I’ve recently finished a three week shoot around the northwest of Scotland with my old friend Gerry Moffatt.

Gerry now lives in Sun Valley in America, but he’s originally from Scotland and has made numerous films over the years. Three of those films followed his personal journey through life: Ten Steps, The Eleventh Step and The Twelfth Step.

I’d worked with him on a couple of them, including filming for six weeks around Scotland and travelling with him to Nepal and the Kingdom of Bhutan.

This new documentary brings those three films together as one film, with Gerry returning to Scotland to provide the thread that connects the different parts of his story.

My role was Director of Photography and unofficial locations man, working out how and where we could best bring Gerry’s ideas to life without spending three weeks filming laybys and coach parties.

Here’s a little trailer with some highlights from the first ten days of the trip.

Gerry’s friend Eric Demment also came over from America to help carry equipment, muck in where needed and give us another person to chat away to during the long drives.

A loose journey north

We weren’t following a route in the strictest sense, but we wanted the film to feel like a journey.

We originally discussed using the West Highland Way, which passes through some spectacular scenery. However, it can also be busy, with plenty of roads and people nearby. It wasn’t quite the remote feeling Gerry had in mind.

Instead, we loosely based our route around the Cape Wrath Trail. I haven’t walked the complete trail myself, but through years of climbing, hiking and heading into the mountains around Scotland, I already knew many of the areas it passes through. That allowed us to choose locations that suited the story rather than feeling obliged to film every mile of an established route.

We wanted each section of the film to have its own character. The journey began in Fort William, where we booked the wee Camusnagaul Ferry to take us across Loch Linnhe. Starting the journey aboard a small boat gave us something a bit different and led naturally into filming along the coast before Gerry’s journey turned inland.

We also filmed Gerry passing the old boat at Caol, along with various coastal and woodland sequences as we gradually worked our way north.

Waiting for the right light

Our main aim was to make Scotland look as good as possible, which thankfully Scotland occasionally allows.

We tried to film almost everything around sunrise and sunset, extending a few hours into either side when the light was still good. There was very little filming in the middle of the day. That meant some very early starts, late finishes and a fair amount of sitting around waiting for the sun to do what we wanted.

Gerry usually had a clear idea of what he wanted from each scene in terms of the feeling, the journey and what that particular sequence needed to say. I would then work out how I thought we should film it, how best to use the landscape around us, how to reveal Gerry within it and how to capture a series of shots that would cut together nicely.

Gerry is great to work with and always collaborative. We fire ideas and suggestions at each other until we come up with the best answer for each sequence. It makes the film more creative for both of us, and it makes the whole process much more fun.

We considered filming around Loch Shiel and the Glenfinnan Viaduct, but eventually decided the viaduct was almost too recognisable. It’s a spectacular place, but it can easily become the subject of the shot rather than part of the landscape.

Instead, we headed deeper into the Highlands, filming Gerry walking through forests, emerging into the mountains and spending a night in a remote bothy.

Camping high on Liathach

By the time we reached Torridon, we had filmed the coastal journey, the forests and the remote bothy sequence. We now wanted to move higher into the mountains and film Gerry hiking and camping near the summit.

Torridon is hard to beat for that sort of thing.

One of the highlights of the shoot was camping high on Liathach to capture both sunset and sunrise. Carrying the camera equipment and camping kit up there was a fair effort, so we were very much relying on the light doing something worthwhile once we arrived.

My photographer friend Graham Niven had visited the exact same spot a few weeks earlier. By complete coincidence, it was the location Gerry and I had chosen months before. Graham was able to give us some useful information about where the sun would land, which saved us carrying everything uphill only to discover we were standing on the wrong side of the mountain.

Thankfully, the weather and light both came good, and we managed to film some cracking sequences near the summit.

Loch Maree, river crossings and Cape Wrath

As we continued north, we stopped on the shores of Loch Maree to film Eric recording a short promotional piece for his campaign to become the coroner back home.

It was a slight change from mountains, wilderness and atmospheric walking shots, but it was great fun getting Eric in front of the camera. More importantly, it worked. He got the job and became the coroner, so Perfect View Productions can apparently add successful American coroner campaign films to the CV.

We also filmed some river crossing scenes at sunset among the Caledonian Scots pine in Torridon. The water was crystal clear, with the great mountains rising behind it, and Gerry waded across in his bare feet while the setting sun lit everything from behind.

In fact, almost every shot we filmed was backlit wherever possible. It nearly always makes a shot look much nicer and gave the different parts of the journey a consistent feel.

From there, we travelled farther north and walked into Sandwood Bay. It was absolutely beautiful, and we spent time filming Gerry walking along the beach, the waves coming ashore and the changing evening light.

The final part of the journey took us to Cape Wrath Lighthouse. I think we were the first guests to stay there after it opened for the season. We filmed along the cliffs at sunset, with some spectacular light over one of the most remote corners of mainland Britain. It felt like a fitting place to bring the journey to an end.

Scotland behaving itself

The weather was the biggest worry before the shoot.

We had originally pencilled in a set of dates, but I then had to move the entire trip forward by a week because of another job. Gerry and Eric were very good about changing their plans, although understandably not delighted by it.

I then spent the entire run up convinced that the original week would be glorious and our new dates would bring three solid weeks of horizontal rain. Gerry and Eric would have travelled halfway around the world only to sit in a damp tent, quietly blaming me.

You can choose a sensible time of year, avoid the worst of the midges and make all the plans you like, but Scottish weather simply does what it wants.

Somehow, though, it all worked out beautifully.

We did get some bad weather, but we wanted a bit of that as well to add variety to the footage. It nearly always arrived on our travel days, when we could drive through the rain, jump out of the car to grab half an hour of filming, then get back inside and continue to the next location.

When we had spent hours carrying equipment onto a mountain or walking into somewhere remote, the sunrise or sunset seemed to arrive exactly when we needed it. Being Scotland, it felt less like good planning and more like we had got away with something.

The less glamorous side of location filming

Over the three weeks, we stayed in a fairly wide variety of places. Some were excellent. Some were considerably less excellent.

At one point Gerry discovered he had bedbug bites, which led to an unplanned search for a laundry where we could cook all his clothes at the highest possible temperature. His bags were emptied and left out in the sun while he dealt with the itching.

Eric and I, rather fortunately, appeared to have escaped them. I won’t name the accommodation.

Bedbugs aside, it was a brilliant three weeks, with great company, beautiful locations, plenty of creative freedom and some remarkable luck with the weather.

It was fantastic to work with Gerry again and help film his return to Scotland. It was also brilliant to meet Eric and spend time with him. He came to stay at the house for a few days after the shoot, and we managed to show him a little more of the Highlands, including a visit to see the Cairngorm reindeer before he headed off to play golf at Royal Dornoch.

We came home with some beautiful footage from Fort William, Torridon, Liathach, Loch Maree, Sandwood Bay, Cape Wrath and plenty of places in between.

Now Gerry just has to turn it all into a film.

No small feat.