41
ESCAPE SHOOT STORY
eality shows are great but can be tiresome when based on nothing but a popularity contest. The new idea was to
lace the personality focus with an end goal that will hopefully knit the contestants together and at the same time chart their personalities and individual story arcs as well as showcasing human ingenuity. So, don’t just throw a bunch of estate agents, PRs and doctors on an island but be more constructive, literally. Escape throws engineers of all types into a situation where they need to ‘engineer’ some way of escaping the particular geography they find themselves in using what they find from the crash debris when they get there. The engineers ‘land’ at a crash site; these have been in the middle of a desert, jungle, mountains, desert island and glacier, with each terrain bringing uique challenges. All the crash sites are based on real life accidents and to add to the tension contestants are blindfolded up to the point they arrive at the site. It’s a great twist on the normal way of doing things and to record all of it Escape called up a pair of ‘reality’ veteran DOPs James Anderson and Daniel Etheridge. James has already worked on The Island, also on Channel 4. “The engineers land on this simulated crash site and they have a week to make a vehicle that will allow then to escape. Ex-SAS Ant Middleton is their team leader and our talent on screen. Myself and Dan the other DOP have been previously part of The Island With Bear Grylls . The survival part of it we’ve been involved with for over ten years.” Experience with this genre must give a great insight into how to improve the look or the way the cameras interact with the contestants. “A lot of the other shows have that gritty, edgy and raw type of style. We weren’t ever going to go away from that. Episode three is a really good example; we were in the jungle and the reality is you get things like mud smears all over the lens. We were never going to
leave that but our choice of cameras gave us the opportunity to become more cinematic.” The gear list included the Sony F55 as the main actuality camera, and the Canon EOS C300 Mark II on a crane, gimbal and slider, mainly used for night-time filming. The tiny Canon XF205 camcorder was used as the diary and on-the-run camera (the camera also has infrared so it would be used for some night shoots). Lenses were the Canon CN7x17 lens and the light Canon CN-E18-80mm cine servo which let the operators use the F55 over the shoulder for long periods, turning it into an ENG-style set up. A DJI Inspire 2 drone was also used to great effect. The team shot Log with the F55 and 12-bit with the C300 Mark II just to get the most of them. This cinematic look was also something that the director Sam Campbell pushed for. “Sam was a dream to shoot for,” says James. “He was really on board for the style side of things. He wanted a strong look and was fully supportive of what we were trying to do. Even in the grade he played around with the colours to emphasise what was already there.” CINEMATIC TOOLS So bring on the drones, sliders and cranes to ramp up the cinematic quota. “These tools add something extra to the series and something we never really did for The Island ,” says James. “We also wanted to show off the landscape where the simulated crashes are; they are very spectacular, it would have been a big waste not to shoot them this way. “There were distinct roles for all the cameras. The Sony F55s were the main handheld cameras for the engineers day to day, twinned with the Canon CN7x17 lens and the 18-80mm. They’re great to use for
LEFT Ant Middleton is the show’s host and a survival expert. ABOVE DOPs James Anderson (left) and Daniel Etheridge (right).
WE ALSO WANTED TO SHOW OFF THE LANDSCAPE WHERE THE SIMULATED CRASHES ARE; THEY ARE SPECTACULAR
@DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
@DEFINITIONMAGS |
@DEFINITIONMAGS
FEBRUARY 2018 DEFINITION
Powered by FlippingBook