Back to work on the XL Outer Worlds IMAX film. This time on the far west end of Canada shooting in the deep forests looking for old growth trees!
Unfortunately with the change of provincial government in British Columbia, many logging companies are concerned that legislation will come forward banning the logging of these nearly millennia old trees. So of course their response is to rapidly cut down as many of them as possible!
Internationally acclaimed artist Kelly Richardson directed this segment of the XL outer worlds project, Called Embers of The Giants. Her piece is specifically about the plight and destruction of these incredibly ancient pieces of the Canadian landscape.
We had great help from several volunteers from the University of Victoria and local forest preservation activists. It was a very challenging shoot, even though not in stereoscopic 3D like the Jakarta shoot, it still required carrying very heavy IMAX Alexa 65 cameras and their accessories deep into the forest. One location in particular involved 45 minutes of hiking in to uncut trail in the darkness before sunrise! A portion of the film also called for shooting panoramic plates, which involved carrying two cameras on a custom build plate and all their accessories down a muddy cliff into a rain forest. It was only the last day that I realized that I could fit the stripped camera into the backpack I brought my clothes in! Definitely made the hike easier!
