Following the Footsteps of Robert Flaherty

I have a weather app on my iPhone that shows the current weather conditions in some of the more interesting locations that I have filmed or photographed at, outside the New York area.  Much of the time it is little more than a conversation piece between myself, Sarah and an assistant or two that traveled with me.  It’s fun to add a “weather snapshot” to a story I’m relating and this particular app cost under a buck.

Usually, if you’re down to talking about the weather, it is already pretty a boring conversation, except when the location is Igloolik.

I could have easily guessed from the name that we would not be filming in a tropical paradise, yet, it has to be one of the most beautiful locations I have had the privilege to film in.

To take a step back for a moment, a soft-spoken and often silent director brought me onboard the project after I had shot some interviews and B-Roll for him in Manhattan.  Mac Dara O’Curraidhn, was from Galway, in the west of Ireland.  He was working on a documentary that was following the footsteps of legendary filmmaker, Robert Flaherty.  

"Flaherty was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film, Nanook of the North (1922).   Of the eleven completed filmed that Flaherty produced, only Nanook of the North had commercial success."

Something he desperately tried to reproduce in the other ten. 

Dr. Brian Winston, a brilliant, feisty little British gentelman, penned our script.  He is an Emmy winning writer, scholar and author of several books on the subject of film.  He was also the Dean of Communications, at the University of Lincoln, UK, and every conversation was truly a delight.  It was like having my own personal, college level film course and I was getting paid to attend.  Sweet!

My leg of the journey involved three of Flaherty’s films:  Nanook of the North, The Twenty-four Dollar Island and The Louisiana Story and I would be traveling to Hollywood, Boston, Vermont, Ottawa, Louisiana and of course, Igloolik.

Two of his other well-known films, Man of Aran and Moana were covered by local DPs, due to budget restrictions.

Twenty-four Dollar Island is a stoic, silent film shot mostly around New York Harbor.  The imagery was stark and dirty inspiring my first New York City film, STEAM View Steam


Mac Dara had begun the filming in PAL HDCAM and I rented a Sony F900 to film interviews and b-roll around Manhattan.  It was only after I showed him some footage from my Sony EX3 that he agreed to switch to XDCAM.  Fortunately the EX3 will film in PAL as well as NTSC.  That means more potential production work from a larger client base for us.

The Louisiana Story was more of a docu-fiction.  A propaganda film created by Flaherty for the Standard Oil Company, illustrating the virtues dropping wells all over the Louisiana bayou. 

So, Arion and I, along with Mac Dara and Kay, our production manager, traveled down to Avery Island, near Lake Charles, Louisiana, to interview the star of that film. 

The island held the locations for several scenes in the film.  It is also the home of Tabasco Sauce.  No matter where in the world you see it on your table, it came from Avery Island.   It was on their property we that we were filming, so, we stood in 90% humidity, in 90-degree shade, learning all about Tabasco sauce from the company’s historian.   

Avery Island is one of the weather locations on my phone.

The lead character in The Louisiana Story was around 12 when the film was made.  Now, he was in his 60s.  He and his wife were absolutely charming.  They lived in a small white trailer, surrounded by dozens of chickens, which made for a very lively audio track. 

Mac Dara interviewed him about the making of the film and then we drove to the site where, in the film, he allegedly fought with an alligator.  I filmed a few alligators, turtles and spiders of my own to mimicing some of the shots in Flaherty's film.

A few days later, we were to head up towards Ottawa to film Flaherty's granddaughter and then further north to Igloolik, deep within the Arctic Circle.

On occasion, the Canadian government can be fairly strict when it comes to working and filming permits, which I found out late in the game, had not been obtained.  After some heated discussion, it was decided we would cross the boarder as tourist/filmmakers, rather than an actual crew.   In the future, I sincerely recommend getting the permits to avoid any hassles and the very real possibility of being sent back home at your own expense.

Igloolik is a small village in the northern most part of Hudson Bay.  It took us three flights to get there and at each leg of the journey, the airports and the airplanes, each got much smaller. 

It was early spring, so the temperature was a hearty 20-degrees.

A few weeks prior to the trip, Kay informed me that the local food consisted of fish and decayed walrus meat.  As I am allergic to fish and thought of walrus was iffy, I packed plenty of instant soup and energy bars.  Upon arriving, we toured the town and found their local market stocked with every product Oscar Mayer and Sarah Lee, ever sold.  

Food was no longer an issue, although, clothing still was.

The local Inuit people are quite used to the cold and laughed when they saw what we considered to be “extreme weather” clothing.  I don’t remember the exact word they used, but “gringo” would be a safe substitute.

A short while later, Kay arrived with special cold-weather coats, pants and boots for our journey out onto the ice.  The coats were big, bulky with a fur-lined hood and remarkably warm, like the type you’d see in National Geographic magazine.  Apparently, many geese gave up their feathers for our comfort and safety.

Our sled, little more than a plywood box on skids, sat about 60 feet off the shore, tethered not to a team of huskies, but to a snowmobile driven by our guide, Jason Kannuk.  As the rope became taught, we jerked into motion, bouncing over large ice shards and crevices broken only by an occasional glide through a large, turquoise pool of water.  All very exciting in the beginning, but a bit tiring as the hours moved on.

Mac Dara wanted to film seal and walrus at the edge of the ice and although we saw many off in the distance, they all made a quick escape through small holes in the ice as we approached.  We settled for filming our guides fishing for Atlantic Char in the icy waters of a snow-banked stream on a nearby island.  Still, quite dramatic and preferred over the clubbing of seals.

For this leg of the journey, I chose to bring the Sony EX1 and a smaller Manfrotto tripod.  Space was very limited on the smaller aircraft and as usually, I refuse to check my cameras into cargo for safety reasons.  Although the camera returned stunning images, it was perhaps the wrong camera for this particular occasion.  The bright ice made it difficult to focus using the camera’s monitor and the rear viewfinder was not yet improved as it has been on the EX1R.  At times, simple shooting was a bit of a challenge and I longed for the EX3's viewfinder and long lens capabilities.

The upside of filming in the arctic this time of year is that the sun continually remains in the sky 24 hours.  Our production day was endless.   Unfortunately, our energy was not and at one point, after schlepping camera and tripod through snow up to our waists in winds upwards of 30 mph, Arion and I were exhausted.  Partially, from laughing about it.

After one additional, 20 minute interview, we bid our friends goodbye, got back in our sled and made the three-hour journey back to the village.  The bumping across the ice seemed endless, but we finally reached the shores of Igloolik.  A warm shower, a hot meal and we hit the sack.

The documentary is near completion and will be aired on the BBC and many other stations around the world.   I’m really proud to have been a part of it.

On really cold days, Sarah and I laugh about the fact that it is probably colder in Igloolik and she pulls out her Iphone to prove it.  Even though we are heading into the warm days of spring, I still miss that arctic explorer coat.

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