Arctic Here We Come

The trip to Greenland is only 2 days away now, needless to say, I am quite excited!

Since my previous post the team have met twice to discuss ideas and we spent a weekend in Nottingham testing out some kit.

The Plan

We are flying from London Gatwick to Reykjavík, Iceland. Staying a night and getting a small flight over to Kulusk, Greenland the next day.

As far as the plan for the shoot goes, we are really just going to have to play it by ear. We have a big list of ideas that we can shoot, depending on the conditions. The weather is so unpredictable that setting goals in stone really isn’t the way to plan for this film. We all have a vision of what we want to create, but the actual content will be determined by the conditions and situations that present themselves.

We have two days books with a dog sled team, who can take us wherever we want. They are hunters by natures, so the plan might be to follow them on a hunting trip. Another option is they can take us across the frozen sea ice to a Glacier, and we can have a look at some crevasses.

Alex and the crew all have a huge amount enthusiasm for this project. Alex is looking to have a go at being in front of camera, and we as filmmakers are looking to better our show reels and expand our experience to include working in Arctic conditions.

The Team

 

 

Crew initiation and kit test

We all met in London for the first time about a month ago to discuss initial ideas and meet everyone officially. This was very productive as we were able to get down all the ideas people had been having and discuss their possibilities. Also, it gave us time with Alex to ask him what was feasible. We all went away with a lot to think about, and set the date for a second meet up.

This time we chose Nottingham as a venue, as it was a bit more central for everyone. The purpose of this meet was to test out some kit and make sure we were all familiar with everything. Matt is a goldmine for grip equipment, it seems! He brought with him, a bespoke 4m camera crane, a Glidecam HD2000 and a motorised timelapse dolly. It turned into a bit of a ‘boys with toys’ weekend! We set up a few pieces to camera with Alex and shot a some sequences. This was the first time we had shot something as a team, so it was really good to see how everyone worked – so it turns out, really well!

After a great lunch, we headed down to the canal to test out Alex’s new immersion suit!

All in all, a really good weekend, we left feeling very excited about the possibilities of this project and can’t wait to get out there.

Here are a few pictures from the kits testing weekend. Behind the scenes video from this, coming soon…