I saw a very interesting tweet from @greenlandpaddle:

Just shipped 3 GP to Paramount Pictures for a movie being made in Greenland. With standing order for more :)

I contacted Jill Ellis, owner of Adanac Paddles for more information about what film the paddles were for. She said that she was told hardly any information about the title or who was starring in it. All she knew is that it was for a film to be shot in Greenland by Paramount Pictures.

With those clues in hand, I went to the Google to see what it could tell me. After a bit of digging I was finally able to figure out that the paddles were destined to become props in the upcoming film, Avatar, the Last Airbender directed by M. Night Shymalan. It’s a live action remake of the widely popular kids cartoon.

This isn’t the first order that Jill had to fill for Paramount. Back in January, she had to rush 3 or 4 custom paddles to the studio in Philadelphia (M. Night Shymalan’s hometown) so it could be shipped to Greenland for location shooting which took place in March and April.

According to several fan/production websites, the Greenland shooting took place just outside of Ilulissat in the northwest part of the country. There, they created an ancient village and filmed several scenes which should turn out to be about 6 minutes on the final production cut.

There is no word on how the paddles will be used in the final edit but I do know that they were purchased because they looked authentic so it’s likely they will be used as background pieces to bring authenticity to the scene.

So why did Paramount just order a second set of paddles? Not quite sure but it’s likely that they needed them for use in scene pickups. Sometimes in the editing process, they realize that they are missing a particular angle or look so the director will bring everybody back together for a couple of days to shoot the missing pieces again. Pickups are usually the small finicky parts of scenes like close-ups of hands or a back shot of the main star (usually a stand-in) walking in the door.

In this case it’s unlikely the production crew is going to be going all the way back up to Greenland again so they will probably recreate the shot needed in the studio lot or out in the country somewhere. With a little bit of Hollywood magic, you will never know.

Personally, I think that the whole story is pretty cool. If you haven’t had a chance to look at Adanac Paddles stop by and check them out. Jill makes everything to order and takes the time to make sure that the measurements are authentic and correct. She will truly set you up with a custom Greenland paddle that looks Hollywood worthy.

Oh yes; that guy in that movie a while back was dead the whole time and the kid really did see dead people. Sorry if I ruined it for you but it’s time to get with the times...

More info and photo credit: sermitsiaq.gl

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