Adventures in HD

ACTUALITY AND CHARACTER BASED DOCUMENTARY IN 3D

2011-11-14T17:47:00.001-08:00

At the start of any shoot I always have a little bit of trepidation about how it will go. Will we get what we need? Have a picked the right kit? Have I thought of everything for the region or terrain we’re shooting in? But rarely have I started a shoot without knowing if what we’re setting out to do is even possible. 

The show was commissioned by a major international documentary network and was one of their first 3D shows. Like me they considered most of the 3D programming made over the last few years to be little more than 3D wallpaper. They wanted to do something riskier, grittier and new. As far as I'm aware only huge budget feature productions had previously tried productions like this in 3D. We were going to attempt it on a ‘normal’ broadcast doco budget - a great risk for the producers and broadcaster.

The limited nature of recent 3D factual programming can be attributed to the complicated technical process and the fact that it’s so new no one really knows what’s possible or how to do it. The technology is big, slow and expensive. Broadcasters and producers have rightly been playing it safe as they get to grips with the format.

3D technology and knowledge is now progressing so fast that things change every month. The best route to take at the start of job might no longer be the best route at the end of job. New technology is being released almost monthly and the learning curve for crew, producers and broadcasters is so steep that the knowledge gained from just one job can be a radical step forward.

And so after proclaiming at the end of my last 3D job, “Don’t even think about observational film making in 3D” I found myself at the start of this project being briefed, “We’re going to try as much hand-held as possible and make an observational doc.”

I came to the project after stereographer Karl Schodt had already made the decision to use the Genus Hurricane 3D rig. Probably the single most important, door-opening decision of the whole shoot. We were also going to use Canon AF-305 cameras.

Karl and I met in Singapore to prep the kit and shoot tests. I was amazed when the Hurricane rig came out of the box. Compared to the last rig I used it was tiny and most importantly a third of the weight. Our first challenge was to get all the peripherals (Inition Stereobrain, Black Magic Genlock, Nano Flash 3D recorders and battery power) mounted onto the rig. Normally these items can be separate from the rig but as I was going to run around with this thing on my shoulder we needed to make it self-contained. We ended up with boxes and cables lashed into every nook and cranny of the rig. The Stereo Brain was tucked in next to my ear and runs really hot - especially in the 32 degree heat and 90% humidity of rainy season Thailand. The occasional ear burn kept me alert throughout the long, grueling days.

We shot tests both for technical stuff and aesthetics and it also give me chance to practice with the rig on my shoulder. I managed about 5 minutes before I was drenched in sweat and couldn’t hold it any longer. I think the whole thing was around 20kg but it was entirely front heavy. There was no way to get any weight on the back to counter balance it, in any case there’s a fine line between counter balance and simply too much weight.

My first solution was to run straps from the back of the rig down my back to a waist belt to take some of weight down my back. This worked a little bit but I found them the most helpful for actually keeping the rig on my shoulder rather than taking load. I could lean and tilt forwards safe in the knowledge that rig wouldn't fall forwards.

We then moved to Bangkok to start recces and have a field test day. Here I added a handle from my Zacuto shoulder mount kit to the front of the rig. I bought a harness designed for photographers to carry lenses around their waists and adapted it so it hung around my chest. I got the strongest looking lens bag I could find and attached it to the harness. I could then put the Zacuto arm-handle into the lens bag and distribute some of the weight down to my chest. I also bought a back brace and wore my Hippychick support my back and spread more weight to my waist. I also used my Zacuto shoulder pad which I preferred to the one supplied with the Hurricane kit. I did however use the rather nice wooden Genus handles. If we'd had a little more time, money and I lived somewhere where high-end kit was more readily available I might have been able to put something together using a steady-cam vest and other bits. But again the whole idea behind this shoot was to achieve a lot on a limited (in 3D terms) budget and I was pretty happy with my homemade harness.

All this meant that I was very much the bionic man when built into the rig. It wasn’t easy to get in and out of so once I was locked in I would stay in it for as long as I could hold it for. These stints got longer as the shoot went on. The camera assistant Singha could also take some of the weight of the rig between takes whilst it stayed on my shoulder. Karl would get the runner to pass me bottle of water after bottle of water to rehydrate. It was extremely physical work especially in the Thai heat.

Very rarely on a job have a relied on the support of the camera team so much. I couldn’t do anything without the help of Singha, Karl, and often the second unit and 2D cameraman Lau. Just getting the rig on my shoulder was a three man job.
We also had an amazing gaffer and two sparks on the days when we had big setups.

After a few days getting to grips with the kit and work flow we really got it down. I would set the focus and exposure on the top camera and call my settings to Singha who would set the bottom camera. Simultaneously Karl would measure, set and check the 3D. We got it down so we could roll very quickly if needed. Amazing really compared to previous 3D shoots I'd been on.

Once the cameras were set they couldn’t be touched during a take. There was no budget for duel follow focus units so it meant we couldn't pull focus or touch the iris during takes. We had to shoot with wide depth of field in mind for this - not easy when we were almost always nearly wide open.

When doing hand-held in 2D I’m used to predicting people’s movements and preempting action but in 3D this is doubly important. It’s not just about keeping it neat and tidy and in focus - in 3D it’s about keeping the shot technically usable. One slight misjudgment and the whole shot could become unusable.

For example, if the lens inter-axial had been set for a 1.5 meter subject, that meant I couldn’t go nearer to anything than 1.5 meters. In a developing set-up, where perhaps I would be following someone between rooms, in order to keep the shot usable I would constantly have to maintain frames which had similar properties to the existing 3D settings. If someone was about to step into the foreground of the shot I would have to preempt it and take a step back to keep the shot useable. If there were foreground or edgy objects I would have to be constantly aware of them and chose my position and frame accordingly.

I also had to be extra careful with the rig when it was on my shoulder. The upward facing camera hung very low beneath the rig and was easily knocked. If this happened it would all have to be realigned. Realignment is common on all 3D shoots and is one of the added elements that slows production down compared to 2D. On the big fight nights the stadium was rammed and we were working to their schedule not ours - 10 mins realigning the cameras could mean missing the knockout shot so we had to be ultra careful and keep realignments to a minimum.

The Canon AF-305’s held alignment very well - much better than the EX3’s on my previous 3D job. The main down-side of them is that they’re not great in low light. This coupled with the light-loss of the rig’s mirror and the fact that I’d chosen to shoot everything at 1/50th shutter to hold the fast action slightly better caused us to need to light almost everything but the brightest exterior. I had the Gaffer’s work cut out when we needed the entire crowd of a stadium lighting just so it wasn’t a black hole on camera. We initially tried to use four 5K HMIs but we couldn’t get the light even enough and the direct light was blinding people trying to watch the fight. Instead we opted for twelve 4 bank Kinoflos rigged into the low ceiling. They weren’t enough to get a full exposure but did enough to pull the crowd up and give the background some detail.

Karl is a great ‘can-do’ stereographer. We both agreed that if 3D is going to be a success this time around it has to fit into the current conventions of television production. It's no good forcing rules and regulations upon production to the point where the final production is dull - but in 3D. The only way 3D will survive is if captivating and exciting television can be made in 3D. That’s what we tried to do on this job - never say no.

The most challenging location was a training camp half way up a mountain in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. This was a back-to-basics hill camp with no electricity, basic accommodation and access via a 1km steep climb up a mud track and through a river.

There was no question we would need lights up there - and Litepanels weren’t going to cut it. Eventually we took a 1.2 HMI Par, 2X Kino Flo, a few battery powered Litepannels and, back breakingly, a 7kW generator. A village of porters had been booked to help us carry all this up the hill. But at 5am the next morning it was raining hard. Our vans drove through rivers and landslides slipping across the road. The porters, having more sense than us, only sent the village teenagers and stayed in the dry themselves. This meant two killer trips up and down the mud path for us and about four each for the kids. Three hours later we were soaking wet and covered in mud - each having fallen more than once. We were shattered and we hadn’t started shooting yet. It was totally worth it though as the location and characters up there were great and we shot some beautiful natural scenes the likes of which I’ve rarely seen in 3D before.

This production was a headfirst dive into unknown territory and we came out the other side having achieved more than we ever thought possible. We managed to shoot some really lovely unplanned moments and followed fighters from pensive back stage warm-ups all the way to the bloody glory and disappointment of a fight night.

I haven’t seen a cut of it yet but I hear it’s going well without too many technical issues. I can’t wait to see it, but what's more it's the content I'm interested to see. The fact that we managed to get so much great actuality regardless of the number of dimensions is a real credit to the production team. That we managed it in 3D is the icing on the cake - and that's how 3D production should be seen. The medium is not the message.

Crew - Camera department - Karl, Singha, Lau, Gaffer Mann and his team of sparks and Mikey on sound. P/D Donovan, PM Michelle, AD and second unit director Kenny and fixer Tuktaa.

Singha on I on a lunch break - just out of shot is Karl in the same position.

THE DAY AFTER THE BANGKOK RED SHIRT CRACKDOWN 2010

2011-06-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

I took these photos on 20 May 2010 in the streets of central Bangkok. I'd pretty much forgotten about them but talk of what might happen after this weekend's Thai general election brought them to mind so I thought I'd post them here.

20 May 2010 was the day after the Red Shirt rally was ended by force by the Thai military. Over five days of fierce fighting on the streets roughly 90 people were killed. The tens of thousands of Red Shirts who'd spent over two months camped out in largely peaceful protest against the government fled.

If anyone is interested they were taken on my Minox ML 35mm camera.

Lower Sukhumvit (the Bangkok equivalent of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue) was silent, no traffic and fume-free for once.

This soilder was alone guarding nothing but piles of rubbish.

All the equipment from this beauty salon was strewn across the pavement. The beauticians had reported to work dressed in pink uniforms.

With no river taxis the dark boiling waters of the canals were unusually calm and reflective. It seemed to match the mood of the few people who were out trying to make sense of what had just happened.

The remains of Central World - one of the biggest and most modern shopping centers in Bangkok.

Amongst it all there were already signs of normal life returning.

The clean-up had already begun. The day after this 5000 Bangkok residents took to the streets and helped.

ADVENTURES IN 3D

2011-05-28T02:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I did my first 3D shoot. It involved 12 days in Tokyo, 10 days in Singapore and 12 days in Shanghai. These might not be the most remote places on Earth but shooting them in 3D for over a month was an adventure in itself - especially as we were in Tokyo during the earthquake. 

Shooting factual TV in 3D is such a new thing - there were many stumbling blocks throughout the shoot but we got through it and came home with 350 decent shots and a good programme. In 2D this is to be expected but based on the horror stories I’ve heard in 3D it seems to be quite an achievement!

There’s no real consensus on the best way shoot 3D documentary TV. New technology is coming out every few weeks and I think that even people who seem to know their stuff are winging it much more than they let on. The one thing that holds true though is that there are certain rules of physics (which I won’t go into now!) to shooting 3D which no technology can circumnavigate. If you’re going to shoot 3D you have to read up, choose the gear that’s best for you and take your time to get it right.

We opted to use a large rig which could be changed to shoot both in mirror alignment and side-by-side (see the rig here - www.pro3D.tv). I’ve heard of a lot of other factual productions using side-by-side only rigs, which is easier and cheaper but very limiting. As we were filming character based stuff we shot in the mirror set up almost exclusively. This slowed us down a lot but meant we were shooting technically good, useable 3D.

We used two 5D’s mounted on a bar to shoot 3D time-lapses to provide dramatic cityscapes for the show. This worked really well as there simply wasn’t time to get the big rig away from the ‘content’ set-ups to shoot GVs.

The news from the edit is that our stuff has ‘muxed’ really easily and there have been very few headaches (literally) to report. Which is great news.

In side-by-side mode shooting Pudong area of Shanghai from a boat.

On The Bund shooting Tai Chi at dawn.

The crew at the end of the Singapore leg of the shoot.

Rig/derig/rig/derig X 350.

The empty aisles of Tokyo's convenience stores for days after the earthquake.

NEW UNDERWATER SHOWREEL

2011-04-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a showreel of all my underwater stuff from the last couple of years.

Most of it was filmed for series 3 of 'Monster Fish with Zeb Hogan' for National Geographic. The shots of Jellyfish are from 'Monster Jellyfish Attack' also on Nat Geo.

WIldlife featured - Saw Fish (Australia), Long Fin Eel (New Zealand), Goonch Catfish (India), Fresh Water Crocodile (Australia), Salt Water Crocodile (Australia), Whip Ray (Australia), Mahseer fish (India), Sockeye Salmon (Russia), Nomura Giant Jellyfish (Japan), Bull Shark (Australia).

Music is by Randy Newman (without permission!) and Protectors (with permission!) www.protectorsband.com their album is brilliant.

Enjoy!

WOOP! PICTURE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE MARCH 2011

2011-02-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

Pretty chuffed at the moment as an underwater photo I took of Zeb Hogan holding a Goonch Catfish in India has been published in National Geographic Magazine.

It's the March issue with the fox on the cover.

I've known this was going to happen for a few months but I didn't believe it until I bought a copy!

I might retire now.

In other news - I've just spent a week prepping for my first 3D shoot. All very interesting. I'll write it up soon!

NEW WEBSITE AND VIDEO CLIPS ARE GO!

2011-01-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

Happy new year and all that!

At long last I've updated my hideously out-of-date website. I also have a new web address to match his blog. You can find it at www.adventuresinHD.com.

At the moment it's just one page but hopefully it will expand during the year. There are two brand new video clips up there. One is from National Geographic's 'Monster Jellyfish Attack', a documentary I worked on in Japan last year. It features lots of underwater footage of the two-meter-wide sea monsters!

The other clip is from 'If Food Run's Out'. This programme (or program for you Americans) looks at rising food prices and falling availability. It paints a potentially bleak picture of the future for millions of people. We filmed drama sequences representing the future but the reality is that much of it is happening already.

I'm currently looking at 2011 through a pair of red and green glasses. In February I'm shooting my first doc in 3D, and there's plans on the table for more after that. I'm currently reading like mad, going to see as many 3D films as I can and a doing course with these guys in a few weeks. I'll do a write up of how the shoot goes on here once it's done.

Until then here's a few pics of me in the croc pool in Australia (for the full story see a couple of posts down - Crocs and Dangerous Fish in Northern Australia .)

Happy new year!

UNDERWATER LIGHTING AND LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES

2010-12-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

In February I shot a night underwater scene of spear fishermen in Laos. There are two things that have stayed with me from this night’s filming - 1) the fishermen had been on the rice whiskey and found it hilarious to shoot their harpoons as near as they could to me while I garggled ‘noooooooooo’ through my snorkel. And 2) If there was any scene from this year I wish I could go back and shoot again it would be this one.

It’s not awful, it made the cut and it works OK but I have never been happy with it. The old excuses of limited time, difficult location and not enough planning time were all present that night but when it comes down to it my approach was wrong. I knew the theory but there wasn’t the thinking or setup time to execute it properly so I just went with the solve-all camera mounted lamps and I’ve regretted it ever since I viewed the rushes at 4am that night.

It’s now December and I’ve just shot the final episode of ‘Monsterfish series 3’ in New Zealand and the Solomon Islands. For the first time since that dry-season night in Laos we had a night underwater scene to shoot. I wasn’t going to mess it up this time.

Our location was the crystal clear Lake Rotoiti on New Zealand’s South Island - some of the clearest fresh water I’ve ever seen. The giant eels we were there to film live in the shade under a small jetty. They come out at night to feed.

This was a better location than Laos - easier to control, shallow water, above water access on the jetty, full scuba gear, the previous night shooting tests and eels that we found were not skittish in the slightest. I was determined to make up for the disappointment of Laos.

So here’s the theory - it’s pretty simple - the trick to lighting underwater is to not light the water between the camera and the subject. Underwater clarity is everything. If there are sediment particles suspended in the water (which there always will be, especially in fresh water) and you shine a light at them you’re going to see them, if you don’t they remain invisible and the camera effectively sees right through them. This is known as 'backscsatter'.

By blasting a camera mounted light forwards you only succeed in illuminating the sediment. Add to this the fact that light drops off faster in water than in air so the sediment near the camera/lamp burns bright while your subject a few feet away can be under exposed. Not a good look.

Here's a frame from the Laos shoot to illustrate the problem. The blacks have turned to haze with all the light on the particles in the water. It's as if the subject is behind a fog. Also notice the fast drop-off - the fish and face are correctly exposed yet his shoulder is burnt-out - less than a foot closer to the lamp.

There are a few ways to solve this problem. The most common is to angle camera-mounted lights in such away that they hit the subject but not the water directly in front of the lens. It's often the only practical way to illuminate underwater and yet for picture results it’s probably the worst - especially when it's done badly like in Laos. Above water I do anything I can not to use a camera-mounted light so I wanted to try to apply the same idea to underwater.

Given our ideal, controllable location wanted not to use camera-mounted lights at all. This is where the jetty comes in. We mounted a bright and hard L.E.D. torch on the jetty pointing down into the water. This created a shaft of light which the surface ripples refracted and broke up to make a beautiful shaft of ‘cathedral’ light underwater. With a little bit of creative license you could just about believe it was moon light shining down.

I then used a camera mounted underwater lamp dimmed to it’s minimum setting just to bring the tiniest bit of fill light into the eels in the foreground, without lighting too much of the sediment. I extend the lamp on arms forward and outwards from the camera so the lamp was almost a foot forward of the lens. This means the water directly in front of the lens is not illuminated, reducing the glare from the sediment. I also gave our host who was in the water with me a torch, dimmed to it's lowest setting as a practical lamp to use in shot.

The results were awesome. The sediment was not visible at all in some shots so the water just looks like a black hole with eels floating in and out of frame. On the jetty the team threw food into the shaft of light - the eels obliged and formed a feeding ball as if on a mark.

I did various shots but one of my favorites came from lying on the bottom and shooting upwards towards the light creating a silhouette of maybe fifty eels moving in and out of the light. Some eels would wander off to have a closer look at me and the camera light picked them out beautifully as they looked into the lens (the lamp dimmed so low that eels only 6 inches away from it were correctly exposed).

One side effect of this method is the water around myself was in complete blackness and from time to time five foot long eels would appear from nowhere and bump into my head. Quite a shock to start with but after a couple of hours down there we realised they really weren’t interested in eating us - not while there were people throwing sausages and tuna into the water from the pier anyway.

At one point I swam right through the feeding ball. One of the larger eels hit the catch that holds the monitor shut, flicked it open and flooded it! Oooops, well at least it wasn’t my fault for once. A few days drying on the heat of the dashboard and the monitor was back up and running.

I still wish I could go back and shoot the Laos scene again but at least I've now shot a night scene I'm happy with and proved to myself that I have learned something this year!

CROCS AND BIG FISH IN NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA

2010-10-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished a shoot in Northern Territory, Australia. The idea of the show is to investigate how six huge predators manage to co-exist in the rivers here. Saltwater crocs, freshwater crocs, saw fish, barramundi, whip ray, and bull sharks.

We spent three days camping in the bush filming as many off these as we could. The crocs were everywhere. At night you could see their eyes all along the river’s edge and by day they’d disappeared, which was a tad disconcerting especially when my job is to be swimming around in it. We camped at the top of a hill as they’re ‘probably’ too lazy to climb it.

Much of the fishing needed to be done at night so we’re hanging around on the edges of dark croc infested water. On the first night we caught a whip ray and put it in a pool which we’d separated from the main river with a rock barrage to save it till morning light. In the morning we tagged and released it. I swam with it across the shallow river and got some nice footage. The way rays swim is beautiful - floating over the sand and effortlessly sliding through the water with a ripple of their edges.

We’re filming with Dion and Kate who are biologists from Territory Wildlife Park. They’ve brought a 2 metre long sawfish to re-release into the wild as it has out-grown their aquarium. They get it out of the transporter tank and it thrashes it’s toothed-snout around with incredible power. Until then I had only ever seen footage of sawfish being a bit lame with their rostrum (snout) so it was quite a shock and a wake up call as in a few minutes I’m going to be in the water with it.

We put it into a large pool corralled off from open water so it can’t escape. We need to film it and Dion and Kate wanted to observe and tag it before they release it for good.

I watch it’s movements for a while and slowly get in the water at one of the points it keeps passing. The waters is only about 18 inches deep. I fill my pockets with stones so I’m lying on the bottom on my front breathing through a snorkel. The water is very clear for fresh water and the sun is high so the scene looks great but it’s still only about three or four feet visibility. This would be fine if only there wasn’t a seven foot fish with lethal nose in the pool with me.

Every time it passes it comes out of nowhere to be right in my face. I can’t see it with enough notice to get it framed up well. So our AP Shaun stands on the edge of the pool shouting out where the fish is, “11 O’clock, heading straight for you!”. This works a treat.

Unwittingly I’ve got my legs apart for balance when Shaun shouts, “Behind you, heading straight for you, close your legs!”.

This seems a good time to establish the things I know about sawfish -

1) They lash out with their rostrum when they panic.

2) They can’t swim backwards. A dead end will panic them.

Between my legs is currently a sawfish dead end. There’s no way I’m closing my legs around it.

“Rob, it’s between your legs”.

I’m not moving a muscle. Lying on my front means I can’t look down at all so I just lie there imagining what’s happening between my legs. My future ability to have children is floating in the balance.

After what seems like an age I feel the fish brush under my shin.

“She’s gone Rob”.

Bloody hell. I can breath and I can close my legs.

For the next hour or so she circles the pool and I get some great shots. It’s a privilege to be so close to such rare and incredible animal in the wild. I think the sawfish might have jumped to the top of my favorite fish table.

When we’ve got what we need we catch her, tag her and let her go into the main river. She swims off quite happy. She will be tracked for the next week to make sure she adapts back into the wild.

The next day is spent filming three 3 ft long bull sharks and a barramundi fish who plays the game and hangs out under a snag (a fallen tree in the river) for hours while we film him.

A few days later we go out with some national park rangers to catch a saltwater crocodile. In Australia’s national parks there’s an uneasy relationship between people and ‘salties’. As an indigenous species the salties are looked after however the parks other role is to encourage people to use the waterways. Salties are often aggressive and territorial which leads to occasional problems with them eating people.

One solution the rangers practice here is the catching of crocs that look to be getting too cocky. They truss them up for a couple of hours and then release them. The theory being that the saltie learns who’s boss.

So we’re filming just that. We get a fairly large 11ft saltie croc. After filming with it we set up to release it on a boat ramp. Our presenter Zeb and some of the rangers are sitting on the croc to hold it down. Producer Tuktaa and I are filming from the head end of the croc. We’re waiting for the signal for us to get out of the way - being as we are right between the croc and the river. Zeb and the rangers are given the instruction to jump off the croc and retreat. We’re aren’t given our signal. . . the croc is lose and we’re right in it’s path.

It starts to move towards the river (and us) and it doesn’t take us or the ranger long to realise we shouldn’t be where we are. He shouts to us and we leap up a 5 foot high wall to our right. I don’t know how I got up it with the camera and I don’t know how Tuktaa got up it all as it’s pretty much the same height as her. I just get the camera back to my eye in time to shoot the croc hitting the water. Near miss number 1.

A few days later we have a day of underwater shooting in a facility where they have controlled pools for the filming of crocs. The way it works is the croc wranglers tie the croc’s mouth shut with fishing line - enough to keep it shut but little enough that the line can’t be seen by the camera. I’ve never done this sort of filming before and I’m not really that keen on tying up animals just to film them. It doesn’t seem to be as bad as it sounds for the crocs though. They don’t need to open their mouths to breath and they’re incredibly tough animals - the treatment of them when the we were catching them in the national park was quite brutal.

First up is a smallish (7 ft) freshwater croc. ‘Freshies’ are not as aggressive or big as salties, that said they can still do you a lot of damage if they want to. I’m in the small natural looking pool and the croc is put in. It’s cool. The water is clear and the croc is quite lively, swimming about underwater. I get some good stuff.

A fallen tree has been put across the pool to make it look like a snag in a natural river. I lock my ankles to the branches and hang, holding my breath, upside down in the water filming the croc swimming round me. This works well to give me some grounding and stops me kicking up the sediment on the bottom. After about an hour we’ve got some great stuff. Time for the saltie.

The saltie is much bigger - 13ft. And it’s a much chunkier animal too - the largest reptile species in the world and basically a living dinosaur. By now the sediment in the water has been unavoidably kicked up and so the visibility is down to little more than 18 inches.

This means I have to get really close to the croc before I can even see it. I’m swimming around the bottom of the pool literally bumping into one of the fiercest predators in the world. I get a few shots but it’s less keen to swim around than the freshie was. I call for the wrangler to move it for me.

He reaches down and manages to pick it up - only because in water it’s almost neutrally buoyant - on land it had taken four of us to carry it to the pool. He takes it to the shallows and sits on it’s back so I can get close ups of it’s head in the clearer shallow water.

I’m 3 or 4 feet away when the croc has a bit of wriggle and suddenly his jaws are wide open! The fishing line has snapped! I back off and struggle out of the water with the heavy underwater housing at about an 8th of the speed I’d have liked to have been out of there. The wrangler is still sitting on the crocs back and the croc is writhing about. I grab a rope, and copying what we’d filmed when catching crocs a few nights earlier, I make a noose and drop it over the crocs nose and pull it tight. The noose tightens and locks between it’s teeth, the wrangler then reaches forwards and closes it’s mouth. Shaun then holds the jaws of the 13ft croc shut while the wrangler tapes them closed!

It starts to rain and gets dark so that’s it for the day. Probably for the best.

KAMCHATKA Part 1

2010-09-15T20:45:00.001-07:00

Kamchatka is a peninsula on the east coast of Russia. Map of Kamchatka.. It is famed for being one of the few remaining areas of true wildernesses in the world. Until the 1990’s the area was a secret Soviet Military zone - the natural harbour of Petropavlosk being the home of their nuclear submarine fleet. Outside the small towns there are no roads, no people, no farming or logging, instead the area is a unique natural paradise for wildlife and flora, especially salmon and bears. We spent three weeks there in July filming for National Geographic’s Monster Fish series.

We land in Vladivostok and straight away are faced with a taxi driver who very quickly gets very upset about our pile of cases. We keep telling him that we’ll just get two taxis but he stays pretty mad and looks like he might cry as he speaks into his phone. He’s also wearing a string vest, on the outside.

He drops me and our 200kg’s of kit off at the door of the hotel that has a 200 meter walk and 3 floors of stairs with no lift. The other taxi with no gear in takes the rest of the team to the front door where there is an elevator, thanks for that.

Still we rebook Mr Stringvest to take us back to the airport the next day, under the proviso that he comes to the other door.

Vladivostok feels like the back of beyond, but it’s actually much more cosmopolitan than I’d expected. We decide not to film anything and go for a walk and get dinner. It’s a pleasant evening and we have wine (very expensive), local beer (like Newcastle Brown), vodka (cheap and rather nice - much more like rum than vodka) and pizza (surprisingly good).

Next day the sea front is shrouded in mist and I shoot some nice GVs (general views of the place or B-roll to you Americans) of crumbling concrete architecture and do a piece to camera about being at the end of the world but going further. . .

Back to the airport. Day 2 of the string vest, wonder how many days he can get out of it? Suppose you can always turn it inside out. Check in at Vladivostok Air is pretty hard work and a lot of excess baggage is paid for. Almost the whole excess budget has gone and we’ve not even got there yet. There are A LOT of people checking guns in and wearing khakis, what the hell is this place?

The flight attendants are huge, people smoke in the toilets and I secretly film on the EX1 for the opening travel sequence off the show.

None of us really have any idea what to expect from Kamchatka. There is very little information about the place online and I’m a bit nervous. Later in the shoot I spoke to Brian Smith (a seasoned adventurer) and he said nowhere he’d ever been had felt like such a journey into the unknown. I didn’t feel so silly after that.

We arrive in Petropavlosk, or PK to the locals. We’re picked up by Martha our fixer and guest-house owner for the time we’re in civilization. PK is a shock, fulfilling every Soviet and post-soviet stereotype you can imagine. There are rusty cars on every street corner, wild looking mongrel wolf-dogs bark and chunky people in black leather three quarter length jackets go about their business. I’ve never been to Russia and for the first few days it’s almost impossible not to see the whole place as a James Bond set.

We meet the kayak team who are to accompany us on much of the trip. This includes Brian Smith who is the expedition leader and a film maker in his own right. He’s going to be helping me, shoot some second camera and as it happened, do most of the underwater shooting. The kayakers website for their Kamchatka exploits can be found here - www.kamchatkaproject.org/

The first day is grim weather and is spent filming in a polluted city center stream. Brian, who along with rest of the kayakers had spent the last two weeks in the mountain wilderness, couldn’t get his head around what we must being thinking of the place. We’ve come to the last great wilderness of the World and we're upto our knees in a filthy lifeless stream full of old cars.

The next day we plan to leave for the Zupanova river for a 6 day river trip but the weather has other ideas. The only way to get anywhere in Kamchatka is by helicopter and they don’t fly in low cloud. We sit around all day waiting for the cloud to clear but it doesn’t. We can’t even go shooting GV’s as we’re on hourly standby for weather updates from the helipad.

Day three is more of the same except we manage to get out into PK to shoot some wet GV’s. The weather forecast is bad for the next day so we plan to do some filming with a local indigenous family called Itelmen. They’re a really friendly family and we eat salmon patties, salmon head soup, salmon stew, slamon pasties, salmon caviar and smoked salmon in their home which is an old cargo container. This place is getting less like Bond and more like Mad Max. Zeb and I don’t really like Salmon.

Next day the weather looks brighter. We still can’t fly in the morning though. I use the time to fix the headphone socket on the camera which rattled loose during last nights bumpy journey back from the Itelmen. The socket is easily fixed but I accidentally pull something else loose inside the camera. It won’t start up. Oh dear.

We’re waiting for the call from the helipad any minute and now we don’t have a working camera. For the first time in 3 days I start hoping that the call doesn’t come. Where the fault lies isn’t clear. After quite some time I find that one of the electronic ribbons that connects the side of the camera to the main boards has been pulled out a tiny amount; it’s barely noticeable. I haven’t done a repair like this for years so rack my brain to remember how the little clips that hold it in work. Eventually I suss it and hold my breath while the camera boots up. It works and I can breath once more. I probably won’t open the side of the camera again.

The phone call comes and we head to the helipad. We have a large scene to film there and as the helicopters are charged extortionately by the minute - time is very much money. The whole thing is a bit of blur, not only are we shooting a big scene around the loading doors of a huge old MI8 helicopter but we’re about to fly to one the remotest places on earth for a week. With the addition of a Ryan, our fishing guide, and three Russian camp facilitators, cooks and rafters the team has grown to fourteen people. The real expedition is beginning.

To be continued. . .

KAMCHATKA Part 2

2010-09-15T20:44:00.001-07:00

The MI8 helicopter is huge but our 10 or so Peli cases are dwarfed by piles of camping, rafting and cooking equipment for 14 people and six days on the river. There are also six kayaks and a fair bit of fishing gear. Eventually everything goes is in and the loading doors are closed. Brian sticks the Go Pro to the undercarriage.

In case anyone is interested the gear list is -

Sony PDW-700 HD XD camera - we’ve shot the whole series on this as it records to HD XD disks it doesn’t have traditional heads like a tape camera. It’s less susceptible to dust, sand and humidity problems - all of which are a constant problem on these shoots. Touch wood (there are still 3 shoots left to go), we haven’t had a single dropout or recording problem in hundreds of hours of footage.

Sachtler 18 tripod
6X IDX batteries/charger
2X Lectrosonic Radio Mics
1X Sennheiser 416 boom
2X LitePannels Mini lights
EX1
Gates Underwater Housing for EX1
Super wide angle, wide angle and macro ports for Gates housing.
2X Underwater LED lights
Go Pro
Mac Book Pro for media wrangling.
2X Lacie Rugged HD’s.
Canon 5DMkII
Everything is in Peli cases and we also have piles of dry bags and tarps.
Large bag of diving/wet gear - weight belts, wetsuit, mask and snorkel etc.

Our host Zeb also has a 5DMkII and an underwater housing for it.

Brian, Rob, Ethan, Jay, Shane and Jeff (AKA ‘The Kayakers’) have their own EX1 which we’re using as a second camera for time lapses and extra coverage and about 4 DSLRs between them. Brian also has a mini dolly which is cool for adding a bit of movement to the time lapses.

The Russian guides have a generator so we can charge the batteries.

The mountain of kit in the helicopter has spilled into the seating area so we all pile in and perch on the foothills of Kit mountain. We’re so overloaded that they won’t let me have the door open so I have to shoot out of the window. It opens all the way and wouldn’t have been too bad if I hadn’t been sitting on our bear dog the whole way. Kind of like a living, less stable Cine Saddle.

As ever I’m watching our trip into the wilderness in black and white, wishing it was smoother and getting cross with the poor dog but it’s impossible not to notice how amazing this place is. From the air you can clearly see how untouched the place is. There are thousands of rivers, the vegetation is lush and green and skyline is volcano after volcano.

We touch down on a small stoney beach by the Zhupanova river. We do a little meet and great with Ryan the fishing guide (he was on the helicopter with us but we’re cheating that he was waiting for us in the bush). Again it’s all a bit of a rush as the helicopter needs to leave and I wish I’d done it again in close up but we didn’t, never mind.

They kayakers and Russians get all the kit out while I go and set up for a shot of it taking back off. Even though I get about 100 meters away there’s a hurricane of down draught from the huge rota blades and the hard beach doesn’t dissipate the wind. The camera gets blown about and the pola filter I’ve got in gets grit blasted. Good job I had it in or it would have been the lens.

We’re now officially in the middle of no where. This is deemed an apt time to mention that as we were so overloaded all the drinking water was left behind. It’s going to be a thirsty week.

It’s mid afternoon and we set off down the river on three rafts and six kayaks. We’re mainly fly fishing but the kayakers have a couple of spinning rods too. Kamchatka is the only place in the world that all six species of Pacific salmon go to spawn and it’s the second biggest salmon run in the world. We find out pretty quickly that there are also huge rainbow trout here too.

We camp on a pebble beach and the Russians knock up some hearty food. Jay breaks out the wet bar, vodka, vodka or vodka and grapefruit.

It’s late by the time we set up camp and I only manage to get one cycle of 4 batteries charged before 1am. I have one battery I hadn’t used from the day so the next day I will only have 5 batteries to shoot from sunrise to sunset at about 10pm. The IDX batteries aren’t lasting as long as I think they should so this is a bit of a problem.

The water situation is resolved by boiling river water in a big pan. This take ages to boil, ages to cool down and tastes of whatever was last in the pan. Usually fish heads. There are loads of clean looking spring fed tributaries to the river so I fill my water bottle from them most of the time.

We are back on the water by 9am the next day. Ryan catches a large rainbow trout and we do our usual talk about the fish with Zeb, Ryan and me all sitting in the water. I have a new waterproof pouch which fits a battery and a disk perfectly. After the chat I discover that my new water proof pouch is in fact just a pouch; water is dripping out of the contact holes in the battery. I leave it in the sun, strapped to the top of the pile of gear in our raft and hope it dries out.

It’s 10am, I’ve gone through one battery, one is dead, which leaves three for 12 hours filming. Brian gives me a spare Watershed dry bag which is amazing and gratefully received. Living in Bangkok the gear available is frustratingly limited. Thank you Brian!

The rest of the day is spent catching tonnes of fish. The river is so productive it’s incredible. You can see thousands of salmon and trout in the crystal clear water. The kayakers aren’t seasoned anglers and yet they all pull fish after fish-of-a-lifetime out throughout the day. It's a tough way to shoot. We fish from the rafts and also stop at good spots to fish from shallows. The anglers are all spread out along the banks and when someone gets a fish we have to get there as quick as possible. This means rushing through the slippery shallows with the camera. The underwater housing weighs a tonne so Brian put it in his kayak and dragged it around.

I spend the whole day turning the camera off whenever there’s a moment; which isn’t often with so many fish being caught. By about 8pm I’ve been through all the batteries, and through them again to get the dregs of power from each one. When we get to camp I go through them all for a third time shooting some nice bits of evening sun around the camp - but eventually, completely powerless, I have to give up. I get the Russians to get the gennie out early and I sit up with the batteries into the night. Next morning I get another hour on the gennie and finish off charging the last battery. I have five for the day.

The next four days is spent floating down stream fishing, doing water tests and conserving battery power. The weather is incredible and the fish are amazing. One of the Russian dudes spends the week in nothing but his Sponge Bob Square Pants boxer shorts and a massive knife tied round his waist. It's a good look and one I hope one day I can pull off.

On the last day we get to the ‘dreaded’ canyon. Our guides have never been down this section of river so we send the kaykers down first to scout it out. Turns out the white water is no problem but at the bottom of the first rapid is a brown bear fishing with three cubs. I fully expect it to run off as we pass but it stays put and we all sit on the opposite bank for nearly two hours watching her pull fish out of the river. It’s an incredible sight. I drop the camera into 720 30i so I can over-crank it and shoot her in slow motion. It’s a pretty amazing afternoon’s filming and the whole sequence leading up to it should be great too. It was pretty hard on the batteries though and by the time we reach out last camp I’m totally out again. The battery that got wet has had a few days in the sun so I put it on the charger and, to my surprise, it registers and appears to take a charge. I’m back up to full power.

I get up at 5am to shoot some dawn time lapses. My 6 battery 'full house' turns out to be nothing but a mirage as the wet battery won’t power the camera. I’m back down to five batteries for the rest of the shoot. We call the helicopter with our coordinates to come and get us. It’s supposedly on it’s way for about 5 hours and we all sit around getting sun burnt in the long grass as we wait for it. Ryan fishes on, desperate to get us a King salmon but to no avail. I shoot some nice slo-mo of him casting the fly-line though. Eventually the chopper comes and we head back to the rusty cars of PK.

There's more information on Ryan's fishing trips here - The Fly Shop

As soon as well get back we’re off again. The kayakers have somehow found some poachers who are willing to be filmed so as the sun goes down we head out to meet them. When we get there it’s all a manic rush and no one really knows what’s going on but Zeb, Brian, Jay, Rob and I jump into a raft and follow these seriously dodgy chain-smoking guys downstream. It’s getting dark and we have no idea what’s going on.

We don’t really know who the guy rowing our raft is and another guy falls out of our raft and is dragged along the rocky beach. If you’re ever short of a bit of excitement in your life I can recommend going night rafting with Russian poachers. They net the width of the river and pull out a pile of fish.

It’s now completely dark and we round a corner and find Kate and Indra (P/D and AP) pleased to see us alive!

To be continued . . .

KAMCHATKA Part 3

2010-09-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Next day it’s back to the helipad and we fly to Kurile Lake. It’s a different chopper company and we take off, hover a few feet above the ground and land again. The pilot says we’re 300 kilos too heavy. So we dump 5 of the 6 kayaks (we don’t really need them for this part of the filming anyway), and try again. Off we go, jubilant that we still have the beer with us - that was going to be the next thing to go.

For the first time on the trip I get to sit at the door and shoot. I’ve taken a brand new climbing harness but they insist on me using their weird belt that won’t even tighten up. The door is cut-away at the top so quite a lot of wind from the blades comes in and as we’re always flying over ridges and mountains there’s also quite a lot of small turbulence. It’s not great for filming steady stuff but I rolled so much that there must be something good of the incredible landscape.

The approach to the lake is pretty amazing, Zeb and I are filming at the door and we see bears and rivers full of fish. We land at the bio station and a guy in a crazy six wheeled mini tank, like an amazingly pimped golf buggy with a diesel engine, comes to meet us. This place is cool, we’re surrounded by electric fences to keep the bears out. Everyone looks nails and carries guns. There’s a wooden house, loads of cabins for doing research in and futuristic pod-tent things which we’ll sleep in. If you had to design a Russian bio station for a Bond film, this would be it.

We have a tour of the site and then ask if we can go out on the boats to see the spawning salmon we’ve come to film. Apparently the lake is too choppy for the boats today so we’ll have to walk. We strip the kit down in to a running kit - still loads of stuff though - and head off outside the fence. Immediately we see a bear and cubs.

We’re following footpaths through thick, high vegetation. Except these aren’t footpaths, these are bear trails, and they’re very well trodden. A lot of bears are using these trails, very often. We have to stick to the armed ranger which makes filming hard. I can’t run ahead and find position like I normally would. Instead we film the whole thing on the move with Zeb doing pieces to camera over his shoulder as I stumble about behind him. As with much of the filming on this trip it’s needs must, hopefully this will come across in the edit.

The ranger sets quite a pace, especially as we all have kit and we walk about 2 or 3 miles I reckon. Eventually we get to the beach and walk along it for a while. There’s a bear fishing a few hundred metres up the beach. I put the long lens on and get some nice stuff as it makes it’s way down the beach towards us. When it gets to about 50 metres away I shoot it doing a huge belly-flop into the lake and coming up with a fish.

Then we look round and there’s another bear coming up from behind us. She has some cubs too. As she fishes she is completely oblivious to us. She gets closer and closer, all the time her eyes on the water looking for fish. 20 metres away - surely she’ll see us soon?10 metres. 5 metres. The ranger is a little concerned but doesn’t reach for his gun. Instead he makes himself big and makes loud but non-threatening noises.

I’m filming all this on the tripod and she runs out of shot towards us. I have no idea how close she is as I’ve had my eye to the viewfinder the whole time so I crash out, leave it running and step back from the camera. She’s in the water right in front of us - about 3 metres away. The ranger is tense. She runs past us which means we’re now on a very narrow bit of beach between her and her cubs - not a great position. I grab the camera handheld. There’s a few seconds where we’re not sure what to do and then she runs back past us.

She’s walking away from us and gets about 20 metres away when another bear comes out of the vegetation. The two bears have a standoff with a bit of growling and the new bear goes back into the long grass. The ranger says we need to get out of here and we’re not going to argue with him so we start to walk down the beach. The bear is still there and we’re trapped on the beach. I shoot all this from behind Zeb with him talking us through what’s going on. Eventually she moves off into the long grass and we can pass and march back to the bio station. On the way back I manage to climb a few trees and shoot Zeb and the ranger walking beneath. It’s the only way I can do anything static with out going too far from the ranger. It’s a cool sequence but still no spawning salmon.

Day two at the bio station and we shoot a sequence of fish counting. The scientists here count all the fish migrating into the lake - by hand. We need to do some underwater stuff of the fish passing through the counting gate. It’s bitingly cold and Brian goes in.

We quite often set the camera on the river bed and weigh it down with rocks but as the rocks are all volcanic half of them actually float. Good job we bought dive weights. The shot works out great and Brian also gets some nice stuff of both red Sockeye salmon and Sockeye that are still silver from the ocean.

That night it is really cold and the sat-phone won’t work so we’re totally out of contact with the rest of the world. The kayakers throw a little party in the dinning tent. What a cool place for a party.

Next day we film with another one of the rangers. He came to this area in the 90’s when poaching by organised gangs was rife. He and his colleagues came in and kicked ass, running dangerous missions in the night. He took us to one of the poacher’s huts they’d burnt down and gave us an amazing interview.

We set off to look for more salmon but we get the news that the weather is coming in and we have to decide if we want to stay here or get out while we can. It’s a tough call as there’s so much we can film here but we can’t afford to be stuck here indefinitely as there isn’t an hour of slack left in our schedule. We call for the helicopter and as we’re rushing around packing and trying to shoot everything we haven’t had time to do the helicopter arrives early, for the first time in the shoot.

It’s a real shame we have to leave as some of the sequences we’ve shot aren’t really complete but that’s the way it goes. On the way back we stop off by a river that we’re apparently able to pull King salmon out of at will. Surprise surprise we can’t, the fish spoil the party again. I use the time to go back up in the helicopter and do some low flybys of the river. I ask the pilot to fly however he can that makes it smooth. He does the opposite and flies sideways up the river, a great shot but it’s pretty bumpy.

As we leave and head back to PK the pilots are spotted having a beer in the cockpit. Well it is Sunday, it’d be rude not to.

No sooner are we back in the comfort of Martha’s house and we’ve arranged to leave at 4am the next day. We’ve had a call from Azabache lake in the north of Kamchatka apparently they have millions of spawning Sockeye there. It’s a 24 hour journey on unsurfaced roads but with only a few days of the shoot left we don’t have time to be on the road for that long. There is some money in the budget left from a helicopter trip that we didn’t need so we decide to go half way by road and the rest by helicopter. This decision costs $12,000 dollars so these fish had better be good!

At 4am we get outside to find yet another amazing vehicle. This time it’s a truck the size of a quarry truck but with a Porta-cabin full of 1970’s seats stuck on the back. Amazing. We do 11 hours on unsurfaced roads in the Porta-cabin. And after a another cold flight sitting at the door of the helicopter we get put down in a meadow of long grass by the Azabache bio station.

Mosquitoes. More mosquitoes than I have ever seen. The deet comes out and works for about 5 minutes but they’re everywhere, biting through hair, jeans, coats. I have to spray the camera too to try and keep them off the lens. The only thing that will stop them are the waders that the kayakers have lent me. So for the next two days I cover my head in deet and don’t take my waders and water proof jacket off.

It’s evening and the scientists take us out to a spot where they think there’ll be fish. When we get there there’s nothing but dead slamon all over the place. It’s like a fish massacre. We do some filming and Zeb’s disappointment is real. I try to film a sunset time lapse but give up as there’s too many mosquitoes all over the lens.

That night we’re worried that we’re not going to get the spawning salmon and that coming here has been an expensive mistake. Tomorrow is the last day we can spend here. We have three days in Kamchatka left and 14 hours of that have to be spent traveling back to PK. We’re running out of time.

The next morning we’re marched into the woods by the scientists. About a mile from the lake we find a hidden lagoon. It has waterfall streams pouring into it, crystal clear spring water and is full of spawning Sockeye. At last! We spend 6 hours there. Brian fills two cards of underwater footage of red sockeye salmon on their spawning beds - called redds. This will be the end of show so we film pieces to camera for it. Mossies start biting my right hand during one take and I can’t get them off without wobbling the camera. With every word Zeb says I can feel them biting me again and again. Suffering for my art and all that.

That night we’re buzzing that we’ve got the scene we came for. We have a team banya (Russia sauna) - a rare moment of down time for me on the whole trip. In the morning the helicopter comes and I shoot Zeb jumping on and off it in slo-motion with all the long grass blowing about. They drop us off in a deserted clearing in the middle of a wood. The crew don’t stop the rotor and throw all our stuff out and take straight back off. As they leave our huge truck roars out of the wood. Amazing!

The last day is spent filming in the local market. We shoot an undercover scene which involves rigging the Go Pro in a bag which I've cut a hole in. Our translator volunteers to take the bag and approach dealers who buy illegally caught salmon caviar around the back of the market.

That night the kayakers very kindly cook up a feast for us and everyone who’s made the trip possible. It’s a great way to end the shoot and it’s the only time on the shoot we get near a King salmon, and it’s delicious.

Next morning we fly back to Vladivostok where it’s a beautiful afternoon. We want to get more GV’s so we go out filming. But after three weeks in Kamchatka Vladivostok seems like the most cosmopolitan place on Earth and we’re not really getting what we want.

On the way to the airport the next morning I have a driver who sounds like Borrat and tells me about “the beautiful woman of Vladivostok” and gets excited when he sees air stewardesses. Kate and Indra’s driver falls asleep at the wheel and has to be kicked by Kate.

As we leave Russia the trip already feels like a dream. We did so many amazing things and went to so many places that it’s hard to remember all the details. It was great to work with Rob, Jeff, Shane, Jay, Ethan and Brian. It was these guys that had the vision to organise an expedition to Kamchatka in the first place. Thanks guys. Kate and Indra, with the help of Martha, also did an amazing job of planning in an unplannable location.

The kayak team’s website has more information about the goals of the expedition and can be found here.

Brian also runs an awesome production company called Reel Water Productions.. Check their site here to see some amazing cable-cam work and more.

Most of these photos were taken by Indra, some by Kate and some by Brian, Shane and Ethan

The programme will be part of Monster Fish With Zeb Hogan series 3, probably on screens in the US in 2011 and elsewhere after that.