Behind the Scenes length: 25:14

Portion of clip where Ava is in the mud: 19:24

SCENARIO:

Ava wears UK size 4 red Hunter Ostens. They are brand new and this is their first ever mudding. We even show the stickers beneath her boot and unblemished soles. She’s also wearing Amazon basics leggings, a random tshirt, and an old pleather jacket of unknown origin.

On a few occasions the audio cuts out briefly, and is marked with a muted speaker icon. This is to protect real names and locations, and is minimal. Approximately 30 seconds of audio in total is redacted....

Behind the Scenes length: 25:14

Portion of clip where Ava is in the mud: 19:24

SCENARIO:

Ava wears UK size 4 red Hunter Ostens. They are brand new and this is their first ever mudding. We even show the stickers beneath her boot and unblemished soles. She’s also wearing Amazon basics leggings, a random tshirt, and an old pleather jacket of unknown origin.

On a few occasions the audio cuts out briefly, and is marked with a muted speaker icon. This is to protect real names and locations, and is minimal. Approximately 30 seconds of audio in total is redacted.

SUMMARY:

In this Behind the Scenes video, we show some extra footage from the Ostens in Quicksand scene, including Ava putting on her Ostens, showing how squeaky her Marigold Emperor gloves are, and the very long process of digging Ava free. It took over 30 minutes to get Ava out of the quicksand. She was really, genuinely stuck. Eventually Ava gets free, but loses one of her Ostens in the mud, which I have to pull out while she watches from the sideline. I then have to get myself out and bring her a spare boot as the Osten is too muddy to put back on.

DESCRIPTION:

Where do I even begin? Perhaps I can start with what went wrong: Ava was not supposed to sink this deep . The result was that this video ended up being incredibly dangerous to shoot. Ava became genuinely very stuck, and the effort required to dig her out was nearly too much for me. I do not recommend doing this yourself at home, it was not a joke; but anyone who sees this video will understand that for themselves.

A little known fact about this video is that, once Ava sank over her knees, getting towards the tops of her boots in quicksand, I was waving frantically at her from off-camera, trying to get her to stop struggling. I knew she was getting dangerously deep, but she was so into the scene that she didn’t see me waving at her for over five minutes straight . I eventually had to interrupt her, or we would have been in real trouble.

Normally when we film, I hold up my hand, off-camera, Ava spots this, and the scene comes to a natural halt. As a result of this method I neglected to tell Ava how deep she was supposed to sink before we started filming. I also didn’t tell her how to move her feet so (or how not to move them) that she wouldn’t get quite as stuck as she did. The problem with this was that it relied on Ava noticing that I would like her to stop burying her little feet in mud so deep and sticky it hasn’t seen the light of day for ten thousand years.

I’m often asked “was she really stuck?” or “how stuck was she?” I can safely say I’ve never seen a girl so stuck in all my life. It took over thirty minutes to DIG her free with my bare hands, and the exertion required to get her out was so much that I almost fainted afterwards off-camera. Any footage that didn’t make the final cut was solely for the purpose of saving my dignity

Suffice it to say, I am nackered by the end of it. I can barely speak I’m so out of breath. Normally I prefer the video and audio to be as if I’m not there, since we’re all here for Ava and not my ugly mug, but needs must. As much as I’d have loved for a clean “stand back and watch Ava get out” video, it was just not happening on her own. Even with two of us it was hard.

This shoot ended up being incredibly dangerous. Ava was really, really stuck, and I nearly couldn’t get her out. If you want to see a girl really, genuinely stuck in quicksand wearing rare Hunter Ostens, and how long it took to dig her out, you’ve come to the right place. But please don’t try this at home (I have several questions if you have a mud pit like this in your home)