Our new friends over at Trunk Films sent us a write up on their short film Highlands to Himalayas. The film chronicles the preparations of 23-year-old Steve Green in his attempts to climb Mount Everest.

Steve’s goal is to raise £30k for Cancer Research and Marie Curie.

This is a great short film that shows us the use of the 5D Mark II in rather harsh conditions (meaning lots of snow and cold). Here’s the write up:

Shooting in the Highlands of Scotland can be a logistical nightmare. Consider all the necessary camera equipment and hiking gear you might need to keep you warm and dry in the Highlands during the coldest winter in the UK for over 30 years. Travelling light is a necessity – with a bit of ingenuity and creativity, you can produce some awesome results with barebones crew & kit. In situations like this, DSLR’s come in to their own.

Kit List:

Canon EOS 7D & 5DmkII

Sigma 30mm f1.4 | 15mm f2.8 fisheye

Canon 85mm f1.8

Canon 24-105mm f4 L | 17-40mm f4 L

Rode NTG2 + Beachtek DXA 2s

Litepanels LED toplight | Reflector

Macbook Pro

Tripod | Monopod | Shoulder Mount

There are other camera options for a shoot like this – there’s a reason why pretty much the entire extreme sports filmmaking community use the Panasonic HVX200, it can handle harsh environments. This year though, the major players are beginning to adopt DSLR’s – expect 2010 to be a big year for these cameras in this genre.

As you would expect, battery performance was reduced by the cold weather. 2 full batteries were used over the course of a day (that’s not constantly shooting so you would expect that) but we were pleasantly surprised by the efficiency of the Canon LP-E6 given the temperatures. Although not weatherproof, the Canon 85mm & Sigma lenses held up well with dustings of snow.

Whilst filming on a frozen lake, we took the opportunity to try out some new ways of creating the look of a Steadicam. Attaching the 5D2 & Sigma 15mm Fisheye lens to the monopod (tightly) and inverting it produced some really interesting results (2.33 – with the added help of the ’smoothcam’ filter in FCP). The wide angle of the lens reduces the observable shake, and the weight of the camera acts as a counterbalance to the movement of your arm. You really have to concentrate on the movement of your wrist, as it’s not the vertical or horizontal movement that makes the difference, but the lateral twist of your wrist, something to work on! We’ve been playing around with this in a recent video on our blog…

http://www.trunkfilms.com/blog

Another essential invaluable piece of kit for a DSLR when shooting in bright conditions like the snowy landscape of the Highlands in the winter are ND filters. The ND filters stop down the light enough to give the camera operator the flexibility to find the right balance between shutter speed and aperture and get the shot. We used fixed ND filters but there are variable ND filters on the market that give you a great deal flexibility if you’re traveling light without a Matte box.

In post, it was imperative to achieve the right tone and colour grade appropriately. Using a combination of FCP’s colour grading tools with a little help from Magic Bullet, I think/hope the grading, pace, music and feel complemented the environment and subject we were shooting. Music by Tired Eyes ft. Cali P (myspace.com/hmobproductions)

Special thanks to Jake Schuhle-Lewis for still photography.

23 year old Stephen Green from Edinburgh will attempt to summit Everest this May to raise money for Cancer Research and Marie Curie, you can follow his progress & donate via twitter and his website. http://www.stephengreen.net

We wish him all the best on this most hazardous and epic of journeys.

Steve

http://www.trunkfilms.com

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