Watching the Ravenous commentary with Antonia Bird is making me muse about the weather situation. It was notable to me on first watch that weather must have given them trouble, but hearing the extent of it is like Woah... So about 9m in Boyd walks outside to a blanket of snow and she remarks "Ah snow! At last!" and just her tone speaks volumes. Then she comments about how it was supposed to be snowy from the start. She goes on to say:
"We had been shooting for 2 and a half - 3 weeks and this happened, overnight. So I had to completely... rewrite the script, uh what was left, and go back and shoot a couple of scenes to make sense of it."
Hearing her briefly explain the consequences of the unexpected weather... it's plain as day how much hard work was put in to keep the narrative coherent. I feel given the circumstances they made it flow as well as they could! In this scene, the fact Boyd walks out and looks shocked at the snow I assume was one of the script rewrites, and works really well. It's amazing they managed to work with such a difficult situation and still produce a movie that doesn't become unbelievable and pull you out of the world.
Antonia Bird must have been very skilled at impromptu changes and adaptable to circumstance. That's a difficult thing to do in film I hear. I hear stories of "well it was in the script!" being used to excuse things that didn't work well but could have been changed later, and people getting so stuck in the original conception that it is to the detriment of the movie. Can't explain v well but I'm sure many people have heard of this happening. I'd love to watch more of her work and experience more of her directing!!
Also, it's interesting to consider how different the movie would be if they had the consistent snow cover they had expected! All those scenes without snow... instead being mostly white. And that's not even touching on like the scene rewrites, decisions about shot framing, how all the actors are Sweating Up A Storm en route to the cave..... much to ponder!