Sometimes we resort to foolish endeavors in order to conform to, or preserve, our spirit of adventure. Here Gordon decided to rappel in his kayak down the face of Tissisat Falls in order to avoid another portage.
"Actually it was easier than walking around, made an interesting IMAX shot and put me in the water ahead of the raft so I could receive it and prevent it from going over the next waterfall... at least that sounded like a good excuse for having a little fun with the camera.... When shooting skiing occasionally you will get someone who wants to huck themselves off some hundred foot head-wall into an unknown landing to be "Immortalized" on camera, we call this "Kodak Courage" and generally try to discourage it if we feel that this is the true motivation. It is seldom the professional talent you are working with day in and day out that resort to this, or at least if they do you know they will stick the landing, it is more often the uninitiated who wants to prove they have what it takes to be in the film... Ironically there is a high price for injury to everyone on the crew even if it isn't one of your people..."
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"Expeditions are the lifeblood of adventure filmmaking. In the process of classic filmmaking the primary object and cinematic responsibility is to subjugate the photography to the story, however film being a visual medium we are always looking for new ways to record our experiences...."
Gordon jumps off a waterfall next to Doug Ammons in Chiapas Mexico. This was only after free-diving the landing to check the depth and building a special underwater housing. "It is hard to imagine the exhilaration when all the elements come together to give you such an eloquent way to get a shot."
Thangboche Monastery on the way to Everest. "The Sun had not quite melted the previous night's snow from the brush in the foreground when I grabbed this shot."
There are times when it is prudent to qualify your mode of travel "While scouting the Nile for "Mystery of the Nile" IMAX we flew low on the river in this old Russian MI17. When we would bank you could feel the whole helicopter shake under the strain. I kept thinking about how many aircraft I had heard about now living in the bottom of the Grand Canyon and wondering how much time these pilots had on the stick"
Gordon with crew on Kilimanjaro filming "3 Peaks 3 Weeks" with Serac Adventure Films "Our biggest challenge was getting far enough ahead to set up our jib before the 10 girls we were filming showed up. Luckily the guides were pacing them very well, In this case we only had to ask them to stop for a minute or so while we found the shot and set up the Microjib."
"I have modified all of the equipment I own to be as portable and fast as possible since I don't have the luxury of operating out of the back of a camera car on most shoots, we are usually miles from the nearest road...." |
