- Hey guys, Brian Hunt with you for another video.
This is gonna be a series of a few videos.
This is the first one on tips
for shooting outside in the cold.
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So it's about minus 10 right now,
minus 10 Celsius for you people in Canada,
for you guys in the U.S., Fahrenheit,
I don't know Fahrenheit,
so minus 10 Celsius sounds even colder to you guys.
I shoot outside in the cold in winter in Canada quite a bit.
A lot of my work,
I'd probably say 80% of my work, is outdoors.
A lot of tourism stuff, a lot of sporting things
and, in the wintertime in Canada, it's cold.
So, I spend a lot of times outside on days like today
when it's very cold and it's very challenging.
And over this 15 years of me doing this,
I've figured out some tips and tricks on,
one, how to stay warm when you're out there shooting
and the kind of best equipment to wear
or the best clothing to wear and options to have
and also for keeping your equipment safe
and keeping your equipment warm.
So this first video is all about keeping yourself warm
and keeping yourself comfortable and being functional
so you can actually create some great cinematic stuff.
So the first we're thing we're gonna actually go into, guys,
is spending the right amount of money
and buying the right gear.
This is like all things in camera gear,
you don't wanna cheap out,
you don't wanna go for the cheapest thing,
you wanna get a good quality thing and have that last.
If you get a great jacket, if you get great long underwear,
that should last you for 20 years.
I have some pieces of long underwear I've had for 15 years
and I still wear all the time.
So, my number one tip is getting good, base layers,
good underwear, good long things.
I like wearing wool, merino wool.
I have a few of the Icebreaker tops and bottoms.
It's about Canadian $200 for top and bottom,
it's very expensive, really, for what you're getting,
but, in a sense, it isn't because it works so well.
It wicks away moisture from you,
you'll stay warm if you're sweating, that's one big tip.
Another tip is, also with your socks,
making sure you're wearing, I like wool socks,
or something that are very warm that way.
That will go a long way in keeping your feet warm,
even if they get sweaty.
So, a merino wool, some kind of good ski socks
are gonna help and always,
thicker socks and more layers of socks doesn't mean warmer.
Better quality socks, better materials will
actually keep your feet warmer.
Depending on how cold it is out,
you might wanna go with another layer after your base layer.
So a lot of times, I will go with a merino wool sweater
or a kind of another full sleeve underneath my jacket
and then I'll go on to something like this,
which is a down-filled jacket.
Sometimes I do, I call a joke the double jacket
where I have another down-filled,
thinner jacket underneath this jacket.
I've done that sometimes when I was filming outside
in a helicopter with the doors off and it was very cold
and that's just a huge way to help keep you warm,
especially if you're standing still.
If you're on a set and you're just
standing around holding a boom pole,
you're just standing around waiting for takes to happen,
that's when you really need to make sure you're staying warm
because that's when it becomes very easy
to get cold is when you're not moving around.
Look at our next key thing is a jacket.
I have a few different jackets and few different options
that I have depending on the weather and a lot of times,
I will bring little, different jackets
with me depending on what I'm doing.
If I'm hiking in to a location to shoot,
I might be wearing a thinner jacket
so I'm not overheating and sweating.
And then when I get to location,
if I'm standing and I'm shooting something,
I might be putting on the heavier jacket
to keep myself warm.
That's a great tip to just make sure you can have layers
that you can take on and off easiLy.
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I'm out here up in Sault Ste. Marie
or just outside of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario,
a little bit Northern Ontario,
and doing a little bit of backcountry skiing
and shooting of this stuff up here, some touring.
I'm gonna show you guys a little bit
what I wore to get in here.
So I had, basically, just an Icebreaker sweater on
and an undergarment, or first layer.
That was to, because I got so hot coming in,
it was about a two and a half kilometer ski in.
And then, I had this down Arc'teryx jacket in my backpack,
put that on, that's what's keeping me warm
while I'm waiting.
I am wet, here, I'm sweated through my shirt, undershirt,
but the great thing with merino wool is
it will still keep you warm even when you're wet.
(videotape fast forwards)
I have a shell that I can put on
if it's really snowing or it's kind of a wet snow.
That is a great tip as well
to kinda keep that stuff off you.
And again, all these things cost money
and it's kinda like, for myself,
I think of it like building my camera kit
and building my grip kit, and building my lighting kit.
It's stuff that I keep getting year after year
that I can keep adding on to it
and getting better and better.
I have some better jackets, I have some more options,
I have some better gloves, I have some better boots
and I keep building up in my kit
that's actually gonna help me stay warm
and do my job the same way I would be building it
with my lens kit and my camera kits, and stuff like that.
So it's a kind of a cool way to think about that.
Think about investing in good stuff
that's gonna last you for a longer period of time.
So from there, I'm in snow pants,
pants that you can wear overtop
of your long johns are great things that can keep you wet.
Do not wear jeans, please don't wear jeans
if you're actually gonna go outside and shoot in the snow.
If you wanna lay down on the ground,
if you wanna lay down on some ice
and get some different shots, that way,
if you wanna sit down on something that's freezing cold,
it's gonna help to have a material and pants
that are gonna be wicking away water,
similar to the material you're gonna have in your jacket.
And a lot of these pants will be lined as well,
that's a big tip as well.
Another thing is my boots that I wear.
I have a few different pairs of boots.
I have one set of boots that I got last year.
I was sick of my feet getting cold on some shoots
and I got a pair of boots from a kind of farm store
and they are rated to minus 100 Celsius.
These boots are massive, they're kinda hard to move in,
actually, if I'm moving really far,
but they have waterproof in the bottom and they are so warm.
I can wear regular socks and I can be outside
shooting all day and have no problems, okay?
So, next bit of insight is wearing
something like a balaclava,
something you can put around your face,
something you can put up over your nose if it's really thin.
You can sometimes get ones that are full pieces
that you can put over your head and ones like this
that I'm using as like a scarf, it's great to wear.
Then, what we call in Canada, a toque.
That's the proper name for them, anybody else in the world,
you're calling these a sock hat, they call them a beanie,
yeah, it's a beanie, I guess, it's American thing.
This is a toque, the proper name is a toque,
it's Canadian, keeps your head warm.
You gotta wear your toque.
If you go outside when you're a kid
and you're not wearing a toque in Canada,
your mom's gonna be like, "Hey, 90% of your body heat
"comes out of your head, put your toque on."
I don't think that fact is actually a real fact.
I don't think you loose 90%
of your body heat out of your head,
but that's what parents liked to say
in the '80s when I was a kid.
Okay, back on track, keeping warm.
So, another thing is gonna be your gloves.
What I like to do is wear gloves like this,
something like a mitten.
Then I have this one on a cable,
or kind of around my wrist here,
that I can take off quickly.
And I have another pair of thinner gloves underneath
that I can use for touchscreen
on the cameras and move stuff around,
but then I can get my hands back in here
and get them warm again.
Really key to keep your hands warm
and keep them really warm.
I'd rather my hands be overly warm than being cold.
You start getting cold hands,
you can't really do anything, you cannot operate a camera.
Another tip after that is what I use inside my gloves,
these kinda hot pockets.
These things that you take out, you shake up,
and they can last for like eight hours
and they work amazingly well.
I'm gonna do some other things on these
in my later videos talking about keeping your equipment warm
and other things in the winter,
but these are great for
also doing stuff with your batteries.
I also like taking another pack,
putting it straight into my pockets
and then I have another thing in my pockets.
I can have some of the batteries in there,
but if I wanna put my hands into my pockets,
they're staying all warm as well.
Another tip with these is if you have them
in your pocket with your iPhone,
they're gonna help to keep your iPhone warm
so it doesn't die in the cold,
which iPhones typically do quite a bit.
And my last tip for you guys, actually, is
when you get all bundled up and all warm
and it feels hot, you're feeling good,
don't go back inside if you can avoid it, okay?
So don't just jump back and forth
in thinking you're keeping warm.
A lot of times what happens when you go back inside
of a place and think that you're warming yourself up,
you're gonna start sweating and you're gonna start getting
too hot with your equipment on, with your gear on,
and then when you go back outside again,
now you're gonna be colder.
I would rather dress for the day,
be all warm for the day, and not go inside, okay?
If I really have to go inside for lunch
or for another break that way,
I will make sure as soon as I get in,
I'm stripping off all my layers,
I'm basically getting down to my long underwear.
Sometimes, people have seen me,
I have walked around after a shoot just
in my long underwear and my top.
Some people like it, some people don't, but it's happened.
So thanks so much for watching, guys.
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