Recently at Sony Pictures Entertainment in Culver City, CA at a preview screening of "30 Days of Night" director David Slade talked about the grueling shoot schedule.
"It was a really difficult film to make. We were under extreme duress, physical and mental, working extremely long nights,"
Slade continued saying; "We were doing really big things, [and] sometimes you don't have enough money to do them," Slade added. "So I think on the one hand, we were having too much fun to actually be daunted by it. And on the other hand, the physical stress of actually doing the thing, staying up all those nights ... ."
"Two months of night shoots, people start to go loopy," Slade said. "Two months of night shoots, people start to go apes--t or really crazy. And not just the cast. The grips: obviously the most notable go crazy."
The movie was filmed in New Zealand, doubling for Alaska. "We were on mountaintops for about a week or so," Slade said. He added: "That was like the kind of baptism of fire, really. ... Everything breaks down. You've got a big technocrane with tons of cables, and they're all not working because of the moisture, and everyone's getting altitude sickness and freezing their asses off. And I'm like, 'Oh, f--k. Get this technocrane out of here, go handheld.' It was all those things. It was a really physically demanding film to actually shoot."
30 Days of Night based on Steve Niles' graphic novel, stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George as residents of isolated Barrow, Alaska, which is invaded by vicious vampires as a month of winter darkness descends on the town. It's set for release on October 19.