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Off the beaten track When trekking across the Arizona wilderness for an epic five-day shoot, Blackmagic’s Pocket Cinema Cameras proved rugged yet light companions
T here are big challenges when you trek the Grand Canyon for five days, both physically and mentally. But this arduous journey is one of five feats of endurance that athlete Leo Gripari undertook to fundraise for sustainable water projects in Uganda, documented in the feature film Maji . The strikingly visual film tells a story of these gruelling efforts in five continents, as well as broader issues around water sustainability and how it affects local communities – and on a global level. Charged with filming the epic journey, DOP Richard Jephcote talks us through everything in his kitbag on the Grand Canyon section of the trip. Grand tour Slogging through the Grand Canyon wilderness, key kit concerns are weight, battery life and media as there’s nowhere to charge a battery or power a laptop. The whole trip is built around how much a team can carry. You are expected to take your tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food and water for the full five days. As we were trekking in November, starting and ending most days in the dark, we needed a full
range of warm winter clothing, along with shorts and T-shirt for the daytime. Everything we needed for filming was in addition to what we had to carry to survive. So while trekking equipment is purpose-built to be light, DZOFILM lenses and V-Lock batteries really aren’t. And we needed the camera built and ready to go, working within a strict timeline to hit all our milestones. On top of this, creative decisions made for the rest of the film had to continue throughout, so that this challenge didn’t feel removed from the style established elsewhere. Lens choice, for example, had to be consistent. In my bag was a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro, kitted up as a shoulder rig with a DZOFILM 20-55mm T2.8 Pictor Zoom lens, a monitor, filters and V-Lock batteries. Producer Tom Neish, from production company Biscuit Bunker, was carrying a DZOFILM 50-125mm T.2.8 Pictor Zoom, drives and a lightweight Benro tripod. That left the director, Charli, carrying a Pocket Cinema Camera 4K with a Meike prime lens on a DJI Ronin RS 2 motorised gimbal. The recommended weight for trekking is up to 18kg but we were each carrying closer to 25kg.
Most of our filming was a case of me throwing the Cinesaddle down and unzipping the 6K Blackmagic, shooting quickly then moving on. There were no retakes or covering a particular scene from different angles. There simply wasn’t time to do that and complete the day’s trek before nightfall. Our guide was pretty strict, and of course we needed to hit all the targets – from the South Rim to the North Rim and back again in five days. The camera team was also racing back and forth to leapfrog Gripari and get shots ahead and behind him. All the creative decisions are being made in the moment. There’s no recce, no pausing and no doubling back to get the shot. We downloaded all our cards to two LaCie BOSS SSDs, which have their own batteries – and back up directly from the card reader. These also connect to an app on my phone, so I didn’t have to blindly trust that the data had been backed up. As it got cold, our limited battery supply ran the risk of draining away in the night, so all batteries slept soundly alongside us in our sleeping bags to keep them warm. The 6K Pro was chosen because it’s compact, light and produces a lovely
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