Earth at Night in Color

From Teddy Bear to Polar Bear:

Aspirational Images and how to plan and use them.

One of most rewarding images of my career began with the theft of my son’s stuffed toy. I snuck “Silver King" off Wil’to a pile of camera kit jammed into the family car.  I’d be using the toy and some special tools to create a mock-up of an Aspirational Image and hopefully convince an overseas client that I was the right person to shoot their film.

One of the most useful questions I ask a new client at the beginning of a project is “what single image would tell the entire story of your film?”.  This Aspirational Image and the conversations around it focus our energies and set the tone for how I’ll approach their project. The producer responded with:

“A wild polar bear at night lit only by the moon”

In a dark forest atop a local mountain, I began to translate that phrase into an image by building a small arctic set, spreading out a white tarp on scattered apple boxes and then perched Silver King atop it.  Working with ambient moonlight, I exposed for the stars in the background and began to experiment by shooting my “bear”.

The first shots were uninspiring and confirmed my suspicions that night footage of a bear without stars in the frame looked like lousy, grainy day-lit footage. It’s critical to see stars in the sky for the audience to understand the uniqueness of the image.

Seeing those stars forced the camera into a low position, shooting up at the subject and into the night sky while a wide lens captured more stars and a far more interesting and immersive image.  This wider lens, in turn, demanded a closer proximity to the bear—REALLY close and this approach runs contrary to a primarily goal of natural history cinematography: Don’t Get Eaten.

Within a couple hours I had my image and answers. Our Aspirational Image would require the following elements:

1. actively operating a

2. low-light camera and

3. wide-angle prime lens

4. a few feet from a wild bear

5. with with the moon and stars in the shot,

6. back-lighting the bear,

7. in the darkness without any artificial illumination (even the dim light from a cell phone would completely overexpose everything in the shot).

8. All this should be done without harming bear or crew.

9. Oh, and the bear should be facing camera. 

Getting these variables to line up at the right time became a very complex conversation who’s technical details are still firmly covered by a non-disclosure agreement. It is public knowledge that we used a Canon ME20 and more information on the project can be found here in an interview with showrunner Alex Williamson.

Months of planning, fabricating and testing finally led to a single night where the full moon sat low on the horizon while the temperatures sat even lower (-30 C).  The clouds parted for a moment while a huge male bear stepped forward into a nicely edge-lit frame while the moon and stars shone behind him. My friend and AC Tim Laks slid the camera across the snow as I panned the camera and pulled focus.  A sprig of grass helpfully presented itself as foreground while the bear kindly stretched his neck for a sniff.   Our brave (there’s no other word for it) producer and leader Robin Dimbleby reminded us not to fuck it up- we’d be waiting for this moment on location for two weeks.  It was a magical and terrifying and hugely rewarding moment. 

One reason I love sharing this story is that it demonstrates the concept of “making” a shot with a team rather than “taking” a shot in the moment.  I work across genres: from Hollywood TV series, to commercials and documentaries and I’m convinced that this pre-visualizing is key to achieving great work regardless of the project.  Even in natural history, where SO much is uncontrolled, cinematographers can benefit by preparing for the “ideal” image, both conceptually and technically.  This is an approach I try to use in all my work.

The money, time, trust and pressure expended to put our camera into that perfect place was significant and it was highly rewarding to see the shot featured in the trailer for the series on Apple +. And yes, Silver King was safety returned to his den.