Ever wondered what it's like to film in -30°?

Here I am at 78deg north in a little town called Longyearbyen. It’s as close to living on another planet as you can get, a small outpost on a tiny archipelago in the Arctic Ocean where the temperature ranges from -20° to -30°. It’s very easy to forget when in the town that this is the absolute limit of human settlement on earth. When we leave to go out and shoot, things really get interesting. 

EVERYDAY LIFE

The first and most arduous task is the morning ritual of getting dressed. The sub-zero temperatures mean that on average three to five layers must be put on before leaving the front door. These will be natural fibres whenever possible, because materials like wool can be wrung out and breathe if they get wet. You can always tell which people have been here a while because it looks like they have entered a contest to wear as many animals as possible… seal skin boots, leather trousers, wool under layers, fox hats and with one extraordinary woman, polar bear jackets. Probably not the most PC kit, but it works.

When you go further afield, a full snow suit is a necessity. Now, should you be lucky enough to never have had the pleasure of wearing a full cold weather survival suit, the experience goes something like this:

1. Lift the full suit and lay it on the ground. It weighs about 20kg, so there is no practical way to get it on standing.
2. Attempt to get your snow boots through the leg holes. Even though you’ve opened the zips down the legs to help, for some inexplicable reason, they are NEVER quite wide enough.
3. Take a short break. Even though it is -20°, you’ll be dripping with sweat at this point.
4. Lift the suit up and zip it up the front. If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to be morbidly obese and have arthritis, now is your chance. The giant suit limits your movement to about 10% of a normal range of motion.
5. Put on your lining gloves, outer gloves and then mittens. Now, you lack all manual dexterity.
6. Damn… forgot my Balaclava, buff and hat. Remove gloves, get head gear in place. Now breathing and speaking take considerable effort, and your ears feel like you have cotton wool stuffed into them.
7. Get your helmet and goggles on. Hooray! Your field of vision is limited to directly in front of you. As an added bonus, all this kit means you can’t turn your head.
8. Finally: check that you and your co-workers have no exposed skin. Even the smallest break results in frostbite (the bridge of my nose can attest to this).
9. Half blind, deaf, weighed down with 40kg of gear and with a complete inability to pick anything up, you’re ready to go out and film.

Handy Tip: Should you remove any face protection, ALWAYS put it inside your snow suit. Never place anything that has been exposed to moisture (like your breath) in outside pockets. It will freeze solid in 30secs, leaving you to thaw it in your armpit before you can put it back on.

CAMERA OPERATION

We've been shooting on the PMW-500s as they are robust enough to take the daily use, and when - not if - they break, they can be easily repaired (unlike the more consumer oriented cameras, C300, FS7 etc). The PMW-500 has a 2/3” sensor so it’s a good trade-off between focal range and image quality. For Pretties and IVs, I take the F55 and a set of CP2s with me to get the most out of the epic setting. The High Dynamic Range on the F55 is essential to get the most out of the million gradients of white you get here, and for high speed.

As for lenses - never change them in the snow, we have very high winds and it's so fine it gets into the sensor. One of the reasons I use the PMW500 is you can have a lens roughly equivalent to a 10 - 330 or a 24-700 and that is before you count the extender. There is a current obsession with shooting s35, but often this is lazy way of getting a ‘good’ image - letting the sensor do the work rather than picking the appropriate tool for the job. You can create great images on smaller sensor cameras, be it S16 or 2/3”, it just takes a bit more work.

Now once you leave base there are a few practicalities/ laws of physics to keep in mind when working at -30°.

Never exhale near your viewfinder

It will fog, and the moisture will turn to ice INSTANTLY (fact: at -26° you can throw a cup of boiling water in the air and it will freeze mid-air). If this happens, you’ll be filming blind as it’s almost impossible to thaw. Tip: Hold your breath when near the VF. Turn your head and exhale away.

Keep the camera as warm and cushioned as you can

I put the polar jacket over top. An exposed battery will last 30min tops and you’ll end up with frost bite on your fingers if you’re not careful.

Take the utmost care when changing batteries

The V-Lock system that has proved so popular in recent years is positively diabolical in the cold. The locking mechanism turns to glass in these temperatures on the cheaper models that use plastic. This is because of something called the Glass Transition Temperature (here’s a good explanation from the folks at MIT). Even the slightest bump or quick battery change can result in the lock shattering (think Terminator 2 and the liquid nitrogen scene). If this happens, your shoot is finished. I speak from bitter experience.

You’re filming in a place that is entirely white

The sun just circles overhead taunting you, never setting. The surface of the sun is bright in the summer and dark as a coalmine in the winter. Yesterday I had every ND I could find on the camera (2.7 or 9 stops and I was still at f11) and as an added bonus we are shooting on PMW-500s with the stock Monochrome VF. You really haven’t lived until you’ve tried to film a slightly off-white polar bear in the snow on a Black and White VF. I’ve attached my Alphatron EVF to get around this - it also flips open to get around the fogging issues.

COVERAGE

Every step taken is like walking through treacle. The snow is just hard enough to support your weight for a moment before giving way as you take a step. This, combined with all the additional weight is the best reason to use a long lens. After five steps you’ll be exhausted and the action will be over. You’ll have to adapt your filming style as shooting actuality here can break you. I’ve found it’s far easier to move backwards when you’re out as there are quite literally no obstructions and everything else is incredibly far away. Often, you see what looks like hills in the near distance only to realise it’s a mountain 30km away, but with no trees you have no reference for distance.

WRAP

So filming is finished and you’re ready to return to base. With any luck, the weather will hold out on your return journey. If it doesn’t, you’re in for a treat: the Arctic whiteout. Now I know what you’re all thinking… I know what a whiteout is, I’ve seen it a million times in films. But here is the bit you will thank me for later. The thing they never mention in films is that on a snow machine, with no horizon for reference, you lose all equilibrium. Not only do you start to see things but you get surprisingly sea sick. With 3-4 layers of face protection this can result in a hilarious (and/or horrible) episode of ‘Can I Remove My Balaclava in Time?’  Whatever you do: never get off your snow machine while this is happening. The Ski-doo will bridge crevices if you are on a glacier that should you land on yourself, you’d fall through. This happened a couple of weeks ago.

STILL SOUND FUN?

Despite all this, I would not trade this experience for the world. If ever given the opportunity to go to Svalbard or similar, TAKE IT and don’t look back. Stay safe and enjoy every moment. You cannot leave this place without it profoundly changing you as a filmmaker and as a person. Yes, it is tough and it can be intimidating if not downright terrifying. But it’s also incredibly rewarding.

As for me, this is why I got into this media lark in the first place (see photo below...), and if I were to hazard a guess it would be the same for a good number of people reading this. So enjoy.

I wonder if they need a filmmaker on the ISS or for a mission to Mars…

Photo Credit: Kostas Giamarelos