On 6 March, we also attended the Balaton Method première at Akvárium Klub and weren't disappointed: this resourcefully photographed movie demonstrates well how the Balaton's retro scene can back Hungarian underground bands. Hence, we chose 7 shooting locations we liked, explain what you can expect of them in the movie and asked production manager Vera Nemes-Jeles how shooting went at these places.
We explained everything multiple times about Balaton Method, still here's a short recap::
- The movie was directed by Bálint Szimler in cooperation with cinematographer Marcell Rév
- A part of the budget was raised by an Indiegogo campaign
- The videos of 17 Hungarian bands are shown in the movie
- The shoot took place between July 2014 and January 2015
- The bands each played at a characteristic Balaton location
- Music was recorded live, on spot
- Most of the videos were shot in one take, without cuts
- 500+ bars of chocolate were consumed during the shoot
- You can catch Balaton Method in Toldi Cinema at the end of March
1/7
Balatonföldvár - Akkezdet Phiai & Amoeba
Saiid and Peti Závada threw this song together with Amoeba especially for the movie, and literally put it on stage. This video received special applause at the première, and not only because of the songtext: the one-shot footage starts with Saiid upside down, but in about 30 secs, the camera turns around and reveals that it is not him hanging from the ceiling, but Péter Sabák of Amoeba. At the end of the sketch, it is also revealed that the location is a retro cinema in Balatonföldvár: this is how you bring something original to a completely impoverished environment. "Why not?"
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
We shot this video deep in the winter holiday inside the retro cinema at Riviéra Park Hotel. I only notified the Balatonföldvár contacts two days prior to the shooting, still, they lent us the hall readily, at once and last but not least completely free. It was a shooting with long hours of overtime in an ice cold hotel closed for winter.
I hadn't been sure whether the guys could physically bear playing music, while being suspended, and having to rush up and down the stage, but they did it. I remember that our set designer Nóri Takács had got the last minute idea set wall the night before, and she packed up a few sacks of beer bottles at Központ on the way, for the Quimby shoot the day after. The refrain of the song was embedded in our vocabulary for the remaining shooting days: whenever we were contemplating whether something could or could not be done, it was only a matter of time for someone to slam: 'Well, but why? - Well why not that's why!"
2/7
Révfülöp - Grand Mexican Warlock
Railway watering halls are hardcore classics with their vodka/mixed/pálinka selection. When the train is late, you can only survive with such a drink card. When it arrives and unloads a small brass band, you can't help but play along. This is how Grand Mexican Warlock performs Love Struggle at the Révfülöp train station, joined by strings in one of the waiting rooms.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
I clearly remember sitting in our office, hesitating whether I even dared write down in our shooting permit request to the Hungarian Railway Co. that the planned number of people present was to be min. 85 persons, added in brackets that a part of this was the Gödöllő Symphony Orchestra scattered on the train, in the waiting hall and on the platforms, with instruments and luggage. In the end, we pulled it off, thanks to the virtuosity of our steadicam operator, sound engineers and the musicians. And I could even sit by the engine driver.
Question: when should you play a concert? Answer: when there is no-one on the 1.5-line side road, but you. This is what happens in the Káli Basin, just when you are about to believe that the scene will be about music played in a van, another van with open door takes over and the cellist sitting in it continues the solo. This is how Dirty Flow Club's music is played all the way, and we don't get it how there's no-one coming from the opposite direction.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
Why no-one came from the opposite direction was because Feri Nagy, head of our location security made friends with local authorities and had the road closed off. In the meantime, the stunt team of Gáspár Szabó - they drove the vans - planned the entire choreography out to the tenth of the second. What I don't understand is how the musicians could play huddled in such poses, but they said that the wine from the Pajta helped.
4/7
Fonyódliget - Subscribe
It fit one-shot, one an angle even that Subscribe took the slide of Fonyódliget's beach with their song Ringside seat. The video remains busy since the camera zooms in time to time on particulars, like the guys drumming on the wastebin or singer Bálint Csongor, who endangered the safety of the swing in the left side of the picture. Talking about set design: the original, worn LÁNGOS sign on the slide couldn't have been better.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
This is my favourite clip from the movie. I was after the location for days, until I finally found the owner in Kaposvár. He arrived from there at 6 AM, opened the slide/buffet complex for us - completely free, mind you - and made 200 gyros platters fro the crew. At about noon, he shouted out from the kitchen, asking that we weren't thinking about climbing up to the top of the slide, were we? By that time, we only had a brass band up there. I still have Marci Rév's text message in my phone: "We need an ice cream truck, a sailboat and an upright piano."
We hadn't known the Vác Youth Brass Band, but they weren't intimidated by the task of having to accompany the rattle of Subscribe (plus the wild drumming of Strokes), they were extremely disciplined; I remember that in the meantime we had to get a boat, whose owner lived two villages away, and I wrote the kids' statement for absence from school sitting in the boat.
5/7
Balatonfüred - Péter Egyedi
The Óriás-frontman, Peti Egyedi lies barefoot aboard a sailboat, wearing sunglasses, holding a guitar to his chest, surrounded by five girls in bikini. The one-shot is more than enough here: there is no close-up or zoom out, no drones, no nothing. The minimal solution is perfect for revealing that Lake Balaton can easily deliver the "unbearable-lightness-of-being" feeling in the summer.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
This video was shot aboard the sailboat of Marci Rév's family, so this means that it is a memorable summer location for him. This time, our lifeguard was Máté Felcser (Punnany Massif), which of course had nothing to do with the fact that there were only bikini-clad choir members in this scene. We are grateful to Füred, since the crew was forged together in the Tesco there - for details, check out the #BalatonMethod hashtag in Instagram.
6/7
Siófok - Napra
We would have extremely missed retro hotels from the movie, and luckily the crew was thinking alike, and Siófok's Hotel Ezüspart made it to the screen. MIklós Both, the band Napra and their accordion, saxophone, drums and everything occupy the balconies of the hotel, which looks like gigantic amoebae from afar. Even Shakespeare would be proud of this one-shot balcony scene for the song Tulipános.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
This hotel knocked our socks off with its red faux leather armchairs and the real hair salon on the ground floor. The night before, the crew slept t the hotel, and when I looked out from the 8th floor balcony in the morning, our fahrt master Zsolt Mona was already standing below with the crane which helped us shoot the legendary façade of the building. Only a few guests had to be ousted from their rooms at 7AM because of us. Coda Nostra Big Band took on themselves to help out Napra, and to have someone who tries -repeatedly - to fall off a balcony, and (spolier alert!) they managed in the end.
7/7
Balatonalmádi, Vörösberény - Soerii & Poolek feat. Szabi Papp
Soerii & Poolek - Szabi Papp feat. a gospel choir is probably one of the most unexpected cooperation in the history of underground music, still it works excellent. The acoustic version of Valahol messze is also joined by a bunch of strings and winds, and at the end of the one-shot etude, we fly off with Szabi aboard a hot-air balloon from Balatonalmádi towards the south shore.
Production manager, Vera Nemes-Jeles:
It's quite telling that at the end of this day, the preacher of the Vörösberény fortified church (Gyula Faust) asked me 'Vera, in truth, what happened here today?' For me, it'll remain an unforgettable memory that I stand by a Calvinist church, on the verge of tears because the balloon cannot take off because of the strong wind, the band is running late from an important rehearsal in Pest, the sun is setting and there won't be calm for days - and then there is for a mere 5 minutes and we could shoot the scene.
This characterized the entire shooting: there was always a Balaton resident with a crow bar, a drill, a car or with a few select words, so we could finish it all in the end.
YOu can listen to all the songs of Balaton Method here.
