The MOVI Pro, Red Epic and Cooke Mini S4 at work in the snow
Sully and I just returned from an unbelievable shoot in Sweden for our partners at Garden & Gun Magazine and Volvo.
The shoot took us all over the country from the Volvo factory in Gothenburg all the way up north to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi.
Perhaps the most challenging and the most fun shoot along the way was documenting our dog sledding excursion from the airport in Kiruna up a frozen river to the Ice Hotel.
Prepping gear and balancing the MOVI Pro next to a block of ice
The day began with an early morning spent loading up our 16 cases of gear and flying from Gothenburg to Kiruna, with a layover in Stockholm. Once we arrived in Kiruna and collected all of our gear, we headed to a tee-pee, where a hot meal and some extreme-cold-weather clothing was waiting for us. While eating lunch as quickly as possible, we suddenly heard the sound of the dogs arriving! We had less than one hour to eat, get dressed AND unpack and prep all of our gear to shoot the dog sled trip. This was crazy stressful and was made even more so by the nonstop sound of howling and barking dogs.
To document the trip, we hired a snowmobile outfitted with a sled for Sully and I to shoot from. Our plan was to use our Red Epic mounted on a MOVI Pro to capture very stable shots while underway. For stationary shots, I had a Sony A7s II and tripod to use when we hopped off of the sled.
Operating the MOVI Pro using the Mimic Controller
After much speculation, and a frantic rush to get everything mounted and balanced, I am stoked to say that the system worked! Sully held the MOVI Pro, and I operated the camera with the mimic controller. We used the Redmote to control the Epic, including stop start and ND control for the PL Motion Mount we had on the Epic. (The new MOVI Pro will control an Epic, but unfortunately, we did not have the correct cable.)
We used our awesome (and economical) hdmi wireless video system from Nyrius to feed to a SmallHD AC7 monitor. I was even able to pull focus wirelessly on our Cooke Mini S4 lenses using our Ikan PD Movie Air Pro Wireless Follow Focus.
It was insane to think we could pull all of this off so quickly, but I’ll be damned if it didn't work! Definitely one of the top 10 craziest things we have attempted and pulled off.
Thanks so much to Gordon Keiter for the great GoPro shots of us at work and for busting a$$ on the trip!
Adam Boozer