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CAPTURING HD AND HIGH-SPEED FOOTAGE OF ELUSIVE HUMPBACK WHALES OFF THE SHORES OF SOUTHEAST ALASKA. BY BILL HOLSHEVNIKOFF
From Fire to Ice is a new 60-minute documentary on the annual 3,000-mile journey of the Pacific humpback whales. Every year they travel from the volcanic islands of Hawaii to the icy waters of Alaska. Already 2 years in the making, the project still needed some final pieces; I worked on an August 2004 shoot to try to find some of the missing pieces.
Nearly all of the existing footage had been captured in Hawaii by Producer Michelle Addington of YNR Marketing in Laguna, CA, and Producer and underwater DP Ross Isaacs. Our task for the Alaska footage was to record the feeding habits and behaviors of the humpback whales.
The team
I have a long-standing relationship with YNR, shooting mostly resort hotel pieces on HD over the past years. Recently YNR branched out to do more documentary work. When the phone call came for me to shoot topside footage of the whales in HD, I jumped at the chance. The entire shoot was going to take place on a 65-foot research boat, the Princeton Hall. We were scheduled for a full 7 days of shooting on the waters just south of Juneau, AK.
In order to better understand and predict the behavior of the Pacific humpbacks, YNR brought on well-known whale researcher Cynthia D'Vincent. D'Vincent has been studying the humpbacks of Alaska for the past 20 years through the nonprofit organization lntersea Foundation (www.intersea .org), and is familiar with the very best methods and locations to observe the whales during the summer months.
YNR's executive producer, Stan Esecson, headed up the job of organizing the camera packages for the shoot. Considering the constantly changing weather of southeastern Alaska, along with the fact that we would be away from any port for the entire week, the right equipment choices became a more complex task. In addition, Esecson wanted the imagery for the documentary to be stable and reasonably level at all times, which can be a bit of a chore on the Alaskan waters. For that reason, he obtained some of the newest and most advanced image stabilization gear available.
Our two primary cameras were...