part of the story and present the software as a borderline magic treasure chest scenario. But if you've been paying attention to the development of this technology you might recall just how little AI imagery resembled anything at all less than ten years ago.

AI imagery ten years ago was a blurry, warped, nightmarish mess that was more mocked than admired by the small percentage of the general public that was paying attention to it. A prompter might type something as simple as "man standing in a room" and the virtual monkeys would produce some vaguely human-shaped blob standing in front of a mess of straight-ish lines that was the closest it could get to depicting a room. But eventually these blobs began to take on more human characteristics, and the rooms became genuine rooms.

So how did this change come about? What was this software even doing in the first place? Well, it was fed a plethora of images and told what those images depicted. Then it was fed even more images and told what those depicted. And this went on and one until the thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters every second eventually gathered enough data to begin to recognise patterns in the photos. They began to find commonalities that corresponded to the text being given by their human operators. So when the computer detected the word "mouth" there was always a thin slit within the oval shape with the two smaller shapes and the long thing in the middle. When the humans typed the word "nose" it was always underneath the two round things and above the mouth. When they typed "eyes" there were usually two of them and they were above the nose and the mouth. And so on, and so on, until the software eventually "figured out" what a face was. Though, even just a few years ago these programs could still not recognise what a face seen from the side was supposed to look like, because now there was suddenly only one eye, the nose was in profile, the mouth was a different shape, etc. so it had to accumulate this data as well. It didn't recognise it as a face, it simply had to accumulate a new data set.

Now this is all admittedly a gross simplification of the complex data gathering process that went on, but what I am trying to demonstrate here is that the software never actually "learned" anything. It can't think in terms of "this is a face," or "this is a hand." Especially not the latter, as AI still tends to add too many fingers to hands. But when the humans type the word "face" it has merely gathered enough images by searching the internet to recognise similarities in the pixels and their arrangements so that it can copy/paste this into new contexts. There is nothing intelligent going on here, just a lot, and I mean a LOT of data gathering.

You know how when you text on your phone it will always suggest the next word? This can often be quite useful in speeding up the process, especially when you're on the go, but it can also be quite frustrating as it often makes really silly suggestions. Why is that? Well, it certainly doesn't have any clue what you are thinking, but after having read through people's texts, including your own, the simple program installed on your phone will start to correlate the commonalities in your texting habits, not through any thinking process, but simply by logging the order in which you tend to type words, and then try to predict the most likely outcome whenever you type a word or letter it recognises. 

AI is no more "intelligent" than the predictive text software on your phone.

For example; if you type "I" it remembers that previously when you (and other people) typed "I" it was followed up by words like "am" or "will" or "did" or "didn't", etc. And if you then choose "am" it decides that the next word, again based merely on frequency, is likely "home" or "going," etc. and suddenly you can type a sentence like "I am going home" without initially having to actually type more than the letter "I". Of course, the moment you have to write something out of the ordinary, that is something completely different from what you've typed before, not to mention something much more complex, then this program will always get stuck and turn into an annoyance rather than an aid.

Whenever you see some AI "art" or some complex ChaptGPT text online, you are effectively looking at the exact same technology as the predictive text software on your phone, just far more complex. But at its core, it is the exact same thing. Give a computer enough data, be it text or pixels, and it can now create something very detailed and seemingly complex. That is, until you start scratching the surface.

AI is by its very nature incapable of genuine Creativity, it can only throw words or pixels together until it hits on something that resembles the real deal, and the more it learns to eliminate the undesirable outcomes, the more efficient this essentially mindless process will become. But, and this is a big but, it can never truly make something new. It can only imitate what has already been made.

So, if AI isn't actually intelligent but simply a very cleverly programmed copy/paste software, why are so many angry about it? Why all the heated debates?

Well, I can mostly just speak for myself and convey my own concerns about this technology, so here are my problems with this technology, or rather, how it's being used, as well as my concerns about the long-term consequences. 

MISANTHROPY PEDDLED AS PROGRESS

Art may be a business, but regardless of any commercial aspect it may take on, it is still a form of human expression to some degree. We all know the cliches, and we have unfortunately begun taking them for granted, especially in today's social media world where we are exposed to more things than our brains can properly process. But unless you are extremely cynical about all of this, we all know, quite intuitively that art is meant as a form of expression as much as it can be simple entertainment. We all know that a good book, or a good painting, is more than just typed words on a piece of paper or globs of colourful goop on a canvas, or pixels on a screen for that matter. We all know that if its good it is not only produced with skill, but with passion, with intent, that it transcends the simplicity of the process or the material it was made on, or the tools with which it was made.

But then why can't AI simply be used to help speed up the process? Well, simply put because there is no process. There is no tool, there is no thought, and there is certainly no skill. Its just data. The only human aspect involved is the initial idea, usually in the form of a handful of types words or phrases. And anyone who has taken a creative writing class will have heard some variation of the phrase; "Ideas are a dime a dozen. The real value lies in what you make of it." 

Claiming ownership of an AI image or text is a bit like commissioning an artist or writer, waiting for them to finish it for you, then slapping your name on it when you get the finished product. Of course, this has happened many times; ghost writers is very much a thing, and several famous historical painters have claimed the work of their students as their own. But at least in those cases, once found out, we can simply credit the real artists. With AI we have no such luxury. That is, unless we consider where the software got its data in the first place, but more on this later.

One of my biggest issues with the way AI is being used to "create" art is that it is completely unearned. We humans intuitively appreciate hard work, we admire people with skills because we know it took a long time for them to get to that level. Learning, growing, improving ourselves, these are some of our greatest virtues. We admire people with skills, be they artists or athletes. Just as we admire someone for getting fit by rigorously working out, we admire the artist for honing their skills over time. With AI, however, this all goes away. All you need is an idea—by far the easiest part of the process—and with a bit of basic typing you can basically get to the finish line in seconds. To me this is effectively the art-world equivalent of using a cheat code in a video game, and is antithetical to the process.

If athletes started using mechanical legs to "improve" their performance, would you still care?

In recent months I've watched AI "art" flood social media, be it Facebook or art pages like deviantart. The frequency is obviously the result of how quick and easy it is to do. Some may be indifferent to this, but to me this is the equivalent of a scenario where gamers would have to endure streaming services like Twitch being flooded by anti-gamers who turn on every imaginable cheat code and employ a gaming algorithm that will play the game for them. Imagine if a "gamer" were to stream themselves simply turning on a game, activating a "play it for me" algorithm," then they simply put down the controller and lean back in their chair with a smug expression and stream themselves not playing the game. Image then if 50% or more of every gamer stream you scrolled through featured people like this. No challenge, no skill, plain and simply nothing. This is what it often feels like being an artist or an art appreciator scrolling through social media and art sites nowadays.

But AI isn't just unearned, it is simply a way for lazy people to feel accomplished while doing hardly anything, and at the expense of the art community at that. I have already seen several artist online lament that they can no longer make a living of art because people are producing similar imagery through AI programs (more on this later). Which brings me to my next point; commodification.

Social media set the stage for this.

Even before AI "art" became a thing I had noticed a disturbing trend online. Art was becoming commodified, it was becoming more and more generic and soulless. I couldn't quite put my finger on what precisely was wrong until I read a post by an artist who announced she would no longer post her work on social media. Her reasoning was quite interesting. She explained that the more she listened to the endless stream of feedback from anonymous strangers that her art had started to change, it had begun to morph into something that she eventually realised was no longer hers. She had let an autonomous collective dictate her style and output through likes, though comments, to which images got large amounts of views and which ones didn't, and in a strange way her art stopped being hers. Instead, it was made by the collective, and the result was that it started to become generic. It started to loose its soul, because she was no longer really in charge of it.

Social media has become as much a curse as a potential blessing to many modern artist.

Now lets remove the artist entirely, and let the algorithm take over. Let's replace the intuition of this individual and replace it with an algorithm that can scan the internet and combine elements from thousands upon thousands of images within less than a second, picking the "best" elements not from any real understanding of it, but simply from evaluation its popularity based on how many "views" or "likes" it has, and compiling it all into a facsimile that loosely matches a few typed words. What you get, is so called AI "art."

And what you get, though it seems elaborate and talented at first glance, once you look closely, once you start paying attention to the details, and especially if you're already someone who possess a scrutinising eye for art, you will begin to get an eerie feeling while watching these algorithmic imitations. I know I do, and I am far from alone in this. These images simply feel lifeless and generic in a way that I have never witnessed before. The overall sensation is quite uncanny, especially when you start to develop and intuitive response to it. If you're familiar with the concept of "the uncanny valley" you'll know what I mean,

This all reminds me of a rather sad comment I read online recently: 

"AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it."

Now, regardless of whether you believe in a literal soul or not, I think it is quite tragic that there are those who are willing to sell humanity so short the way I've heard some people do recently by claiming, whether directly or indirectly, that creative thinking can be broken down to a mere algorithm.

This is why I have deiced to be so bold as to call AI a form of misanthropy, because it is by its very nature anti-human, anti-individualistic, and anti-skill. It is a cheat code to life peddled as progress.

A PENCIL IS A TOOL, AI IS A REPLACEMENT

Some will obviously take umbrage with the accusation of AI merely being a way to cheat yourself to success, and there is one counter argument that is consistently, and I must say, often reflexively, brought up in response; "It's only a tool."

Now, I do understand where this sentiment is coming from. All digital software that has been used to produce art or some form of image has at one point received criticism and been accused of being "fake" to some degree, and the counter argument has consistently been some variation of "it's only another tool." But does this apply to AI? It's another digital software people can use, yes, but can you actually consider it a tool like Clip Studio Paint or Photoshop (before it began it including generative AI that is). 

Isn't the whole point of AI software like ChatGPT and Midjourney that it will do nearly all the work for you? Isn't that their primary selling point? How then can it be classified as a tool? Even with a digital painting where the canvas, the brushes and the paints are all simulated, you still need a human hand to operate the mouse in order to put the brushstrokes on the blank page. Even a 3D modeler needs to move a cursor around to mold the desired shapes in the virtual world. There is intuition and skill involved. There is as much trial & error as would be on a physical painting. With AI you have none of this.

"It doesn't matter what tools you're using" is a poor argument when you've eliminated the creative process altogether.

Having an AI make you a painting based on an idea is a like a kid convincing his dad to do his homework for him, then handing it in to the teacher the next day claiming it as their own. The kid didn't really do anything, and neither does prompters who rely on AI. Just like the kid didn't solve his math problems the they didn't make any decisions on composition, or the choice of colour, the software did it all for them. And were did the software get it all from in the first place? It got it from accumulated data gathered from millions of images online, images made by actual people through hard work.

To be completely clear, I personally don't care if people make their art using a pencil, a paintbrush, or a computer mouse, but when someone sets out to create I expect them to Create. To let the computer do 99% of the work for them is to neglect ones moral responsibility to produce something for oneself. And if they have no interest in being an artist, if they feel no need to spend the time to learn the required skills, then that's fine, but they should at least have the decency to employ the people who do.

AI INCENTIVISE GRIFTING AND DISCOURAGES GROWTH

In an age of spam bots and seemingly endless online scams it is unfortunate that AI should have arrived on the scene when it did as it has only multiplied these issues tenfold. However, since my focus here is related to art and creativity, I will not stray into this territory. Suffice it to say, there is more than hollow art to be concerned about.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the extreme corner-cutting that AI provides people who aren't willing to put in the work is that so many have quickly adopted it into dishonest business practices. It is not only common for people to create false artist names and sell their "art" online, presenting themselves as a sort of art dealer for artists that doesn't even exist, but what is is especially heinous is when people like this specifically tell AI programs to imitate the style of current artists. I briefly touched upon this earlier, but feel it is important to elaborate on this point.

Within just a year or two of AI image generating programs becoming advanced enough to produce serviceable imagery I started seeing posts online by well established artist lamenting the fact that they could no longer support themselves financially on their art. The reason was, somewhat ironically, partially due to their own popularity online. You see, these artist had been in high demand for several years, but when AI came along many people started simply telling the software to make images in the style of these artists, therefore eliminating both the time and cost of a commission, or even the much simpler price of buying a simple print from them. There have even been attempts by people to make a profit of these "in the style of..." images.

As we've already established AI cannot Create anything on its own, it can only accumulates data and reproduce facsimiles. So when a prompter ask for an image in a specific style what effectively happens is that the algorithm searches the internet for the specified artist, "downloads" all of their work, or at least the pieces that fit the specific criteria of the prompt, and copies as much of the information it has gathered in order to produce something that to the untrained eye can pass for their work. I don't think I need to tell you why this is a huge problem.

Many will exploit any situation that leads to easy money, and it doesn't get much easier than with AI.

And if you think the AI is merely taking "inspiration" from it, as many have claimed, remember, it can only accumulate data and reproduce it according to established patterns. It can't think in such human terms. Don't believe me? It is not uncommon for AI to reproduce an artist's signature for the simple reason that it was part of the accumulated images. In some cases the signatures are even legible. In some cases, the letters are scrambled or warped, but the style of the hand is still recognisable. Now why would the software do this? Simple. It cannot think, it cannot reason, it can only copy and redistribute individual elements according to its programming.

In short, AI "art" is not only unearned, lazy, lacking in true Creativity, it can be straight up theft. Unfortunately, there are currently no copyright laws that can take such a complex and indirect approach into account, but hopefully this will one day change. However, on a somewhat more positive note there are at the very least many people invested in AI imagery that implement an "honour code" to never include living artists in their prompts. I think this is very commendable, but I still think it ignores too many of the larger problems with AI software and it is unfortunately not a widespread principle yet.

I also want to make it clear that many of the people who use or promote AI are quite clear that they aren't against artists or human creativity, and I am more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think these people are quite sincere and I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to present these people as villains. But I do think there is a lot of naïveté at work here and an unwillingness to look at the bigger picture.

In my experience AI users seem to fit into two categories; blatant grifters, of whom there's not much more to say, and those who mean and are simply fascinated by a new technology and don't think much about the potential long term consequences. 

One of my biggest fears relating to AI is the potential repercussions it will have on the current generation of children that will be growing up with the knowledge that hard work is no longer required for a saleable or functional product, be it a "painting," a facsimile of a novel, and so on. Will anyone even bother to learn new skills when you can simply type a few words (presumably with spell-check on) and get a detailed painting within mere seconds, or a full novel, or even a full on movie, as some companies are currently trying to make a reality? Will they have the incentive to try, fail, try again, and work hard to acquire a skill when the end result (even if it is an algorithmic knockoff) is so close at hand?

Hopefully not a vision of things to come. 
Wall-E (2008). Copyright © Pixar Animation Studios.

I hope the answer is yes. I hope that my athlete metaphor from before holds up, and people will continue to prioritise skills over easy gains and look down upon any process that is effectively a form of cheating. But still, you can't blame for worrying. People have an unfortunate tendency to choose the path of least resistance, and AI is the greatest cheat code for life we have yet to create.

THE CHECMATE MACHINE

I am continually fascinated, and frankly a bit baffled, by our collective tendency to always try and make machines that can replace us.

This whole current debacle about AI reminds me a bit of the Deep Blue chess-playing computer from the 1990s. Considered a milestone in artificial intelligence, it was the first machine to win a match against a reigning world champion and since then we have simply taken it for granted that a computer will always be able to outperform virtually any human at chess. And yet, once the novelty of this machine had died down, so did the use of the technology itself...more or less. Sure, chess-playing software is still a thing, though it is pretty much exclusively used to train humans by effectively "dumbing it down" so that it is actually beatable, and even this is only so that one can eventually take on a real human opponent. There are no computers playing matches against other people anymore. No one considers chess to be a dead sport, quite the contrary, its as popular as ever.

In the end Deep Blue has mostly become a historical curiosity. It may be considered an important milestone in computing, but it is a small chapter, if not a straight up footnote, in the history of chess. And in the grand scheme it is still not considered all that important. Perhaps our view of humanity was simply different back in the 1990s, but people back then seems to have intuitively understood that there was nothing of societal value to be gained from Deep Blue. And this makes complete sense. Why would anyone need a machine that can always beat you at a game? Where's the fun in that?

As often is the case, we are more concerned with "Can I?" than the much more important; "Should I?"

And that's why I've even brought up Deep Blue in the first place, because I hope this is what AI "art" will become in the future. A historical novelty. A curious footnote. Or at least something that is repurposed into something more useful. I hope we will all one day come to our senses, as so many already have, and acknowledge that there is no real value in images or text made by data-collecting algorithms. That this easy-way-out takes the "fun" out of life, just as the checkmate computer did for chess three decades ago.

IN CONCLUSION

And finally, since I have been focusing on AI seen from the viewpoint of the art-world I want to clarify that yes, there certainly are fields in which AI can be a genuine boon to humanity. Namely the sciences. 

AI is after all undeniably great at one thing; data collecting. That is after all what it was made for. Even its ability to analyse imagery can be quite useful when analyzing large amounts of data. I know from experience how pleased archivists are with AI as it now allows them to scour through an inhuman amount of stored data, making it easier researchers to find documents that previously would have been buried so far (both literally or figuratively) that it would have been a time consuming and labour intensive project just to dig it out. AI can likewise be used to transcribe old documents, it can be used to identify damage on old analogue film (though people still have to evaluate what to remove or not), it can be used to look through telescopes to identify new planets or potentially dangerous asteroids, it can be used for gene-mapping, and so forth, and so forth. But it is worth mentioned that in these situations AI is doing what machines are actually supposed to do; remove tedium so that humans can step in to do the creative and intellectual work that gives us all purpose in life.

There's a quote that's been going around lately that I feel cuts right to the heart of the matter quite succinctly (and humorously).

"I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." - Joanna Maciejewska

Granted, letting machines remove all "hard" work is in and of itself a potential issue as well, and something which also warrants further discussion in the coming years, but the important thing here is that if there is one thing that pretty much everyone seemingly agreed upon until recently, it is that our creativity and ingenuity is is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and removing that from out lives can only lead to problems.

Anyway, with that my rant is finally over. Apologies for the negative tone in this article, but I needed to get this off my chest and I have no intention of revisiting this subject matter again unless I feel it becomes absolutely necessary.

My "Outdated" Archaeology Library

NOTE: This article is focused on an ever-growing bibliography and will therefore be updated at regular intervals. An update log will be added at the bottom of the page after the first edit has been made.

A selection from my collection of old history & archaeology books.

One of the most interesting challenges that faced me during the early stages of researching the first book in the Professor Korrigan series, The Starseed, and it’s as of yet unfinished follow-ups, was that I quickly realised that I couldn’t rely on up-to-date archaeological research. After all, Korrigan's adventures take place in the middle of the 20th century, meaning that any advancements made in the field of archaeology (as well as our general knowledge of history) in the past several decades was not usable to me. And trust me when I say that scrubbing away recent advances in a scientific field while doing online research is difficult at best and impossible at worst. My solution therefore was an appropriately old-school one, and established a library of “outdated” archaeology and history books.

One of my hobbies—if you can even call it a hobby (maybe ‘esoteric fascination’ is a more accurate description)—is to research how people in the past perceived the world around them. As a society we tend to quickly forget what we "all" believed yesterday and one of my biggest pet-peeves in movies and literature is when characters in a historical setting talk, behave and interact with the world around them in a manner that is indistinguishable from the current zeitgeist. It is not simply anachronistic, but it betrays the apathy and lack of genuine curiosity in the people responsible for these stories. And I would also argue that there is more to be gained from getting a genuine glimpse into the past than it is to simple transplant “modern” thinking into a vintage setting.

IT STARTED IN OXFORD

This vintage library properly began its life at the University of Oxford during a research trip to the Archaeological Institute in 2023. I wanted to familiarize myself with Korrigan’s Oxford stomping grounds and was given a quick tour of the building by Robin Mason, the Communications and Outreach manager at the School of Archaeology. During the tour we briefly passed a bookshelf filled with mostly older research books during which she made a brief comment about how much more interesting the older book covers usually were and showed me one of the books, something which I very much agreed with, though I must admit that I took little note of it at the time. In my defence, though, my focus was on the building itself (quite a maze-like series of corridors and stairs) and I was at the time going through the final stages of a pretty bad cold I had been dealing with while travelling across both Norway and the UK the past couple of weeks. 

Upon my return home, however, I realised that I had missed a golden opportunity by not snapping a few photos of the shelf, so I emailed Mason and asked her if she could do so for me and email them to me. She happily obliged and within the next ten minutes after receiving the photos I had already purchased several of them online.

The Institute of Archaeology at 36 Beaumont St, Oxford.

BOOKS VS THE INTERNET

I earlier alluded to how difficult it can be to find out-of-date research material online, but keep in mind that the process is barely any easier when trying to discover older research literature. The thing is that modern algorithms are designed to give you the most “relevant” information based on your request, a misleading term that basically just means the “newest” or most “popular” information related to your search words. I won’t go into how I feel that this trend is problematic even when dealing with current-day information, but suffice it to say, in this particular situation, this fucntion was completely antithetical to my goals. And trust me, simply Googling “old archaeology books” mostly just confuses the programming as all archaeology deals with “old” things anyhow. You need to give it specific names, but then you're back at square one; how do you find old books if you don't know what to look for.

Once again, the old-school method proved the most efficient one. With my reference point from the School of Archaeology in Oxford, I have managed to branch out to several books and authors based on the references and recommendations found within. What started with general histories has developed into a collection of deeply esoteric books such as half-a-century old ordnance surveys and even a few beginners guides that would have been used by students in the 50s and 60s, much like the ones Korrigan would have taught during his fictional tenure at the university.

In my case I think I'd have more luck with one of these than with Google. 
(Photo taken at the Institute of Archaeology, May 2023.)

DON'T UNDERSTIMATE THE WEIRD

I also want to point out that one of the areas where I find that “modern” views can get the most in the way, is in the field of mythology and folklore. Modern researchers have an unfortunate tendency towards a strongly reductionist view of the world that can often come off as dismissive and cold in its almost mathematical approach to spiritual abstractions. Granted, if you go too far back then the literature can often prone towards the exact opposite problem, i.e. blatantly unscientific and often flamboyant assumptions that dabble in the esoteric and paranormal. Of course, seeing as I’m not a researcher but a fiction writer, these eccentric views can often be exactly what I am looking for. Yet another benefit of “outdated” research books. 

You might also notice on the list below that in addition to including books that are more in the category of anthropology rather than archaeology, there are also a few esoteric ones that, while not overly scientific, definitely fits the category I previously mentioned of books that explore contemporary views and interpretations of history. A great example of this is Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monetheism, a rather peculiar, but very fascinating analysis of the Moses story by the founder of psychology. Scientific? Not really. Interesting? Definitely! Not to mention exactly the kind of odd things that an eccentric researcher like Professor Korrigan might have found interesting.

Finally, it is important to stress that this collection isn’t only for my own fascination and private research, but an attempt to get into the headspace of the character of Professor Korrigan himself, so that I can make him a more rounded and believable, not to mention more interesting, character.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A-Magasinet (mult. authors). De Første Nordmenn: Da Landet ble Befolket. Oslo: Chr. Schibsted Forlag, 1975.  

A-Magasinet (mult. authors). Vikingtog og Vikingtid. Oslo: Chr. Schibsted Forlag, 1977.

Budge, Ernest A. Walls. The Mummy: Funeral Rites & Customs in Ancient Egypt. London: Senate, 1995. First published in 1893 by The University Press, Cambridge.

Brodrick, M. & Morton, A.A. A Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Archaeology. London: Senate,1996. First published in 1902 by Methuen & Company Ltd, London. 

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973. First published in 1949 by Bollingen Foundation Inc., New York.

Ceram, C.W. (Marek, Kurt W.). Gods, Graves & Scholars: The Story of Archaeology. Second, Revised and Substantially Enlarged Edition. London: Book Club Associates, 1971. First published in 1949 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH., Hamburg-Stuttgart. 

Ceram, C.W. (Marek, Kurt W.). The First American: A Story of North American Archaeology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971.

Doblhofer, Ernst. Voices in Stone: The Decipherment of Ancient Scripts and Writings. Trans. Mervyn Savill. London: Souvenir Press, 1961 (1st UK edition). First published in 1957 in German by Paul Neff Verlag, Vienna.

Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. First published in 1939 by Hogarth Press.

Hawkes, Sonia Chadwick & Selkirk, Andrew. Silver Jubilee Reflections. Oxford University Institute of Archaeology, 1987.

Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Field Archaeology: Some notes for beginners issued by the Ordnance Survey. London, 1963 (fourth impression 1966).

Hole, Christina. Witchcraft in England. London: Book Club Associates, 1977.

Saklatvala, Beram. The Origins of the English People. David & Charles Newton Abbot, 1969.

Piggott, Stuart. Ancient Europe from the beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity. Edinburgh University Press,1967. First published in 1965.

Piggott, Stuart. Approach to Archaeology. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1960. First published 1959.

Piggott, Stuart. The Druids. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993. First published in 1968.

Piggott, Stuart. Scotland Before History. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1958.

Proctor, G.L. The Vikings: Then and There Series. London: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd., 1964. First published in 1959.

Webster, Graham. Practical Archaeology: An Introduction to Archaeological Field-work and Excavation. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1963.

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. Archaeology from the Earth. Penguin Books, 1968. First published in 1954 by The Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Updated 16 July, 2024: added Voices in Stone & Oxford Institute of Archeology Silver Jubilee Reflections.

Making The Wild Huntsman

In spring of 2021, as lockdowns were starting to ease in Norway, and after having spent the previous year writing my first novel, I felt the need to flex my filmmaking muscles again and decided to make a short Fantasy film. Equipped with a meagre budget of roughly 10,000 NOK (the equivalent of about $900 or £700) and not much else—I was pretty much on my own and had little to no experience with the small film culture that exists on the Norwegian south-west coast around my hometown of Stavanger.

Inspired by the English folktale of the Odinic character Herne the Hunter, I quickly wrote a simple script and set out looking for my cast and crew.

My biggest stroke of luck was when I come in contact with actor and model Thor Rosland, who is generally known for his commercials for The Beard Struggle, in which dressed as a Viking, he promotes a series of beard oils and grooming products in comedic skits which had become something on an online sensation.

And with the upcoming release of The Pendragon Cycle, in which Thor plays Hengist, the warlord of the Saxons, this seemed like a good opportunity to reminisce a little about my short film with Thor; The Wild Huntsman.

Thor Rosland as The Huntsman. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

THE PREMISE

First off, I should probably explain in more details where I got the idea for the Huntsman and why I chose to make a short film out of it. 

I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales, folk stories and myths from across the world. I'm especially fascinated by symbolic archetypes, doubly so when they appear across borders in the myths of neighbouring cultures. So, while looking for inspiration for my script, I came across the Danish/German folk tale of "The Fairy Hunter," a simple story about a hunter that kills an elf-girl (note that elf in this case refers to a more mischievous fay-like creature rather than the noble elves popularised by books/films like Lord of the Rings). Shortly after I came across the British legend of Herne the hunter, an antlered huntsman who is believed to be an incarnation of both the Celtic god Cernunnos and the head of the Norse gods; Odin—the latter of which is also the leader of the Wild Hunt. With these two simple stories in mind, I decided to combine them and create my own little cross-cultural archetype myth.

Thor Rosland as The Huntsman. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

The simplicity of both stories also made them perfect for my meagre budget and resources. I knew that my hometown of Stavanger could provide me with plenty of beautiful nature scenery befitting both folk tales, but also a perfect replica of an Iron Age farmhouse. I contacted the owners early on in the production and received permission to shoot parts of my short there, as well as borrow some of their period-accurate costumes.

I was off to a good start.

RALLYING A CAST & CREW

The lead (different from the titular character) proved to be the most difficult to cast as I required someone fairly young but who still had a Viking-quality to his appearance. The casting of Thor as the Huntsman had been something of a lucky stroke, and all the characters (despite there only being four) proved difficult. Stavanger simply isn’t a place with that large a film industry or acting community, and the fact I was producing a micro budget short film and was only offering to cover expenses didn’t exactly help much either. 

All attempts at casting the lead led me to an assortment of Oslo actors that had to be rejected due to the travel costs, though I eventually got into contact with Vegard Heggelund, a young actor with a proper Nordic look to him who, despite living and studying in Oslo, was actually from Karmøy—a large island not far north of Stavanger. It just so happened that he was planning a visit home for the summer holiday and he was more than willing to sacrifice a weekend for this project provided I could cover the cost of the relatively short trip down to Stavanger and accommodation, a request I was more than happy to oblige.

Actor Vegard Heggelund. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

The shooting crew consisted of three media students from the University in Stavanger, a somewhat meager number for a film shoot but perfectly serviceable for a small project like this—it's worth mentioning that I have worked with less in the past, though I wouldn't recommend it. Still, it was an odd adjustment after having recently spent some time in London with film crews of at least a dozen or so people (which is still quite small). 

At the risk of sounding like a money pincher, I've found that you can save a lot of money by "hiring" students as they are usually more than happy to get the chance to add any project to their CV before they've even finished their education. I also got the camera equipment for free via the university as I had borrowed from them before, so they knew I was someone who could be trusted with their equipment.

A small but very efficient film crew. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

The on-set photographer; Kornelius Kiil Enoksen, (whose excellent photos I’ve used throughout this article) is a friend of mine from my days studying Media & Communications. The rest of the crew consisted of pretty much every family member, friend, or friend-of-a-friend that I could convince to spend a weekend in July hanging out in a park while the rest of us were running about within the nearby woods getting our shots.

ANTLERS, SPEARS & COW TAILS

In the same way that digital cameras have become a godsend for the low budget filmmaker (though I do love analogue film), so has Etsy for the micro budget prop-maker. 

You’d think the Huntsman’s antlers would have proven to be the most difficult part of the pre-production—and in a sense it still was—but after some brief online searching I came across someone who made realistic looking horns and antlers for fantasy cosplayers. As luck would have it, she was also Norwegian, albeit living in Oslo, but after contacting her and explaining what I needed she was more than willing to make me some custom antlers with strengthened supports for the production. 

Etsy also provided me with a pretty convincing ancient-looking spearhead made from fiberglass and polyester resin, as well as the Mystery Girls’ animal appendage. One learns many strange things while working on projects like this, and the fact that you can buy real cow tails online is one of those things that really shouldn't surprise you, but receiving one in the mail is a whole other thing.  

Vegard Heggelund mending a prop between takes. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

The more “normal” props, such as a mediaeval fishing rod, I constructed myself. There’s not much to say about the making of the rod, it’s about what you’d expect, a bit of whittling, some twine, glue, etc. and the bone hooks were fashioned out of clay. But the one thing that I am quite proud of about this prop is just how historically accurate it turned out to be. No fishing rods have ever been found by archaeologist in Scandinavia, though based on the numerous discoveries of hooks made from deer bone it is safe to assume that they were used during the Viking Age. The simple rod I made was based off recreations of English fishing rods from the Middle Ages, but only a year or so after the film’s premiere I went to the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger and saw an exhibition of experimental recreations of bone hooks, and I was pleased to see that they looked virtually identical to my fake ones.

A few weeks before the shoot I met Thor in his home for a costume fitting and to try out the newly arrived antlers from Oslo. 

When it came to the costume for the Huntsman, I chose, both for practical and thematic reasons, to do the complete opposite that I planned on doing for the main character (the "Young Viking") and his family, and ignored historical accuracy completely. The practical reason for this was, of course, primarily because Thor could provide his own costume, which was more Hollywood inspired than anything based on history or archaeology. But because I knew the Huntsman would have to stand out and appear otherworldly when compared to the more "normal" characters, the exaggerated costumes he used for his Beard Struggle commercials fit perfectly, though admittedly I did end up choosing the most down to earth pieces he had in his wardrobe. Being a mythical creature that is part of the natural order I felt the brown leather gave him a suitably “earthy” look, while the fur around his shoulders complimented the animal-hybrid look of the antlers, making him appear somewhat elemental. 

Thor Rosland putting on his costume. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

THE IRON AGE FARM

To paraphrase what I wrote in a previous blog article (The Locations that Inspired The Starseed); Just a few kilometres uphill from the inlet where Harald Fairhair united the tribes of Norway into a single nation after the battle of Hafrsfjord in 872 AD, a trio of carefully reconstructed Iron Age longhouses lie in the shadows of three brutalist apartment blocks from the mid-1970s.

I’ve been coming to this location semi-regularly since childhood (I even spent a night there as a Boy Scout) and have always been fascinated by the feeling of being transported back in time when visiting, that is, as long as you look away from the aforementioned apartment blocks, or the nearby visitors centre, and if you look south you can pretty much see the entirety of the University in Stavanger, but, if you point your camera in the right direction, or simply stay within the longhouses, then it really does feel like you’ve travelled back to the Iron Age. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

Setting up a shot at the Iron Age Farm in Ullandhaug. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

As mentioned, I had contacted the manager of the Iron Age Farm early on in the project and I quickly received permission from her to shoot in and about the open-door museum, that is, provided we arrived before opening time, so as to not crash with any potential visitors. We were also given permission to pick out some of the authentic period-costumes they had for Vegard to wear throughout the shoot (even when not filming on the site) and we were told that the shoot would be overseen by one of their regular hosts—in costume no less. They were, however, somewhat vague on who exactly would be there when we arrived for the shoot, but assured me that whoever they were, they wouldn’t mind being on camera. So, I adjusted the script slightly by adding a brother/sister/mother background character, depending on who actually did show up.

We arrived early in the morning on June 26, having pretty much just a little over an hour to prepare and shoot everything we needed before the tourist would start arriving. We were greeted by a young woman in a period accurate dress named Johanne, and as such the main character ended up with a sister. Vegard was taken to the costume room and quickly fitted with his costume, while actor Pål Gunnar Eid Gribbestad, who played his father, provided his own costume. 

Pål Gunnar Eid Gribbestad inside the Iron Age longhouse. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

The host proved very enthusiastic about the project and lit a fire within the largest longhouse. She even dropped by the kitchen in the visitor centre café to get some fish to cook on the stone plate to add some domestic realism to the film's opening scene. She had no qualms about being on camera and even ended up becoming the first character we see in the finished film. Lit primarily by the fire (and a flickering red LED light), the opening shots of Johanne and Paul Gunnar are, I think, some of the best in the film. 

All went according to schedule, and we managed to wrap up just as the doors officially opened on the Iron Age Farm. While the film crew began carrying all the camera equipment away from the longhouses towards the visitor centre a small group of period-dressed hosts crossed us going in the opposite direction carrying wooden swords and other replicas of Iron Age implements meant to entertain and educate visitors.

Vegard Heggelund. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

THE LAKE AND THE FOREST

The rest of the film was shot around a small lake called Lille Stokkavann (lit: Little Stokka Lake) a short walk from where my mother, aunts and uncle grew up—I even spent part of my own childhood here, so it was very familiar territory.

When we arrived at our "green room," a nearby barn turned into a community centre, the rest of the crew had already unpacked and were waiting for us. We shot everything needed around the lake that day, as well as a long sequence within the nearby woods which in the final edit was cut down to a mere two shots. That’s filmmaking for you.

Discussing the scene with Vegard Heggelund. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

We returned to the same location for the second day, this time being joined by Thor Rosland, and spent the entire day within a small clearing close to a well-travelled gravel footpath hugging the edge of the lake. The crew of friends and family kept watch while the rest of us were working within the forest, informing joggers and people simply out for a stroll that there was a shoot going on. Most people were quite polite and passed by quietly, though we did receive a fair number of curious onlookers peeking at us through the bramble. Hardly surprising really, it’s not every day you see a large Viking with antlers while walking your dog. 

I had originally planned to use a smoke machine for this sequence to add a haunting, mystical atmosphere to the already picturesque forest clearing, but although I had acquired one via the university and had successfully tested it in the studio there a few days earlier, once we set it up in the forest, with a portable battery, spare fluid and everything, the little box-like machine merely sputtered out a few wimpy whisp of smoke and refused to give us anything else. 

Vegard Heggelund & Thor Rosland between takes. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

While irksome, the smoke machine was hardly necessary to finish the scene, even if I did loose much of the mythic aura I wanted to convey. At least the lights worked as intended, and I could console myself by getting a chance to play with some coloured gels for the first time, something which I learned a lot from and intend to continue to do in future film projects. I may have been denied my smoke, but I did succeed in using the unnatural green lighting as a means of conveying that there was something otherworldly about this forest and its two supernatural inhabitants.

Once the broken smoke machine had been ditched the shoot went quite smoothly, that is as smoothly as a shoot can be when an actor is forced to wear wobbly antlers on his head inside a dense forest, but apart from the logistics of shooting everything out of order (more so than usual) there were little to complain about, that is, except for the poor actress playing the Mystery Girl, who, unlike the two men, wore a pretty skimpy dress that made her an easy target to a swarm of very persistent gnats. I later learned she’d been bitten quite often, but she had merely soldiered on and finished the shoot with very few complaints.

Directing a scene with Thor Rosland. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

THE MYSTERY GIRL

Now, unless you're a Scandinavian, or just so happen to be well-read on Nordic folklore, you are probably not familiar with the creature that the Mystery Girl is revealed to be at the end of the short film. Although certain liberties have been taken with this myth, most Scandinavians watching the short will instantly recognise her as a Hulder (or Huldra) the moment her cow tail is revealed.

The Hulder is for all intents and purposes the Nordic equivalent of a siren or nymph, i.e. a seductress that leads men to their doom by enticing them to follow her into the forest.

Shooting a scene with Helen Sertsu. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

As with most folklore it’s hard to pin down the exact nature of a Hulder, though they are consistently depicted as young, beautiful blonde girls with a cow’s tail (which they usually try to hide). In many stories they also have a large hole on their back described as resembling a rotten tree stump. My Hulder obviously deviates a fair bit from much of this, the back-hole simply because it wouldn’t have been doable within the tiny budget (and frankly I don’t see what the point of it is beyond being weird) and although I originally intended to cast a Norwegian actress with blonde hair, actress Helen Sertsu was chosen due to her enthusiasm for the project and her availability. With this change in ethnicity, I decided to update the originally planned costume from an Iron Age dress to something more Mediterranean, specifically a Greek-inspired Khiton dress, implying that this creature in human form did not solely prey on Scandinavians, but had been chased by the Huntsman across multiple countries for who knows how many centuries. I also added additional details to her costume to further imply this long history, such as an amber necklace which suggested she had been in central Europe, a Celtic broch attached to her belt, and I even had some silver thread worked into the hem of the dress to add a subtle anachronism that made her seem just a little out of place in the “real world” of the Young Viking. 

Helen Sertsu. Photo © Kornelius Kiil Enoksen.

POST-PRODUCTION & RELEASE

The post-production phase proved to be somewhat more international than the shoot. The music was composed by Swedish artist Zacharias Wolfe, whom I had first heard of via The London Film Academy, and “Yggdrasill,” the song which plays over the end credits was licensed from Dutch singer and songwriter Jonathan Barendsma, AKA Gealdýr. The visual effects were done by Guilherme Filipe, while the rest of the process, such as film editing, colour grading, etc. was either done by myself or Kevin Nordlander (who was also the Assistant Director).

The Wild Huntsman had its premiere in the US, February 18, 2022, at the Pensacon Short Film Festival in Pensacola, Florida.