[intense music playing]
Cameras aren't working and it's getting super frustrating.
CHRIS MULTOP: This is what it's like on "Life Below Zero."
Cameras already down.
Tough conditions all around to film in.
WOMAN: No heat, no power, no anything.
[grunts] Won't even turn on.
WOMAN: I've fallen too many times.
We have bad winds and it's just a typical day in the Arctic.
MAN: Making the best of what we've got.
[intense music playing]
It's really cold, but this is kind of our job.
This is what we do.
This is what we live for.
How can we do that out-of-the-box cinematography?
MAN: The Iditarod is something I've been dreaming
about doing for 12 years.
And it's the last great race.
This is the grand Olympics of the north.
First thing I'm going to have to do is get out my maps
and get out my mileages, and start making a race plan.
More people have summitted Everest than have finished
the Iditarod in 47 years.
Jesse is planning out his Iditarod, all the stuff he has
to take for the Iditarod race.
It'd be really cool to get a cool specialty shot time lapse,
but we're trying to figure out how to do it.
And Benji had a good idea.
He's like, what if we did this corkscrew,
bird's eye view over his shoulder?
BENJI LANPHER: I haven't seen it done on the show yet,
and this was kind of exciting about it-- is that it's
something kind of new and we're trying
to push it a little bit as far as in terms
of making this kind of pop.
CHRIS MULTOP: But we're just going
to make do with what we've got, and start building,
and see if it'll work.
The part that sucks, because it's cold and my hands
are going to get cold.
Ha!
[clattering]
Man, that burns.
I know one of the things that we really strive for on the show
is, outside of a great story, is to try to do these incredibly
creative shots that are out of the box usually
utilizing stuff that's not meant to be used that sort of way.
So every trip, every show, every episode that we produce,
we do that out-of-the-box cinematography.
[drilling]
This is all we've got to work with.
It's not like you just go get any ol' bolt
and size you need at the hardware store, you know?
Oh, perfect.
All right, let's go take it up there
and see if we could hang it.
[dogs barking]
All right.
So far, so good.
BENJI LANPHER: The idea of the shot
is to pull out from the map, so you can see him writing
and then pull out and twist.
You'll see it but we're going to try to keep the map in focus
the entire time as we pull out.
The lens is cold, so what we have to do every time
we bring any of our gear, cameras or lenses,
from inside to outside is we have to let it acclimate.
So it gets foggy out here and then it gets foggy
on the inside.
We can't shoot until this lens acclimates
to the temperature inside.
The idea is to really show that essence
of time passage for all the work that he has to do.
We want to do the most incredible
shot that we can try to pull off to make that look amazing.
Half the battle in these time lapses is the ingenuity,
and being innovative, and creative.
WOMAN: Running the loader, and this is what I noticed.
This is oil that's being blown up.
This is the piece of machinery that's
going to get my runway fixed.
This has got to get fixed.
Once it does, I'm back in business.
But until it is, I'm out of business.
MIKE CHEESEMAN: And we're going to try to capture
the whole time lapse all the way across Kavik
with dusk all the way into the night to the northern lights.
And we need a lot of weight, because we're going to put
a lot of tension on the cords.
So we're going to ratchet-strap one point in,
ratchet as hard as we can down, and then we're going to run
the line all the way across.
The more tension the better, because we
don't want the camera to sag.
We want it to be taut.
There we go.
As you can see, one point is secure.
It's not going one way or the other.
We're going to put a lot of tension on this,
so we need to make sure it's pretty stable.
So here's our beginning of the shot.
We'll be here.
We're trying to achieve a full Kavik from her storage
shed, generator shack, loader all the way
to the front of the Twinkie.
So from 80 paces, roughly 80 feet,
we'll be able to go the length of her camp
all the way to the front.
So we're probably about 60% done with the tension.
And as we're pulling the tension,
the barrels are moving.
So now we have to figure out more weight for the barrel.
So when we put more tension on, the 100% tension,
we will be solid and the barrels won't move.
The ropes are perfectly even.
The carriage will ride straight, and it won't bounce
off the wires or the rope.
So we're pretty much at that point
where we can mount the 5D.
The temperatures aren't in the negatives yet,
but our motor for the slingshot time lapse is all metal.
I need to just basically insulate it,
and an easy way to do it is just to use an extra beanie.
And that at least insulates it enough that it stays warm.
Houston Texans save the day.
So we just set it.
The camera is now rolling, and the best thing we can do
is get the hell out of the way and let the camera do its work.
[music playing]