The challenge we were handed was a unique one. How do you shoot six episodes of a TV docuseries with a camera team of three in environments that included glaciers, high altitudes, and extreme temperature changes, all while staying mobile and shooting on the Monstro VV camera from RED Cinema? Bolt 500 LT on Aletsch Glacier at 11,371ft. Temperatures hovering around 40 degrees fahrenheit. Luckily, we had access to some of the best cameras and tools on the market including the DJI Ronin 2, but this equipment comes with added weight, less portability, and the need to pull wireless focus (in the case of the Ronin 2) in fast moving and uncontrolled situations. Adding to the complexity was our desire to shoot with our preferred Sigma cinema primes. On much of my doc projects I’ve worked with servo-equipped zooms like the Fujinon 19-90 or the Canon 17-120, but this time, in order to get the particular look we wanted, my partner Rin Ehlers Sheldon and I were strongly in favor of using cine primes. We knew it might mean a slower workflow in the field to have faster lenses, but we wanted to put them to the test in a true documentary setting. This meant lens changes on the side of mountains where the temperature would drop from 90-degrees Fahrenheit to about 40 degrees depending on altitude and changing weather conditions. The challenging elements of the shoot which included many lens swaps, the R2, the altitude, temperature changes and the...
Published By: CineD - Wednesday, 5 September, 2018