I first met Baard back when we filmed an Into the Machine episode with Leprous. My first impression of him was that he was playing two sets that night. The first with his awesome prog metal band Rendezvous Point and then with Leprous. What a monster! It was a few days later while editing the Leprous doc, that I realised I had seen him play before. On Youtube. At some point a few years prior, Baard appeared on my Facebook timeline because he was this crazy-good drummer that used to play on the streets in Oslo. So when we got to sit down together and talk about his journey, I was eager to find out how he went from playing in the streets to being in one of my favourite modern prog bands. This is his Way.
We actually filmed this video over the course of one year. That’s a record for us. Normally we film one or two days with a band and get the edit done as it fits our schedule. But we wanted to create a new series and this was gonna be the first episode. And unlike some of our other series, we didn’t fully know what the format was when we started.
We started with a simple premise. What is the journey that an individual artist takes in their career and in their pursuit of perfecting their instrument. It made me think o a kung fu film. Where a young apprentice learns to become a master through endurance and training and cunning. That journey I decided would be called „The Way“.
Back to the shoot, the first time we met up with Baard to film for this episode, Leprous was on tour with Devin Townsend and Between the Buried and Me (what an incredible lineup!) in Munich. But on this day, we were doing an Into the Machine episode with Devin so we didn’t have a full day for Baard. To complicate matters, they had a van issue during their drive and got to the venue late, just before soundcheck. We thought of grabbing some extra stuff with Baard hanging around the venue but their wasn’t time.
Luckily, the tour had the next day off in Munich and the band was staying over at our editor Raimond’s house.
So Kai and I popped over the next morning for some coffee and to film the interview section of the film. After we finished the interview, I knew we needed a lot of extra b-roll or archival stuff to back up the interview. Luckily, Baard said his Dad had kept all his old videos and photos of growing up and playing the drums.
So we had the interview and tons of cool archival stuff, but we needed a little bit more „movement“ or additional footage of Baard doing stuff. In the summer, Raimond was heading to Barcelona for the annual Be Prog! My Friend festival where Leprous was scheduled to play. Unfortunately, Kai and I couldn’t go, so I sent my Vlog camera (Canon 700D) along with Ray to grab whatever footage he could get on the fly. And he managed to get a lot!
Then Ray got busy with the edit. We had a few projects in between and we took our time making sure we were telling Baard’s story in the right way and staying true to our original series idea. I hope you like the final outcome and I’m sure you will all fall in love with Baard’s charisma and charm along the way!
Finally, the logo was created by our own Art Master, Kris „The Weapon“ Nando and the theme music was written by a fellow southern boy, Blake Adams.
Welcome to „The Way“.
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