We are here to document the lives
of people living in Alaska.
The harsh reality is the environment we're up against.
It makes it tough to do our job.
Get out of there.
Working on "Live Below Zero" can be very dangerous.
CAMERAMAN 1: Guns here.
Cameras here.
Never know what to expect.
Did you [beep] see that [beep]??
It's going to be tough, but we're going to get the shot.
Every scenario, we gotta prepare for this.
But we're still smiling.
We're having fun.
Still making "Life Below Zero."
Yes.
Bring it on.
JOHN GRIBER: We are wrapping up our episode with Jesse.
And he's just going to be clearing out some trees.
I think to make it interesting, we
are going to have a quick GoPro time lapse set up.
We are just trying to figure out the best way to cover it.
Because once you cover one or two trees,
we want to show maybe a nice little time lapse of Jesse
cutting trees, which we've seen a lot on "Life Below
Zero," a lot of tree cutting.
So it's kind of unique to try to figure
it out maybe just how to do it a little different each time.
So the idea the time lapse is not to interrupt the flow.
It's a great way to tell a story of someone clearing a space.
I've filmed probably five years of people
cutting down trees on "Life Below Zero."
We're always trying to think of just something different.
At some point, I'll put the drone up
and we'll cut the trees.
We'll put a GoPro on the saw.
We'll do all that.
So this is just a different way to just
capture a different look to it.
We're working outside all the time.
And we cover it a lot.
But variety's important to kind of give it--
make it more dynamic.
You know, you can see someone chainsaw
a tree a million times.
But the more we can do it different angles,
different camera placement, just getting
creative and doing our best to make
it look different each episode.
JOHN GRIBER: So he's going to be able to reach up to here.
Those branches, maybe-- even if he cuts
a little bit of this branch.
But what-- how does that look there?
Yeah. There you go.
Nice. That's good.
Yeah.
Aw man, that's going to look cool sped up.
So now we'll have like, two different time
lapses of two sections of forest because we have a master shot.
And this will just be a nice cut away when it's sped up,
watching it get cleared out, and we'll be able to cut
to this magnificent view.
JOHN GRIBER: What I did is, we just got a high and wide.
Attached the GoPro onto a branch up here that we anticipate
Jesse's going to cut down a couple of the branches
to clean off.
So we'll get like, a little reveal with these branches.
The beauty of this is that we have another GoPro at the back.
We have two time lapses that the editors
can choose and pick from.
It's going to be tough.
But we're going to get the shot.
A little extra effort goes a long way.
It definitely takes a certain breed to film up here.
Half the battle is the ingenuity in being
innovative and creative.
JOHN GRIBER: Filming with Jesse Holmes out here
on his new piece of land.
Just trying to do a simple little move with the drone.
I was trying to fly it back in here
and then do a nice move in through the trees.
But this [inaudible] stuff got in my way.
The typical thing of trying to fly a drone in the trees
and looking at the screen and not knowing exactly
where your drone might be.
Yup.
One broken prop.
Most valuable thing in this whole drone is the gimbal.
This is the gimbal.
It's very fragile.
But that's fine.
Here we go.
Big integral part of our show right there.
Gives a whole different element to the shot, to the angle.
Showing Jesse walk around, it's one thing.
But showing an aerial shot or shoveling snow
in a cool location, you're trying to showcase Alaska
and how beautiful it is.
And this is a key part to showing all that.
So.
Fix is no big deal.
Drone itself is going to be completely operable.
And a slight delay, no big deal.
We're good to go.
Moving on.
BRIAN BITTERFELD: You never know what to expect out here.
From changing weather to equipment failure.
You have to be ready for anything.
So we're going to go out and find a game cam that I've set
up a couple of days ago when we were shooting a rabbit
snaring story with Jesse.
What is really important is it gives
us a look into the life of the animal that we're out to catch.
Because you know, usually when we're shooting,
we don't see these animals.
We see it once we've caught it.
So to see it in its natural environment
is one of the most intimate ways you can interact with an animal
and get the shot at the same time.
Gives us another layer in any hunting story,
whether it's caribou, moose, bear, whatever.
To get these shots gives us that other look
into that animal's life.
Just by snow mobiling up here, you
can tell there's a lot of fresh snow,
a lot of new snow from last night, about three inches.
All right.
So we've made it to one of the first spots.
The new snow's definitely going to make it
a little more of a challenge to find this game cam.
I'm a little worried that the lens is covered.
So we'll just have to start searching and see.
So when I set the game cam up originally, it was uncovered.
But kind of hidden at the same time so animals
can't notice it too much.
There's been a lot of recent wind
loading, which means the wind has been pushing
the snow into new areas.
And on top of that, it snowed about 3
and 1/2 inches the other night.
So I'm kind of thinking the camera is going to be buried.
So we're going to have to do some digging, unfortunately.
All the former rabbit tracks are covered up.
Nothing's been through here.
So that kind of makes me think we might not see something
or that the whole camera's covered up.
The wind would have triggered the sensor of the camera.
So we could have a lot of shots or just snow
falling and no rabbits.
So I'm hoping that the lens is uncovered
and that we have at least a couple
of shots of some rabbits.
I might have just nestled it.
It's in this area.
I'm going to start looking.
Because if we can't see it already--
oh.
Look at that.
Look at how covered that is too.
Maybe next time, I'll mark it.
Glad we found this.
I get to keep my job.
That was pretty lucky.