Taking A Brevis flip to Everest Base Camp.

heavyG

heavyG

Underwater Giraffe Member
I'm producing a national TV commercial that we are shooting at Everest Base Camp. We fly out on Friday (April 18th), and then trek to EBC... Taking 2 HVX200's and a Brevis Flip.

8 Day trek (walking carrying gear) to get from the closest airport to the shoot location.

Dennis at Cinevate was nice enough to help us out by cross shipping the upgrade model, so we can take the latest model.
Andrew at Spec comm also quick shipped a second HVX so we can have as much coverage as possible.

we actually need to shoot 1 kilometre from base camp as there will be a film ban until May 10th, but I've been there before and it's spectacular in every direction.

Pics of the gear once it's packed, and pics / footage when we return.

G.
 
first question, how did you land a gig like that... I think that would be a good 75% of the members on DVXusers dream shoot.
 
I've been producing national and international tv spots for a while, it pays the bills so I can play on docs, and indie films.

Paid my dues, and I get the occasional perk.


G.
 
Sounds exciting!

What are you going to do to protect the Brevis from the cold?

I can only wonder what horrors the elements could have on the motor.
 
Rob, he's taking an MP.1 so other then the usual issues with very cold batteries, the unit should be fine. It gets down to -30C here in the winter, and I've shot in those conditions with the adapter.
 
Daytime temps fpr most of our route are 15-18C, exposed at basecamp daytime will be -5 to -8C. Not really all that cold, and certainly not as cold as in Thunder Bay where the unit is made and tested.


G.

Packing gear today to leave tomorrow.
 
It suddenly occured to me that with the existing MP.1 firmware and addition of a thermistor we could actually do temperature compensation...hmmm.
 
I just got back to Kathmandu this morning (night in NA) from a shoot at Everest Base Camp.

Battery power was the number one concern, we were on solar at base camp, and in the 'towns' leading up to it. Wired power was at least a 3-4 day walk from where we were shooting. Charging batteries was slow - slow - slow. Charging the offload computer (MacBook Pro) was even slower. (and in one place impossible)

This was however my 3rd trip to base camp and I knew that these problems existed; so I had 6 back-up batteries for the computer, 7 Panasonic batts for the camera as well as 2 Anton Bauer 10k Batteries.

Cold was not really a problem, other than in the early morning.

We had 3 - 32GB, 2 - 8GB, and 2 - 4GB cards, we shot in 720p-24pn so there was lots of time between dumps.

Power at base camp was not the only problem; politics was, and luckily our film liaison from the Nepali gov't smoothed almost all that out. We ended up with better access than the crew from the BBC who were shut out completely. Moral of that story - Do your homework, and fill out the forms!

Once I get back to Toronto next week I will post a longer story covering the gear we brought and what it took to shoot here.

G.
 
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