By David Clark
(August 1996 Off the Channel Islands, California) A year ago this month the Whales film formally began its principal photography with our crew spending the month of August aboard the sailing research vessel Odyssey in the icy waters of southeast Alaska to film humpback whales feeding. Since that time we have spent a month in Patagonia, Argentina with humpback whales, and a brief visit to Newfoundland where we filmed the freeing of a whale entangled in fishermen’s nets and an underwater whale graveyard. Our final chapter in the story of the great baleen whales took place here, in the Channel Islands, about 15 miles offshore of Santa Barbara, California.
Though I have produced and directed many natural history films before, I had never attempted one about whales. And though I have filmed in the traditional documentary formats of 16mm film or videotape, I had never worked in the gigantic 70mm IMAX format before. But we had assembled the best possible team for the task. Whale scientist Roger Payne has been studying whales for more than 25 years and was our chief guide. Our cameramen Andy Kitzanuk and Paul Mockler both had extensive IMAX experience. And our co-director and underwater cinematographer, Al Giddings has probably had more experience filming whales underwater than anyone else.
Throughout the production I have been amazed at our good fortunes. Roger has continually warned me that even with a month or more dedicated to each location we could not guarantee we would get superb whale footage, or any whale footage for that matter. You are dealing with wild animals and mother nature and can never take anything for granted. While we knew where and when whales were supposed to be in any given season, nothing could be guaranteed. We approached each location with caution and humility, not knowing what to expect. Yet each time we were rewarded with extraordinary footage.
In Alaska, known for its persistent summer rains, we had a month of fair weather and mill pond water conditions. We had many whale encounters, succeeded in filming the spectacular bubble net feeding, and documented a large whale coming over and swimming in the bow wake of our boat, something Roger had never seen before. This is common for the smaller, faster dolphins to do but to see a 40-ton whale play with your boat is quite a sight.
In Patagonia, known for its frequent and sudden gale force winds, we had many weeks of calm weather which allowed us to film right whales above and below the water. In one very rare moment, one of Payne’s researchers was snorkeling when she was approached by several right whales and we captured the whole scene on film.
Everywhere we went, Roger would pessimistically warn me about how difficult filming whales can be, only to find our luck or good fortune would again and again present us with incredible opportunities. Cameraman/director Al Giddings made his first whale film with Roger some 25 years ago. Al noted that they were there for 90 days and in all that time he had maybe 12 encounters where he was able to get reasonable underwater whale footage. This time in three weeks, Al had 107 encounters, something he could hardly believe.
So with all this good luck all over the globe I figured that filming blue whales close to home off the coast of California would be a piece of cake. After all, Al had just recently completed an ABC television special on blues for which he won an Emmy Award. In the film Al was able to get underwater with the blues, the largest living creature on earth, at 100 feet in length and weighing 100 tons. If we could do this in IMAX it would be the icing on our cake.
With two complete IMAX crews, one for topside and one for underwater filming, we set out in early August on an 80-foot motor yacht "Greek Isle." When you say "80-foot motor yacht," it sounds like the lap of luxury with the prospect of the shoot being a real junket for the film crew. But once you’ve put seven big guys, 40 cases of enormous IMAX gear, supplies, and a boat crew of two aboard, the vessel suddenly feels small.
Also working with us was a private pilot who had spotted blue whales for Al before from his small fixed-wing aircraft. Big as they are, even blue whales can be hard to fin in the vast ocean. The scheme was to first locate the feeding blue whales who appear to be heading north up the coast from Mexico in pursuit of large swarms of pink shrimp-like krill. Once we had succeeded in filming them from the surface and hopefully underwater, we would then send a crew aloft in a helicopter to capture some dramatic aerials.
Within our first few days on location we found the whales and they were feeding. We got some surface shots but the water visibility was terrible so there was no chance of filming underwater. Just when we were beginning to feel confident once again, the wind and seas began to pick up. We tried to shoot some aerials but the wind buffeted the helicopter making it difficult even with the camera mounted on an elaborate gyro-stabilizer which resembled a lunar landing craft.
The high wind and seas also deterred the whales from feeding so there was nothing to do but to anchor in the lee of one of the islands and wait for the winds to pass. While in the somewhat protected anchorage, we spent our time filming underwater scenes flying through kelp beds and getting various other minor sequences for the film. We had another whale scientist, Ken Balcomb, come down from Washington State with an orca skull he had so we could film it underwater. The idea here was to show the massive teeth of these animals as we would describe that they prey on other whales.
In an unprecedented summer, the winds lasted for weeks. We could wait no longer as the film had to be finished. With great reluctance and frustration we left the location but had a cameraman and assistant stand by on land, ready to fly more aerials when the seas calmed. They had to wait another week before they could get in the air but did succeed in getting some good overall shots. To really get a sense of scale with a 100-foot whale, seeing it from the air is a perfect perspective. They are enormous by any standard.
Though we were disappointed that we did not achieve all we had wanted in the blue whale shoot, it reinforced in a sobering way just how difficult filming natural history can be. And it reminded me how lucky we had been with all of our other whale shoots. In the end the blue whale sequence succeeded and nicely compliments our other footage. But that final shoot will always be with me, never letting me forget our good fortunes in capturing what we did with Whales.
In total we spent 20 weeks on location filming Whales, shooting 216 reels of film which translates to about 11 hours of screen time which then gets edited down to 45 minutes. To capture the world’s largest living animal on the world’s largest film format has been challenging but I doubt anyone in the crew would hesitate to sign on again if presented with the opportunity.
Copyright Whales, LLC 1996.