19 Feb Snow Guardian Gear Overview
Now we have avoided talking about gear throughout this entire post. However, I must admit that gear is extremely important and it has definitely enhanced our production. That being said, it is very important to stress that gear isn’t everything and you MUST have a solid story and an expert crew in order to pull off this film. Now on to the fun geeky tech stuff! We have some incredible sponsors to this film who have allowed us to use the latest and greatest technology in filmmaking.
To begin, Aaron Caughran and Jason Hess from CamBlock spent almost two weeks training the crew up on the latest and greatest motion control system in the industry. CamBlock is a 3-axis (dolly, pan, tilt) system that is fully keyframeable and an amazing piece of engineering. Tom Lowe has used the CamBlock system in all his latest work to include his most recent trailer Rapture. We have primarily used the CamBlock on our film to record motion control timelapse but we also plan on doing some real time moves in the future.
Next up is all the HDSLR equipment we have on set to include Canon 5DMKIIs, Canon 1DMKIVs, Canon 7Ds and lots of Canon Prime L Series glass. We are using RedRock rigs to stay stable since a large majority of our footage is handheld since we are run and gun around the mountain on snowboards and skis.
We would like to give a very special thanks to GoPro for making getting us shots that we wouldn’t be able to get any other way. We have rigged up 10 GoPro HD cameras almost every day to rescue ski patrollers and let them tear up the mountain. We have some incredible point of view imagery from these little cameras and since they are waterproof we don’t have to worry about the snow. The GoPros are definitely helping us tell the story from the perspective a what it’s like to ski on ridge lines with 100 foot drops inches away from their skis. We also used the GoPros heavily in the reenactment scene and buried the camera along with the survivor to show you what it feels like to get covered under a few feet of snow.
Khalid and Jon couldn’t be on a film set without their trustee Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly.
They did some very creative shots with the Pocket Dolly including the following screen grab to intro the interview with rescue ski patrollers.
Carson also used the Kessler 5-Foot Cineslider in the avalanche reenactment scene. Sliders are always a great way to bring dynamic motion to a scene and so far these sliders have really helped our film visually.
In order to see everything going on in our shots (especially with so much uncontrolled action) we have been using SmallHD monitors. They have really come in handy to monitor exposure and focus when there is so much bright light reflecting off the snow. Without these monitors it would be next to impossible to pull focus and monitor exposure.
Last but certainly not least we must thank Jim along with Jason Diamond and Nate Beamen for sending Red MX cameras out for us to film with. Jim was able to score some ridiculous 100fps slow motion RAW footage on the Red which looks great.
No Comments