Ever so often, cinematographers are called upon to work in remote locations under extreme conditions. Yet the innate desire to capture stories and footages that may otherwise be lost to the viewing public, is enough impetus for them to risk “a few bones” while doing their jobs. This is the first of a four-part series that follows the exploits of cinematographers working on special assignments.Few photographers would turn down a shooting assignment just because the location is deemed “difficult”, even though the caveat against their personal safety needs little reminding. Instead of focusing on the potential hazards, lens people are generally zealous about their craft, and are more likely to worry about stuff like shooting formats and the type of hardware to utilize for projects.

For this new series on cinematographers, Asia Image caught up with four remarkable cameramen who each faced a different challenge â€" actual job assignments â€" that would ultimately pit their photography skills against harsh weather and other extreme conditions.

Coincidentally, or out of sheer necessity, all four cameramen had decided to shoot in high definition (HD), with the exception of one who mainly shot on SD, with second unit support on HDV. For most of them, the decision was an easy one, based on the required quality and since traveling light was hardly an option. The locations alone speak volumes of the obstacles that our cinematographers were up against:

Brad Dillon, the appointed DOP on a series of three spots commissioned by Hewlett Packard, flew halfway across the world, before taking an 18-hour bus ride to a place that he believed had an unlisted time zone -â€" Manali, India at the base of Himalayas. Called upon to shoot a new travel show titled Postcards WA, Jim Frater’s assignment was waiting for him deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Laurie Gilbert’s work was cut out for him, the minute he was challenged to visually document a possible volcano eruption, in a once little-known mountainous hideaway known as Mount Merapi. Over at the other extreme end

of the climatic scale, Bob Scott had to shoot in sub-freezing temperatures for a documentary on the Torino Olympics.

Luckily, and as it turned out, all of them happened to be thrill seekers, and who relished the occasional adrenaline pump whenever, and wherever, they could find it. Still, this should not divert attention away from the difficulties they did face.

Between the long and hectic travels, especially to the less accessible areas, and having to acclimatize to the erratic changes in weather, theirs were certainly not your typical “aim-and-shoot” assignments. But as soon as our boys got down to work â€" and more importantly, got their gear up and running â€" it became clear what this was all about. When it came down to the wire, all they could think about was overcoming that which stands between them and the camera footages that they had traveled a long way in search of.

A Passage to India

The advertising sales and creative team at National Geographic Channel Asia (NGC) and their representative advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, Singapore, were commissioned to create a series of advertisements on Hewlett Packard printers, titled ‘HP No Limits’, to be aired over the channel.

The ad concept was to showcase the ruggedness of the new range of HP printers being used by National Geographic magazine photographers, as they print out their stills under extreme conditions. As the NGC photographers captured the thrills and spills of extreme sports in action â€" including skydiving in Australia, diving with sharks in the Philippines; and white water rafting down the Beas River in the Indian Himalayas â€" they were able to instantaneously print out their shots. World-renowned photographers like Mike Yamashita, Steve McCurry, Sisse Brimberg, Tim Laman and Jimmy Chin were roped in to give the campaign

a professional edge.

Most Wanted Pictures’ Brad Dillon was the DOP selected for the series, which first stop was Manali, India. As Brad learnt the hard way, this would turn out to be one of the most gruelling shoots he had ever encountered.

Although a veteran photographer who has shot several documentaries and commercials across India, Dillon was still taken aback by his most recent experience in “Incredible India”, his tongue-in-cheek reference to the effusive tagline used by the local tourism board. Murphy’s Law was applied throughout the three-day journey that found Dillon and his crew in one dire situation after another. True to the famous statute, whatever that can go wrong did go wrong.

To begin with, Manali is not a place that was easily accessible â€" flights were not available on a daily basis, and last minute flight cancellations happened regularly due to weather conditions in the Alpine region. Due to a cancelled flight, the crew had to spend a night in Delhi before embarking on the long and bumpy bus ride to the location. The bus ride, originally estimated to last no longer than 10 hours, provided the first indication as to how inadequate the results of the on-site research, carried out as part of pre-production, was.

When the crew arrived at their location the following day at 3:30am, and started to recce the location, they quickly realized that their worst fears were coming true. Some of the pre-designated locations were situated too far away from the base, and were impossible to reach given the time frame. Even when an alternative site was found some 10 kilometers from the base, it took them 2 hours more than the estimated 30 minutes to arrive at their destination. The reasons: A jam caused by a broken down vehicle, compounded by road works and a passing shower that had washed the “road” away!

To add insult to injury, a member of the team met with an accident just minutes before the shoot was due to commence. India born, Hong Kong-based NGC director Warren Souto was hit by a motorcycle on a narrow mountain road, just next to the Beas river. The incident cast an ominous shadow over the first day of shoot. All the crew could think about was Warren receiving the medical attention he badly needed, and transporting him to the Delhi Hospital for surgical treatment. It was then â€" when the intermediate hospital at Manali failed to deliver adequate assistance â€" that NGC Asia’s travel insurance policies had proved invaluable. Brad recounts:

“We were so isolated from the rest of the world, yet we had 24-hour international assistance from doctors and nurses who talked us through the medical procedures on the mobile phone, to ensure Warren was getting the medical attention he needed. The medical workers handled the situation very well, and coordinated Warren’s transfer to the best hospital in Delhi for surgery, which has greatly benefited his recovery.”

Emotionally drained and physically tired, the rest of the crew still had a shoot to accomplish. Unfortunately for them, the problems did not show any signs of letting up.

Working within compromises

When the team needed to shoot the opening sequence on the Himalayan Alps, they had to set off before the crack of dawn and headed up the Alps towards Rohtang Pass in a bus. They had hoped to reach the peaks in time to capture the alpine glow but little did they know that a traffic jam would take place during such an ungodly hour. Wedged between transport trucks on a one-lane road, the immobilized crew was beginning to get used to such uncompromising turn of events. Although the unexpected delay caused them to miss the alpine glow, Brad was able to tinker with his camera to make the best of a lousy situation.

“ We managed to shoot in some pretty crisp early morning light. In an effort to recreate that Alpine glow I shot with a very warm colour balance of around 36,000 degrees Kelvin that gave it a nice feel,” he enthuses.

Then came the rafting footages. At the pre-production stage, Brad had decided to use his Sony HDV-Z1P as a POV camera for on-raft pictures of Jimmy Chin and the rafting team. A local equipment rental company in Delhi was contracted to provide an EWA waterproof bag for Brad’s HDV camera, but even that was too much to ask for. Describing the situation that had left a bad taste in his mouth, Brad says with a hint of disdain:

“They supplied a splash bag for a VX2000 and left it to me to do the trick. Well as you may be able to guess, as forcefully as I tried to make that HDV fit into that tough plastic casing, it just wouldn’t budge. And to think that the problem with the bag was presented to me just minutes before we were about to shoot the on-raft footages.”

“Therefore our compromise was to move further down the river to the class 1 & 2 rapids for a 2km raft with Jimmy and the rafting team, and myself on board with my Digi Betacam.”

The camera was protected by a Portabrace cover and rain jacket, then covered with a Sony heavy duty wet weather cover, followed by two thick black garbage bin liners. With additional cladding, the camera had to be carefully handled; while access to the lens functions â€" with the 4.8mm Super wide angle Fujinon lens sticking out through a small opening in the two bin liners â€" took some getting used to.

Brad made use of three lens filters to help control and enhance the light: A .9 ND Soft edge Grad; a No. 2 Blue Soft edge Grad; sometimes together, and other times with a Polarizer; or just the Polarizer on its own when not shooting landscapes â€" to enrich the greens and blues of trees and water, and reduce the depth of field.

For the white water rafting images, Brad got the rafters to wear bright yellow safety vests and helmets to bring out the strong colours for the spot, not to mention a subtle NGC ‘yellow branding’.

“The raft was also bright blue, which helped liven things up. I shot the rafting sequence using a 1/250-shutter speed, as I like the way it makes it feel like things are moving much faster than they actually are, especially when working on the

long end of the lens. That was useful considering the water levels were not flowing as quickly as we’d hoped.”

“The other thing I’m always looking to do is work with as little depth of field on everything I shoot in order to keep the viewers’ attention where I want it to be. In doing so I push the exposure as far as possible on the camera filters until I can’t get a correct exposure, then pull it back by one ND on the camera filter wheel. If it’s outdoor I’ll usually be shooting with a Polarizer if I know I can get something worthwhile out of it.”

In Light of the Situation

The town of Manali sits in the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh, Indian Himalayas at 6300 feet above sea level. The surrounding mountains reach a height of 13,050 feet above sea level at Rohtang Pass. Daily temperatures then ranged between 5-20 degrees Celsius. Weather conditions fluctuated in the mountainous region as the clouds pass through the Alps very quickly, making for unpredictable exterior light throughout the day.

“I enjoy working at altitude as it presents higher colour temperature and colour balances therefore the pictures are much “crisper” and “warmer” due to the clean, thin air.”

Since the director was going for a “feel of realism”, in line with the visual presentation of a typical NGC documentary, natural lighting was the favored option. As such, huge lighting set ups were eschewed for the exterior shots.

“We operated with a small mobile crew with bigger set ups kept to a minimum, also due to time constraints at each location. We designed the shooting schedule based on our recce to make use of the best natural light possible in the day, and complement that with the use of reflector boards, diffusion and silks where necessary.”

Due to the fast moving clouds in the Himalayas, the lighting conditions were constantly changing - â€" from nice and crisp in the early morning to overcast skies by mid morning. Hoping to shoot between cloud breaks in order to get the best light out of the locations, Dillon also had to be realistic about the limited shooting time.

“My preference is to always work backlit whenever possible. The compromise we adopted was to use wider frames for the shots that involved the main subject, talent and landscape, while accepting to continue shooting even with the sun behind clouds but using the longer lens.”

For the interior shots, the crew managed to convince the owner of a pizza diner to convert her restaurant into a rafting clubhouse. Once again, the biggest problem was that of the timing of the shoots, which must not coincide with the restaurant’s operating hours. It was finally decided to shoot within the dining premises early Saturday morning. They agreed to wrap the shoot by 11am at the latest.

The lights used for the makeshift clubhouse were 1*1kw diffused through 220 white frost on a C-Stand as the key, 1*1kw into a gold reflector on a C-Stand for the backlight, 4*100w Dedo’s on dimmers to create nice light on the product and other props.

There were two windows, one of which was out of range in the wide shot frame. The shutters of the out-of-shot window were partially closed to reduce the amount of daylight coming through. To soften the light coming through the window captured in the wide shot, blacks thrown over C-stands were placed about half a meter from the window ledge. The gaps between the window and blacks were filled in with leafs and branches.

“The blacks were just enough to drop the exposure of the window back to a manageable exposure while still allowing viewers to make out that there were leafy green trees outside the window. We also hung a lifejacket inside the window ledge to further help with the exposure of the window.”

Just when the cameras were set to roll, there was a power surge in the restaurant that resulted in a few blown bulbs. Meanwhile in the kitchen, the power supply had been cut off in the middle of lunch preparations. Ignoring the power supply issues momentarily to get on with the shoot proved to be a hasty decision. The bulbs continued to blow up one by one, just when the kitchen staff began to get panicky, and the boss of the restaurant about to lose her cool. Having exhausted all the possible options â€" including that of hiring a generator â€" the guys decided to complete the wide shots as fast as they could, and then relocate and recreate the same lighting setup in the lobby of the hotel they were staying in, to finish shooting the remaining tight product shots.

With huge windows and daylight streaming through, the hotel lobby presented a new set of issues in having to match the previous lighting set up. Blacks on C-Stands were used to mask the daylight by positioning them close to the printers.

“I was hoping to be able to shoot with the same colour balance we were using at the restaurant, but there was too much daylight bouncing around in the lobby so we needed to shoot with a higher temperature colour balance in order to make the two different set-ups cut together seamlessly.”

“It didn’t help that our Dedos had blown up at the restaurant. We ended up using the 1kw as an overall general soft fill through the 220 White frost to set an exposure, a 650w into a bounce board to mold and shape the printer and a 300w light to work as a backlight and give the product nice clean slick shinny lines.”

Shooting on SD

The ‘HP No Limits’ series of commercial spots were shot SD with Sony Digi Betacam widescreen 16:9, with a small amount of 2nd unit work being shot on Sony HDV-Z1P in HDV 1080i mode and down-ressed to SD for post. Brad explains the choice of format: “On most commercial work for NGC, we shoot on either my Sony F900 HDCAM CineAlta or Sony DVW-709WSP Digital Betacam 16:9/4:3. Due to budgetary constraints with the ‘HP No Limits’ campaign, NGC chose to shoot this series on Digi Betacam. We also shot additional second unit material on the Sony HDV-Z1P in HDV 1080’ mode and down converted it to SD PAL for the edit, online and colour grade.”

Despite not being the optimum choice as compared to true HD, the cameras still managed to crank the required resolution and delivered the desired images. As Brad puts it plainly, “A well set up Digi Betacam produces great looking pictures. It’s versatile, quick on location and is great across the wide range of lighting conditions.” Not forgetting his back-up camera, Brad was all praise for his Sony HDV-ZIP: “It produces good quality pictures for a small ‘pro-sumer’ camera that served the needs of this project. It hangs onto exposure differences and colour reproduction better than the PD-150/170s.” He does however stop short at recommending the HDV camera for professional use, even if only as a second unit camera:

“I personally wouldn’t always recommend it for high-end production work with the idea of cutting between Digi or HDCAM; and DVCAM and HDV from the HDV-Z1P under normal circumstances. They require a lot of colour grading to try and get close to the look of Digi. Resolution- wise, it never gets there. It may look fine in an edit suite but when you see go out on a satellite it really falls apart.”

The post work for ‘HP No Limits’ was done In-house at NGC Asia’s HQ in Hong Kong using an Avid editing system. Kuen Chung completed the audio on Pro Tools; and Mex Cheng did a light colour grade using Avid after effects.

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