Last November we traveled to Alaska to get winter landscape footage that we needed for a project for Nu Skin. To help create a holiday atmosphere in the atrium of Nu Skin’s Innovation Center we were commissioned to create a high resolution video loop of holiday images for the “Dream Wall” (a giant jumbotron sized screen that fills the length of the far wall in atrium). Part of the video loop needed some wide-open winter landscapes. On some years we’d have plenty of that in Utah in mid-November, but this year we didn’t have any snow so we decided to take the crew to Alaska.
The scenery was breathtaking and we enjoyed the clear skies, snow, ice, and spectacular hoar frost. The sun, which stayed low in the sky all day long, made for some beautiful light no matter what time of the day we were shooting.
The aerial footage was shot from a helicopter at 90 frames per second and then retimed and motion stabilized. We took an Alpine Air Alaska helicopter tour out of Girdwood. We had a small motion controlled dolly system that we used for most of the other footage. We were surprised at how well our batteries, and the RED EPIC camera performed at temperatures like -19F all day long. It sure is a well-built and rugged camera. We did have a lens filter and some cables for the motion control system shatter in the cold, but other than that we survived filming pretty well in the conditions.
When the project was finished it included 20 minutes of looping footage that played in the Innovation Center throughout the month of December. We decided to make a director’s cut of the project for two reasons: we needed a shorter version of the project to show as a sample of our work in our portfolio, and there was a lot of beautiful footage left over that didn’t make the cut.
After posting this video of Alaska we received requests to post it to the homepage of MSN.com, and alaskadispatch.com. The video was also shared on several travel sites and blogs around the world, and is now the most relevant video when you search “alaska” on vimeo.com.