CHASING
ICEBERGS FOR READERS DIGEST SPECIAL
by RICHARD STRINGER, CSC
This
April, I worked on a pretty neat 16mm film shoot
- chasing icebergs off the coast of Newfoundland.
This was for a Readers Digest video library series
"Natures Rage", produced by Pangolin Pictures
of New York. In one week, myself, assistant Lori
Longstaff and soundman John Martin had some interesting
journeys - a day on a U.S. Hercules aircraft on
ice patrol, a voyage on the Canadian Coast Guard
icebreaker "Henry Larson", as well as
reconnaissance flights on its on-board MBB105 helicopter.
We managed to find several icebergs in our travels,
some on the open sea as well as a few surrounded
in pack ice. We finished off our shoot in Halifax
at the gravesites of the victims of the Titanic.
It was the 85th anniversary of the sinking of the
Titanic - when we were on the U.S. military flight
they went down to 500 feet at the actual site of
the tragedy and dropped two wreaths.
I used an "Arri on a stick" to film the
ice break up from a more advantageous viewpoint
over the edge of the bow. It's just an aluminum
pole with a bracket for my old Arri S - fitted with
my 777 Sony pencil cam for video assist, thanks
to a $6.99 plumbing fixture which attaches to the
viewfinder.
