Fd: How did the idea of producing fly-fishing videos come up? And how did the jazz get involved?
J&FF: Well, the story of Jazz & Fly Fishing is a pretty unlikely story. It all started with one man´s frustration: On his tours in the Nordic countries with various jazz groups, award winning Finnish jazz pianist and passionate fly fisherman Joona Toivanen often found himself staring longingly at the many beautiful fishing waters by the road. In 2008, he decided to put together a group of similar-minded people: a professional jazz band who wouldn´t mind stopping the tour bus to try a few casts with the fly rod. Finding the right personnel turned out to be a challenge, as the potential band members would have to meet the following criteria:
1. Established professional jazz musician.
2. Passionate fly fisherman.
3. Decent human being.
Toivanen found these in Norwegian guitar player Håvard Stubø, Swedish drummer Fredrik Hamrå, and his own brother, bass player Tapani Toivanen. By coincidence, Petri Luukkainen, a Finnish filmmaker/producer, got word about the project and decided to do a documentary about the band´s 2009 tour in northern Scandinavia. The 2009 tour was a kind of baptism by fire for us when it comes to filmmaking. With two cameramen and a soundguy following us like a shadow, we toured Finland, Sweden and Norway, playing concerts on everything from big festivals to desolate arctic hilltops, and fishing some of the finest waters in Scandinavia (The documentary about this tour, Season One: One Second of Magic can be ordered as a double DVD from our website). After the tour, we bought some cheapo cameras and started experimenting with filming for ourselves. Nothing fancy, we were just having fun making small edits for our blog and Vimeo/YouTube. Much to our surprise, many of these videos became quite popular, and I guess you could say that we have gained an international audience for our videos by now. It´s a hell of a lot of fun! Nowadays, we spend a lot of time shooting, editing and recording soundtracks for videos. So what was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime tour has more or less turned into a lifestyle for us.
Fd: What kind of camera system do you use when you go filming outdoors?
J&FF: Nothing special - we use DSRLs, mostly. Canon. But we´ve used everything from cell phones to RED cameras in our videos. A good tip for the aspiring filmmaker is to check out vintage manual focus lenses – OM Zuiko, Takumar, Rokkor, Leica R, old Nikon, etc. There´s so much good vintage glass to be found on eBay, and much of it is dirt cheap. All you need is a 10$ adapter ring, and voila! It snaps on to your DSLR. When you´re filming, you don´t use autofocus anyway, and these old manual lenses can do manual focusing a lot better than the new autofocus lenses. Pop a viewfinder onto your LCD, and you´re good to go. The tricky part is to get capture good in-camera audio, but I won´t get into that now – it´s too technical and a little bit boring, too…
Fd: How is the pre-production process? Do you think ideas, stories and particular sceneries or do you let stories emerge in each fishing trip?
J&FF: Well, it´s a mixed bag, really. Sometimes you just go out there with the camera and see what happens, and then maybe you get lucky and catch something special. And sometimes it´s more scripted. Either way, there´s always a large element of improvisation in it. As we all know, nature is unpredictable. I´ve done a few videos all by myself, where I´m doing both the fishing and the filming simultaneously, and it´s really hard to do those films if you don´t have a kind of script/idea to begin with. The first more or less pre-scripted video I did was this one:
Les Vaches et les Mouches from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
The idea for that actually came from a French-sounding tune that Fredrik, our drummer, wrote. We recorded the tune in one of our soundtrack sessions, but never got around to using it for anything. And then I got this idea that it could fit really well with the surroundings of a small, beautiful stream close to where I live in Narvik, northern Norway. You see, the area looks a little bit like the French Pyrenees or the Alps or something like that – tall, snow covered mountains and lush, green valleys – and lots of cows. So to make it a little bit different I decided to let the cows be the main characters in the video. And I also wanted to tease the other guys a little bit, since I was up north fishing and they were down south working. I gave the video a kind of “old school” look by using text fonts typical of album covers from 1960s, and giving the video a slightly warmer, “vintage” colour tint. This is another example of a film with several scripted elements, even though the actual fishing is of course impossible to script:
It´s Hardly Ever Like That from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
Fd: Regarding filmmaking, do you have any influences or particular styles that you like?
J&FF: All four of us are really into movies, but it´s hard to point out any particular influences. I don´t know. I guess we´re influenced by everything that we see, including other fly fishing films. In our own films, we´ve been experimenting with different forms and styles, and we´ve made a lot of different stuff: Avant garde music videos like this one:
It´s Your Fault from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
Arty, dopey fishing videos like Joona´s "Focus":
Focus from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
We´ve even done a video that shows the best way to remove a hook from a human body:
And we´ve also done a highly controversial casting instruction video:
In my opinion that´s the best part about publishing stuff on the internet - you´re totally free to do whatever you want.
Fd: What kind of message do you want to give through your films?
J&FF: Hmmm. Really hard question. I guess a big part of our project is to combine two very different activities: Making jazz music and fly fishing. And to have fun doing it. Some of our finest moments are when this happens spontaneously, like in this video:
Sight Fishing 2 - The Lapland Jam from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
Here, Fredrik just happened to discover that the rod tube has a really cool sound, and started playing something. I started singing, and Tapani happened to be there with the camera. Don´t ask me what the message is, though... Maybe something about having fun and going with the flow? Seizing the moment? I don´t know, it all sounds like horrible clichés when I try to describe it.
Fd: Do you recall any special or funny anecdote from a filming day?
J&FF: Tons of them. But some of the best ones are unsuitable for the general public… I guess this video from a really drunken night at a karaoke bar in Jyväskylä, Finland can serve as our anecdote:
Karaoke! from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.
Fd: Nowadays, most fishermen can film and edit a fishing video; what aspects do you think should be taken into account to make a good one?
J&FF: Most fishing videos have excellent fishing scenes, but very little in terms of storytelling. That can of course be totally fine if the material is good enough, but for me personally it gets boring in the long run if there´s no human perspective at all. Many films are also lacking rhythm in the editing. If you look at a film by a real master like for example Stanley Kubrick, the rhythm of the film is like a symphony. That´s really hard to accomplish, but if you pull it off the effect is hypnotic.
Fd: What do you enjoy the most from the whole process of making outdoor productions?
J&FF: Being out there, working with nature. Making outdoor films forces you to really observe nature, to be totally present. And there´s no use trying to push things - you have to be patient and wait for the right moment to arrive. I find that infinitely rewarding, even though it can be hard work sometimes. To catch something special on camera is a magical thing.
Fd: What’s next? Any upcoming film or CD?
J&FF: Both, actually. Our latest film project Season 2 will be released digitally this winter, as four fifteen minute episodes. Completely for free. And we´ll also release several shorter edits, starting just before Christmas. We have a new album coming, too, consisting of the best soundtracks from our films. And we have a more ambitious documentary project planned. There´s lots of exciting stuff happening, so check out www.jazzandflyfishing.com regularly to stay updated.
Fd: Finally, what does fly-fishing mean for you?
J&FF: It means the world. Without jazz and fly fishing, life would be unbearable.
For more of their great videos please visit: http://jazzandflyfishing.com/
