SHOOT STORY | FREE SOLO
We couldn ’ t ask him to go back and do it again... I’m pretty sure that every single shot we set up is in the film.” “I was also shooting a National Geographic assignment on top of it,” Jimmy continues. “I was shooting on the Canon EOS-1D X so I could film and then switch over to shoot video. I had triple duty because I was directing as well... I’m using it as a handheld photo camera, no kind of rig on it. Everything is pared down to the minimum. Every ounce counts. You’re up there, you have food and water
the team has the capacity to rig their own ropes and set up their own systems to free up their hands to shoot.” The 1000mm lens chosen for those long-distance shots was Canon’s hugely capable Cine-Servo 50-1000mm T5.0- 8.9 zoom, riding a Shotover mount on a helicopter. Jimmy chose the Red Epic Dragon 6K camera for this situation, seeking some extra, spare resolution to punch in even further. Most of the production, though, was shot with Canon equipment. “We worked with Canon on a lot of very specific to our needs. We used a lot of the Canon primes, and then shot on the C300 Mark II for a lot of it, in 4K... we really used all kinds of cameras depending on what we needed it for, but probably 75% of it Jimmy and his team used several of Canon’s L-series EF zooms, including the 24-70mm f/2.8, the 16-35mm f/4, the 24-105mm f/4 and the 70-200mm, as well as the 14mm f/2.8 and CN-E 35mm T1.5 primes. With the drive for truly cinema-grade images in mind, Jimmy describes the CN7x17 17-120mm T2.95 Cine-Servo lens as “our primary lens for both vérité shooting and on the wall throughout the production.” the production. Obviously the 50-1000mm is a very unique lens and something that was was on the C300 Mark II.”
for the day, your layers in case it rains, batteries... it adds up quickly when you’re covering a lot of terrain in the vertical space. We don’t have craft services. Everybody filming on the high-angle team has to be totally self-sufficient.” DRONE FREE
DID YOU KNOW? It’s illegal to shoot with drones in US national parks
Perhaps surprisingly, given their popularity, there was very little use of drones. Jimmy tells us that “you can’t film with drones in the national parks. In Yosemite we couldn’t use drones [and] we didn’t want to bother Alex with a little drone flying around, so we shot from very far away with a 1000mm lens.” Usually, climbing is not an activity that leaves the hands free for camerawork, and Jimmy’s team used special approaches to make the shoot possible. “Everybody on
The Canon 50- 1000mm is a very unique lens, specific to our needs
ABOVE Jimmy’s whole team had to know how to rig their own ropes to leave hands free for shooting.
34 DEF I N I T ION | OCTOBER 20 1 8
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