When Sky asked us to produce a short film of the Amazon in 3D for their Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign, we knew we were in for a challenge. The fact that Sky was aiming to showcase this in an interactive pod around the UK in an attempt to raise £2 million to help save one billion trees in the Brazilian rainforest, whilst also promoting awareness of environmental issues and sustainability, made this a creative, worthwhile cause that we felt privileged to be involved with.
A behind-the-scenes clip, showing the challenges we faced filming in the Amazon.
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The general consensus is that 3D is limited to controlled, set-up environments due to the size of the equipment and the complex workflow. But Sky, keen to push these limits, wanted a hand-held feel for this film and therefore approached us as a production company specialising in observational documentaries. We were undoubtedly excited as this would be our first foray into 3D filming.
As commissions go, this had to be one of the most demanding. Having spent the previous few months noticing the buzz and excitement around 3D in the TV industry, it was great to be able finally to get our hands dirty and find out what all the fuss was about. And the best part: we had just one week to organise it!
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Originally it was planned to film in the region of Acre, which is where the Sky Rainforest Rescue sponsorship programme operates. However, situated to the far west of the Amazon, near Peru, the logistics and costs of this location made it impossible, so we relocated the shoot to the district around Manaus. Here there was plenty of forest, a rich variety of animals and indigenous tribes to be found, while still being close enough to civilization should anything go wrong.
We had just five days to film everything so couldn’t afford any serious delays. But we all knew the location would throw up plenty of challenges for both people and equipment, being both a yellow fever and malaria area, intensely humid, and prone to torrential rain every day for six months of the year, which would include the time we were there – a testing environment indeed for the array of electronics we would be relying on.
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On a previous shoot in Los Angeles, we had met Bruce Austin (3D Stereographer) and Sean Coles (Cinematographer) from BAP and 3Rive Productions, respectively. They had built a clever little prototype Si2k beam-splitter 3D rig that was small, light and worked with Schneider 8mm wide angle Cinegon lenses. The feed from both cameras was perfectly synced and they were able to output into one single QuickTime file onto a Cinedeck unit mounted on the back of the rig. We had evaluated all the options prior to the shoot, from REDs to EX3s, but all were too big, heavy and/or clunky. The Si2K ticked all the boxes; it was slimline, very easy to handle and operate, and made ENG style filming in 3D a reality.
Bruce and Sean decided to throw in a second Si2k side-by-side camera with XA4x7.5DA-1 (7.5 to 30) Fujinon C-mount lenses for the close-up shots. This recorded onto a 1 Beyond hard drive unit, just in case the Cinedeck failed in the notorious Amazon humidity.
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Richard Rasmussen
The flamboyant Richard Rasmussen is one of Brazil’s top wildlife TV presenters whom we had worked with on previous projects. He spends most of his time travelling around the wildlands of Brazil and was an ideal candidate for this production. His English was a little rusty, but it was good enough and his engaging style of presentation more than made up for any slightly odd grammar.
The plan was to show Richard walking through the forest, as he pointed out all kinds of creatures – monkeys, snakes, tarantulas, lizards, parrots, insects – as he encountered them, while at the same time informing us about the plight of the trees and climate in the rainforest.
In other sequences, he would dance to the strains of panpipes with local tribespeople, feed pink river dolphins and climb high above the forest canopy on a huge tower. Richard’s walkabout was to offer visitors to the pod a rich and varied experience of this part of the Amazonian rainforest.
Adam Docker would put the camera down for a change and concentrate on directing (that was the idea anyway).
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Left to Right: Sean Coles, Pedro Guimaraes (Asst Camera), Tiago Bittencourt (Soundman)
First day of the shoot and it pours with rain. Because of the humidity, one of the recording units shuts down resulting in filming coming to a worrying halt.
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Every shot had to be meticulously studied after every take to check for any raindrops or humidity on the lenses, insects and lens flare. It is definitely a slow process and it felt like working with a complicated film camera, probably a little more slower because there are so many factors to take into consideration that don’t exist in 2D.
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Freeman White, 2nd Asst. Camera
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Filming scene: Richard Rasmussen dancing with the Dessana tribe
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The Cinedeck is an incredible piece of kit. As well as serving as our recording unit, it allowed us to replay footage back and to check the images coming from both lenses. We were also able to view both live pictures, as well as rushes, in anaglyph mode. This is not a perfect image, but it did allow us to check whether the I/O (interocular), or 3D effect, was too much or too little. Bruce, the stereographer, was very rigorous in looking after this. Because there were lots of trees and branches appearing in the foreground, we kept the I/O – or the distance between the two cameras – to a minimum (between 1/4 and 1/2 inch), so that it wasn’t too disturbing on the eye.
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Adam viewing the rushes on the Cinedeck with anaglyph glasses.
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Filming the Chief of the Dessana tribe playing his drum
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Despite the dark interior, the Si2K read it really well and we were able to push the picture in post without it breaking up. The offline edit was done at in-house at Red Earth Studio and all post was done at Prime Focus, London.
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Adam taking his director's hat off and giving filming a go
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The style of the film is ob-doc, handheld and we predominantly used the beam splitter camera using Schneider 8mm Cinegons, wide angle fixed lenses. When we needed to film close up shots we would use the side by side camera with XA4x7.5DA-1 (7.5 to 30) Fujinons as well as the Linos 30mm lenses. All of the lenses were C-Mounts.
As the lenses were independent from one eye to the other, it meant every time we changed frame on the Fujinons they required calibration, thus slowing down the shoot. We resolved this by shooting as much as we could on the wide and then repeating the scene again on the tighter lenses.
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A Bald Ukari monkey, also nicknamed "English monkey" by the locals because of their red face, gives Sean a hard time and like everyone else in the forest, seems to be demanding some form of payment for being filmed.
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Tiago getting friendly with a monkey
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Looking for tarantulas
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Filming in the forest is dark! And there is only a short window to film in it, between 10am to 3pm, which doesn’t leave much time to get everything done. Dark rain clouds make it even worse. Why didn’t we film with a portable light, some have asked. We did think about it, but on top of all the equipment we had to carry as it was, an extra battery pack and lights would have been a burden on the small crew that we had and on excess baggage as well. We wanted to keep the scenes as natural as possible and a light would have created shadows and an unnatural look.
When it got too dark to film one of the scenes with a tarantula, we took the spider on a short walk, took some leaves from the forest floor, had a couple of the crew hold them behind Richard as a prop and filmed the scene on the road, away from the shadows. Two minutes later the heavens opened and an almighty deluge forced us to rush back to our cabin.
And yes, we returned the spider where we found it.
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Richard doing a piece to camera while walking through a stream
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We happened upon this enormous Bird Eating Tarantula by chance, unfortunately it never made the edit
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The massive Bird Eating Tarantula
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Filming pink river dolphins in the Amazon river. One of the challenges we faced filming on water were polarisation issues, meaning one eye would see reflection on the water, whereas the other eye would see through the water. In a more controlled environment we would have played around with polariser filters, but we didn’t have the time, so we positioned the camera where it had the least amount of reflection.
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Richard feeding the dolphins
The dolphins bump into you, nuzzle on your legs, jump out of the water and splash you, making filming difficult and perilous with the expensive camera. Should Sean get hit and slip in the water, it would be up to Adam to save it, assuming his reactions were quick enough.
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That's a wrap
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Together With Richard Rasmussen and that dastardly snake!