Breathing Oceans

Day 10 Australia

2006-05-17T18:12:00.000+12:00

Back to Crab Creek at 4:45am to attempt to pick up the shots we missed from the previous day. We set up the 1D again in the underwater housing and place it by our deserted desert tree. This time we film on a faster frame rate to catch the speedy tide as it whooshes in and out. When the tide had gone out a bit and we could access the camera again we switch memory cards to film the tide going out. Rey sets up the 20D camera in a different position this time, filming four little trees in what looked like a desert of red sand. Like everything else these were soon submerged too.

Day 9 Australia

2006-05-17T16:32:00.000+12:00

5:00am and we head off to the lighthouse. We struggle to find a shot that is different to what we have already captured and that would logistically work. We then drive around to all the locations we had recce’d in the surrounding areas attempting to find a shot for the day. After great difficulty and not much success we decided to abort and get on a plane back to Sydney sending Rey back up to Queensland next week to attempt to re-shoot what we missed due to the rain.

Day 8 Australia

2006-05-16T20:17:00.000+12:00

We start the day at 4:45am and make our way to Crab Creek; we set up the 20D camera on top of a cliff and the 1D camera in its underwater housing in front of a tree. It felt like we were in the middle of the desert, surrounded by vivid red dirt. The tide came in at such a severely rapid pace that it completely submerged the entire tree along with the camera. By the time the 1D had come out of the water the memory card had filled up. Later a hovercraft landed in the exact place where the 20D was filming, what a day.

Day 7 Australia

2006-05-15T20:25:00.000+12:00

Up and off to Gantheaume Point at 5:00am situated right by a Nunnery. We set up both cameras on the beach. The scenery is spectacular with red rock, reddish sand and perfect aqua water. We find a great spot for the 1D camera in front of what looks like a modern rock sculpture.

Day 6 Australia

2006-05-13T19:57:00.000+12:00

Today is travel day; we have our earliest start yet at a cracking 4:00 am. A dreary twelve and a half hours later we arrive at Broome. We meet with Mike Tucker to talk through the map and get location ideas for the next week.

Day 5 Australia

2006-05-12T17:19:00.000+12:00

Day 4 Australia

2006-05-11T10:16:00.000+12:00

We’re getting in the swing of early starts with another 5:00am start. We pick up Paul in the pouring rain and head north to Mossman. We go into the Daintree Rainforest, and past Cape Tribulation to Cowie Bay crossing many rivers with daunting closed signs across them. Fortunately we make it through. By this time the rain had set in and the wind had picked up so the beautiful protected beach we were hoping to film at is filled with surf and does not look very pretty at all.

At this point we head back to town stopping at various spots trying to find a location that would suit the dismal weather. We attempt Noah River, Thornton Beach, and Marrdja Botanical Boardwalk with no luck. We finally get back to town around 2pm and organise a dinghy to head down a river to try to find a shot for the next day if the weather was terrible again. We find a good spot but decide it looks too similar to the day before, so we decide to build a rig that could go off the boardwalk and into the water at Marrdja Boardwalk [where we had visited earlier that morning]. Paul was an absolute hero putting this together for us. We decide not to let the weather get us down and to stay on schedule moving on to Broome on Saturday.

Day 3 Australia

2006-05-10T18:27:00.000+12:00

We get cracking with a 5:15am pick up and are all set up at Mowbray River by 6:00am. Rey abseils 4 meters down a cliff to the waters edge to set up the cameras. The crocodile infested river looks like the Amazon. Paul and Rey nervously set up the 1D camera by the water’s edge and then climb back up the cliff to set up the 20D camera under a tree canopy. Paul then returns to town leaving us sitting between the Crocodile River and a snake infested sugar cane farm. We are relived Paul returns several times during the day so that Rey can abseil down to check the camera.

Day 2 Australia

2006-05-09T20:11:00.000+12:00

Today we’re up and off to meet with location scout Paul Dowd who very generously agrees to spend the week helping out as a volunteer. We set out on a recce North, at first we are unsuccessful as there is too much surf at Cape Tribulation but at Cowie Bay we find a great little mangrove that looks just like a bonsai tree.

Day 1 Australia

2006-05-08T16:15:00.000+12:00

We get on a flight from Sydney to Cairns and are met by local, and location manager Rob Richardson. Rob very kindly loans us shot bags, maps and gives us some location ideas. With this we set off to Port Douglas stopping along the way to scout locations. We discover Yewell point, this is a great spot with plenty of mangroves but the southern end of four-mile beach proves to be even better as there is hardly any human traffic.

Day 9 New Zealand

2006-02-17T20:06:00.000+13:00

At 6:30am we set up the 20D camera in a fairly remote location. We secure the tripod to a tree log which is heavy and wedged pretty strongly in the area we need to put the camera. At 7:30am we set up the 1Ds at the prime Milford Sounds photographic location (in the mud flats). Jeff and Rey return to the other camera and I stay with the 1Ds. At around 2:00pm the tide is getting very high, and they notice that the log the 20D has been attached to is moving in the water. The camera is also on the verge of being submerged by the rising tide. Luckily the tide turns around in another half hour.

Things are going well and with the weather being so clear we decide to let the 1Ds camera continue running through the night to get the midnight tide run. We wrap the camera around 3am.

Once the memory card has run out and the tide has turned back around we wrap the camera and head back to Queenstown, feeling very happy with our accomplishments over the past 10 days.

Day 8 New Zealand

2006-02-16T19:04:00.000+13:00

Getting used to these 5am departures. Today we travel to Milford Sound. We drive 1 and a half hours to Nelson. Leave Nelson at 8:30am and arrive an hour later in Christchurch before making our way to Queenstown. We’re picked up by our Queenstown support, Jeff Williams, from Shoot NZ, and jump in the car and after a few stop offs to get organised we embark on our four hour drive to Milford Sound. We arrive in the stunning Milford Sound around 6pm. We recce the areas and find our locations for the next 2 days.

Day 7 New Zealand

2006-02-15T17:02:00.000+13:00

Yet again we have a 5am departure. After reviewing the underwater footage from the day before Rey felt it would be great to try and pick up that shot today this time with a faster frame rate, so that we can capture the rapid dramatic rise in tide. We drive, stopping a little bit short of the “Taryn Island” location and set up the 20D camera (an hour and a half out of Takaka). I stay with this camera while Rey travel back 30mins to the river to set up the underwater camera at the previous days location.

Day 6 New Zealand

2006-02-14T20:59:00.000+13:00

Another 5am departure. We drive just past Collingwood (an hour out of Takaka) and take a turn off Farewell Spit Road just past long bridge over the Aorere River. We had planned to shoot in a eel infested river under one of the bridges on the main road, however when we turn into a side street we find a much more picturesque bridge over a river where the water is cleaner and we can safely put the camera underwater. We set up the 1Ds in the underwater housing unit and place it in the river (which is empty at low tide). We then set up the 20D on the bridge looking in the opposite direction. Between 9:30am and 9:45am the water level rises dramatically. It continues to rise at a rapid rate until around 11:00am when it is slack tide for over an hour. Unable to change batteries or memory cards on the underwater camera we wait until the water is at low tide again before we can remove it.

Day 5 New Zealand

2006-02-14T14:35:00.000+13:00

5am departure. After seeing the footage from the day before we decide to go back to Wairoa River “Taryn Island” and attempt to shoot it again. The weather on Sunday had been a bit miserable and without the right light on the island it all looked a bit dull. With the 1D in the same position as the previous day, and the 20D in the second position from the previous day we had both cameras set up fairly quickly. Knowing what to expect of the tide the day went much more smoothly and we were much more confident in the shots we were getting. The weather was near perfect all day long.

Day 4 New Zealand

2006-02-13T18:30:00.000+13:00

We depart at 5am and Rey and I head to the Wairoa River. After a few wrong turns we managed to arrive at the location I like to call “Taryn Island” around 6:30am.

We set up the 1D above the tide mark, and the 20D lower to the ground, closer to the tidal level. High tide was at approximately midday. Between 6:30am and 10:00am there is very little movement of water coming into the area. By 11:00am the 20D is nearly covered in water and has to be removed. Rey then sets it up in a second position to try and catch the tide going out. By the end of the day we wrap both cameras, and head back to town. First day of downloading footage goes until about 1am that morning.

Day 3 New Zealand

2006-02-12T18:27:00.000+13:00

Rey and I drive back to Abel Tasman National Park to recce. We start at Totaranui, then to Awaroa then back to Wainui Bay. All accessible areas in the National Park were beautiful but there are too many campers to be able to get a truly remote setting without footprints etc. So we travel back along the coast to Takaka recce’ing along the way at: Tata Beach, Ligar Bay, Phara, and Rototai.

Day 2 New Zealand

2006-02-11T18:07:00.000+13:00

We meet with Richard Cox, Beach Front Films, who is our local contact in Golden Bay and is going to spend the day with us scouting locations. At the end of a long day we have seen many beautiful places: Patons Rock, Onekaka, Tukurua, Parapapa, Milnthorpe, Collingwood, Pakawau, Whanganui Inlet, Westhaven, Paturau River, Puponga and Farewell Spit.

Late afternoon and we head back to Takaka dropping Richard off at his home in Patons Rock. With a little bit of light left in the day Rey and I continue on towards the Abel Tasman National Park. Trying to get a location with a higher vantage point for the camera, we stop about 20 minutes past Takaka at a lookout point over looking a white sand beach. Unfortunately it’s not quite the location we were after.

During the day it has become apparent that we are going to have to ship shot bags into Nelson from Wellington as there is nothing that we can use in the entire Nelson / Golden Bay region. With a little help from my Queenstown kiwi support group this is organised quite swiftly.

So after driving for 9 hours in a car all day I then have all 8 courier companies laugh at me for attempting to get my gear couriered from Nelson to Takaka at 5pm on a Friday evening. One friendly lady recommended I call the milk company and try to get the milkman to bring my package on his early Saturday morning delivery route.

After exhausting all resources I get back in the car and begin my drive to Nelson. After 1 and a half hours of driving though rain, sun, heavy fog, mountains, sun, light rain, left rain, right rain and sun again I arrive at the airport in Nelson pick up my package and head back doing it all over again, only this time in the dark.

Day 1 New Zealand

2006-02-10T18:00:00.000+13:00

It’s 6:45am and with two taxis full of equipment Rey and I head off to the airport. The Air NZ check-in counters were not as pleased to see our mass luggage as the taxi drivers had been. After an hour and half of talking I manage to get our excess fee reduced by a couple hundred dollars which makes me feel somewhat more at ease with the whole scenario.

When we arrive in Wellington we have to collect and declare all our luggage which leaves us exactly 6 minutes to board our next flight. Rey and I are instructed to run with our 3 trolleys to the gate and onto the tarmac where we watch the equipment get loaded onto the 33 seater Saab going to Nelson. Is it a plane or a car? I’m not exactly sure.

We arrive in Nelson and sit down at the airport café to eat for the first time today. If anyone has ever flown Air NZ they will be aware of the miniscule Turkish sandwiches they serve.

We pick up the hire car and drive 2 hours worth of winding roads around mountains and through farms to Takaka (Golden Bay).

We check in to the motel where we will be staying for the week and get some much needed sleep.

Day 13 Iceland

2005-10-28T16:30:00.000+13:00

We travel an hour out of Reykjavik to a fiord we had surveyed previously. After driving round for an hour and a half viewing the entire inlet we get the feeling we’re not seeing anything new and after viewing yesterdays footage we decide that the tide isn’t going to give us the movement we require. We head back to Reykjavik to re-assess our situation. By 1pm we have booked ourselves on a flight leaving early the next morning. After an interesting trip, with its fair share of frustrations, we’re really hoping we are going to have enough good footage we can use for the ad.

Day 12 Iceland

2005-10-27T16:28:00.000+13:00

We get an early start and head South from Stykkisholmur to an area called Hellnar. In the last few days the moon has been less full which means tidal change is lessening. We’re hoping Hellnar, which has many rocks and caves, will make a good mark to still see tidal difference. We set up both cameras, one on a high angle, the other closer to sea level. And wait. On wrap we drive back to Reykjavik.

Day 11 Iceland

2005-10-26T15:50:00.000+13:00

Drove back to Hvammsfjordur to set up one camera and try to pick up the shot from Sunday when the light was so dull. Rey and Frikki go to set up the second camera in Alftafjordur 20 minutes away. When they arrive they discover the spot is very different to when we had checked it out. It’s now completely covered in snow and the spot Rey had planned to set up camera is frozen solid. Luckily he finds another spot not too far away.

Day 10 Iceland

2005-10-25T15:49:00.000+13:00

Supposedly the last day of our trip but it’s obvious we are going to need at least another three days. We drive two hours to Reykholar. Sometimes it feels like the majority of our trip has been spent in the car. We set up both cameras at the point we had planned on our trip here on Friday. It was almost high tide when we start. At low tide it looks more like a large clump of mud and rocks and nothing like when we had been here before.

Day 9 Iceland

2005-10-24T15:46:00.000+13:00

Drove approximately 40 minutes out of town to Hvammsfjordur. Set up both cameras looking in the same direction but picking up different shots. Unlike the sunshine we had been in the previous day, the light is dull all day long and at 4pm it begins to snow. When darkness falls we travel back to Stykkisholmur to spend the night again.

Day 8 Iceland

2005-10-23T15:42:00.000+13:00

7am departure and we head 2 hours to Reykholar. We end up stopping at another place we had checked out the previous day. We set up one camera high on a hill and the other quite low to the sea level. It’s high tide when we start. By 6pm that evening the tide is very far out. Much of the area, which had been covered by sea when we arrived, had frozen and was now a mixture of ice, rock and mud. We wrapped and drove back to Stykkisholmur to stay the night.

Day 7 Iceland

2005-10-22T17:36:00.000+13:00

We say goodbye to Rafnar who has been our trusty guide for the past week. We are picked up by Frikki who will be with us for the remainder of our trip. Continuing North along the West coast we head towards Breidafjordur where Frikki tells us the biggest tidal changes are. We’ve set aside today for visiting our locations to work out suitability for shooting and assessment of any potential lighting or sound issues. After Breidafjordur we make our way to Alftafjordur which means Swan Fiord and then to Hvammsfjordur. We drive all the way to Reykholar which we reach about 6pm just as it is getting dark. This is the furthest point we plan to film at.

Day 6 Iceland

2005-10-21T17:24:00.000+13:00

The team is rapidly losing morale after six days with no usable shots. We decide to travel two hours back to Djupivagor to attempt to recover the lost shot from Tuesday due to the lens cap and fog.
We spend the day there and feeling a bit happier we travel 6 hours back to Reykjavik getting in just after midnight. We plan to head North along the West coast the next day.

Day 5 Iceland

2005-10-20T17:08:00.000+13:00

Half way through our 10 day shoot and nothing to show for it. We leave by 6.45 to make the hour trip once again to the glacier lagoon. When we arrive we see that the icebergs covering the beach and smaller and fewer than last time and we set up the 1Ds camera on the black sand just outside the lagoon. We set up the 20D looking in to the lagoon. After a long uneventful day we wrap up and travel one hour back towards Reykjavik to spend the night. We’re hopeful as we wait for the downloading. Unfortunately we discover there is no visible tidal movement in the lagoon. Just the icebergs moving side to side.

Day 4 Iceland

2005-10-19T13:07:00.000+13:00

We’re up and ready to go at 7.30am. We head 3kms out of town to check out the visibility of the only location we had been able to see the previous day. It is a mountain inlet. We can’t see much above the surrounded cliffs but we set up the 20D camera on a little pebble beach and walk to the Western side of the inlet to set up the 1D’s.

And then to our surprise, the weather finally clears. We see enormous mountains surrounding us from every direction. It’s a huge relief and our spirits are lifted. It’s upsetting to know that this is what we would have been seeing everywhere yesterday. But our joy is short lived. At approximately 2pm the fog rolls in and we lose complete visibility again. We sit through it, letting the cameras continue until dark.

On wrap we travel what should have been an hour drive to Hofn, but in this fog we crawl through, barely able to see 5 metres in front of us. It takes us over 2 hours. Downloading that night we see that at some point during the day the lens cap has been placed sideways and we have lost the edges of frame. This is a huge problem and we’re not sure if this can be fixed in post.

Day 3 Iceland

2005-10-18T15:58:00.000+13:00

We’re up early this morning hoping for a more successful day than yesterday. We make the 1 hour drive from our hotel back to the glacier lagoon. When we arrive we find that the fog is even lower than the previous day and there’s nowhere near enough light to be able to shoot. It’s not looking good. We check out the black sand beach just outside the glacier lagoon. When the icebergs melt they are carried out of the lagoon and are washed up on this beach. It’s quite a spectacular sight to see a beach covered in huge chunks of ice. However there is still not enough light to shoot. After much talk and consideration we decide to push on and jump in the car to travel further North along the East coast. We drive through Hofn and into Djupivogur – the first place that is clear of fog and we have actually been able to see. We continue North all the way to Egilsstadir. We’ve driven through snow, mudslides, farms, lakes and volcanoes – all completely covered in fog. It’s a depressing feeling. We attempt the narrow road to Mjoifjordur “Skinny Fiord”. We’re struggling to see more than 5 metres ahead of us. All around us is nothing but snow and fog. We begin to panic.

With every metre visibility gets worse and driving begins to get very dangerous. We are forced to turn around and head back to the main road. We travel along the whole East coast and can’t see anything until finally we arrive back in Djupivagor. After a frustrating day we decide to cut our losses and check into a hotel to spend the night. Population: 400.

Day 2 Iceland

2005-10-17T12:36:00.000+13:00

We awake to the thickest fog I’ve ever experienced in my life. Not a great start but we’re optimistic and jump in the car for the 2 hour trip to the lighthouse in Dyrholaey. We’re heading East along the Southern penninsula towards the glacier lagoon. When we arrive we make our way to the edge of the cliff. We’re supposed to be surveying a black sand beach surrounded by black rocks. Sounds good but in this fog - we can barely even see each other. We jump back in the car and drive to the beach we were meant to be able to see from our vantage point at the lighthouse.

It’s low tide and we charge into a cave and begin discussing the best places to set up camera. We’re soon told that if we attempt to film in here we will be trapped when the tide comes in and surely drown. Right, so we flag that plan.

Feeling slightly discouraged we continue on another 2 hours to the glacier lagoon. It’s now about 3pm and the light is very dull. We set up camera anyway to run a test for a couple of hours.

Day 1 Iceland

2005-10-16T09:31:00.000+13:00

We arrive in Reykjavik, Iceland after a seemingly never ending flight from Sydney via Heathrow. We’re met by our guide Rafnar from the True North and he takes us back to his office. We’re straight into it, looking at location pictures along with maps working out the logistics of this ambitious shoot. It’s going to be a full on 10 days!