ASSIGNMENTS 2000

A busy year with a challenging a IMAX film in Antarctic & BBC documentaries in Pakistan & the European Alps

IMAX & TV DOC "SHACKLETON" FOR WGBH (USA)

The incredible survival story of Shackleton's legendary Antarctic Expedition, across the Weddell sea ice to Elephant Island then across the ocean to South Georgia. The filming was a two year project with Poles Apart organising the logistics and safety. Film & Mountain were particularly involved in filming the crossing glaciers and mountains of the remote and beautiful island of South Georgia in the second year.

Particular challenges were posed by the weight and bulk of the IMAX camera especially rigging for one scene inside a crevasse on a remote glacier accessed by a long Zodiac trip through a maze of sea ice, brash and impressive icebergs.


A Filming the IMAX version of Shackleton took the crew to South Georgia in the Southern Atlantic. Heavy camera gear had to be moved across icy waters and crevassed glaciers in one of the most stunning landscapes on earth.

B Reconstructing Shackleton's epic journey required filming in dramatic glacial locations.

C Brian Hall of Film & Mountain has rigged camera positions down numerous crevasses for different films. This one on the IMAX film was particularly dramatic.





"MOUNTAIN MEN" BBC2 DOCUMENTARIES

Dir/ prod Mick Conefrey

The three programs have won many awards for best mountain films at Banff, Trento and Kendal Film Festivals.

Three, one hour documentaries on the first ascents of K2 (Pakistan), Matterhorn (Switzerland) and Denali (Alaska). Film & Mountain helped organise logistics, mountain safety, rigging and acting and stages dramatic reconstructions for all three programs.

A month long expedition to K2 (2nd highest mountain in the world) in the Karakorum mountains of Pakistan was both eventful and rewarding. Impressive views of K2, Gasherbrums, Trango and Broad Peak were hard won with nightmare bureaucracy, dodgy curries, poor hygiene, long high altitude days on the Baltoro glacier, jeep trips with engine fires and flash flood mudslides.

The first ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper was one of the defining moments of mountaineering. Stephen Venables played Whymper and Cubby Cuthbertson his modern day partner as we filmed an ascent of the Hornli Ridge. It is a popular climb so on the 12 hour ascent day we had to get up at 3 am so as to get the helicopter shots of the summit before other climbers arrived and well before afternoon thunderstorms. We spent a week in Zermatt recreating the story - falls in period dress, freezing cold for 2 hours on the knife edge summit, repeating sections of the climb and interviews.

There is little or no film of these ascents so Mick planned a series of dramatic reconstructions, so successful that several leading historians were fooled into commenting "where did you get all that old footage?" Most of these were filmed around the Mont Blanc region of the alps with Film & Mountain involved in every aspect of the shoot from location finding, safety and acting.


A Reconstructing the first ascent of K2 for the BBC entailed a light 3 man crew (Camera, director and Film & Mountain safety/guide) visiting this remote mountain in NW Pakistan. Here Keith Partridge films the mountain from Concordia.

B John Whittle, Brian Hall & Paul Moores of Film & Mountain take a turn at the other side of the camera whilst reconstructing the first attempts on Mt McKinley, Alaska.

C The epic story of Whymper's first ascent of the Matterhorn took days of work on this dramatic peak.