Into Water VR: Case Study
Jacques-Cartier National Park | Into Water: Canada’s Wild Rivers | Photo: Jake Dyson
National Geographic’s Into Water VR | A Year In Reflection
This project was an incredible journey. It was truly an honour to be entrusted with the vision of this project. 4 major production periods were planned around the world in remote Indonesia, Iceland, Quebec, and off the coast of Monterey, California. It was an incredibly lightweight crew for a project with such an ambitious scope. Having to permit many international locations with huge custom cameras brought along for the ride meant over two dozen flights and more baggage fees then I care to mention. An incredible learning process that led to solidifying a skill set in permitting remote international locations and organizing logistics, creative collaboration, technical development, and incredible collaborations across a network of skilled and enthusiastic freelancers. This is a snapshot of National Geographic’s Into Water virtual reality series:
Note: the following is an excerpt from www.sherpascinema.com, with added notes by myself.
Over the course of the last two years, The Sherpas are incredibly honoured to have worked with National Geographic, Google, YouTube and four of the most amazing humans we’ve ever met. The end result is ‘Into Water’, a collection of four Virtual Reality episodes that follow four National Geographic explorers whose work is based on one of our planet’s greatest miracles: water.
We’ve been working in Immersive Media for the last few years now, and the technology is getting better every day. As a viewer, if you watch these episodes through your phone, the YouTube app will give you the 360 experience. But if you’re looking for the true 3-Dimensional VR experience, hit up YouTube VR on the Oculus Go headset.
Iceland’s Glaciers - 360 | Into Water
Episode 1 takes place in Iceland, and follows M Jackson, a PhD Glaciologist who has found a way to bridge the gap between scientific data collection and real human beings.
“If there is one thing that my work continues to show me it’s that ice influences us just as much as we influence ice,” she explains. “What happens to ice, happens to us.”
This expedition led us all over the SE corner of Iceland. With amazing local access opened up by M Jackson and our amazing guides we covered an incredible amount of ground and had a few adventures to boot.
This shoot used 5 different camera rigs to ensure we could effectively shoot in each environment: the Yi Halo, GoPro Odyssey, Insta360 Pro V2, the ZCAM S1, and a RED Dragon 5K. The episode can be watched on desktop here:
Indonesia’s Coral Reefs – 360 | Into Water
For the second episode, we had the privilege of working with Shannon Switzer Swanson, a marine social ecologist whose work takes her into the traditional fishing villages of Indonesia’s Banggai Archipelago. Her intimate relationship with those fishing communities allows her to explore the complexity of their relationship with the sea, and how those relationships affect the health of the local marine ecosystems.
Shannon’s also a surfer, a pastime that enriches her powerful connection to the ocean.
Talk about eating the frog on this project. Organizing the expedition with 14+ pelican cases of custom film equipment to three separate islands in remote Indonesia was one of the most challenging projects I have undertaken. This episode was the first into production and it took 4 months from start of pre-production to get the permissions to shoot in Indonesia. With over 100+ pages of paperwork, many embassy visits in Los Angeles and Vancouver, and a changing crew roster this really was one for the books. At the end of the day, the crew received their visas the day before we flew. Talk about stressful.
I had been told that Indonesia was notoriously hard to permit for a production and I certainly found that to be true. But through this process we developed a robust network of amazing fixers in the country that can help make almost anything happen going forward.
A special shout out to Casey Sapp, who made this episode shine with his dedication to creating custom underwater virtual reality camera rigs. Incredible work and it was amazing to shoot on a reef break with you. Wild times.
We shot this with a very lightweight international crew, which involved myself, Mitchell Scott, and Casey Sapp. The local Indonesian crew was absolutely essential to help us move through the country effectively.
Canada’s Wild Rivers – 360 | Into Water
The third episode follows Dalal Hanna, a Freshwater Ecologist, through the stunningly beautiful rivers and lakes of Quebec. The health of these ecosystems represents the current state of our planet, and Dalal’s work provides crucial information about how human activity is impacting the bodies of water upon which our survival is so dependent. “To protect fresh water is to protect life,” says Dalal.
Shot over two and a half weeks in summer 2019 in Quebec and Ontario we achieved a lot in this piece with only two drone days, and amazing lightweight crew, and a canoe. Freshwater research is an amazing thing and is often overlooked.
Deep Sea Exploration – 360 | Into Water
The fourth episode follows the work of Kakani Katija, the lead engineer at the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). “The ocean’s midwaters are one of the least-explored places on earth, full of creatures that defy imagination,” says Kakani.
Those waters are home to massive jellyfish, otherworldly worms, Giant Larvaceans, Vampire Squids and countless other species that look like they’d be right at home in outerspace, but are actually just a few thousand metres below the surface of the ocean. “We have better maps of the moon and mars than we do of our seas,” explains Kakani.
Based on the research and work done on the expedition we were filming on, Kakani and the team went on to publish an article in the prestigious journal Nature. The article can be found here.
Closing Remarks:
And last but certainly not least the incredible array of people who worked on this project, opened doors, and made things happen. A huge round of applause to each and every person involved, it was truly a pleasure to work with each of you. I want to give a special shout out to Jacob Yoffee, Daniel McNamara, and David Tomiak, who each went above and beyond to make this project happen. Jacob is an incredible scoring artist who embodied, experimented, and helped push an ambient score forward to let the immersive visuals shine. He is truly a world class talent and I wouldn’t hesitate to not only recommend but encourage you to work with him on future projects. David Tomiak modified his entire colour grading workflow to enable real time virtual reality colour grading through ScratchVR. He is incredibly collaborative and has a natural intuition for this kind of thing. He is based out of Vancouver in the RAWCamera studios. Daniel McNamara is a childhood friend of mine and dedicated a full month to designing and mixing the spatial sound mix for each episode. A professional until the end, Dan has a finely tuned ear and brought each scene to life with creative and technical prowess.
Indonesia/Canada/Deep Sea Directors: Steve Henderson / Mitchell Scott
Iceland Director: Dave Mossop
Cinematographer & Editor: Steve Henderson
Producers: Mitchell Scott, Steve Henderson
Post Production Supervisor: Ryan Clarke
Writer: Mitchell Scott
Spatial Sound/Mix: Daniel McNamara
Composer: Jacob Yoffee
Colour: David Tomiak
Drone Pilots: Danielle de Leon // Birds Eye of Big Sky, Jeff Patterson // Revered Cinema
Photographer: Jake Dyson
Underwater Cinematographer: Casey Sapp
Assistant Editor: Terry Cousineau
3D Rotoscoping and VFX: Forrest Brennan 360 Labs, Sasha Stanojevic, Jeremy Kenning
For National Geographic
Producer: Kaitlyn Mullin
Executive Producer: Jenna Pirog, Whitney Johnson
For Google
Producers: Sarah Steele, Nicholas Cicchetti
Supported by YouTube VR
Special Thanks // Iceland: Jonathan Marshall, Porvadur Arnason, Sigrun Sveinbjörnsdóttir, Guōny Svavardóttir, Ingvar Ingvarsson, Vatnajökull National Park, The Town of Höfn, Birds Eye of Big Sky, Fusion Cine, Anna Dís Olafsdótti, Local Icelander
Special Thanks // Indonesia: Lakuha Filming, Pusat Pengembangan Perfilman, Coastal Community of Bone Baru, The fishing families of Popisis and Toropot, National Geographic Society, Universitas Hasannudin, Universitas Tadulako, Andrea Reid, Mikayla Wujec, Caleb Cruise, Emmet Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford School Of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, LINI, Kedonganan Fish Markey, Bali Double C, Sumba Surf Resort, Acho Akina Chowji, Papa and Mama Yadi, Papa and Mama Adam, Papa and Mama Kia, Ben Swanson, Uce Pakaya, Hamid Pakaya, Deny Fabregas, Ramdhan Lanuso, Erwin Wuniarto, Lady Diana Khartiono, Sarah Azzahra, Gayatri Reskodiharjo-Lilley, Khalis, Dwi, Surya Risuana, Ismu Istyarto, Dr. Nicole Ardoin, Dr. Larry Crowder, Dr. Abigail Moore, Dr. Jammaluddin Jompa, Dr.Samliok Ndobe, Samudera Dive Operator, The Harvest Star Crew, Dr.Erika Woolsey, Cameron Coram, VRTUL
Special Thanks // Québec: Ellorie McKnight, Parc Régional du Poisson, Pac National de la Jaques-Cartier, Jérémie Gravel, Aglaé Jobin-Miller, Benoit Dubeau, Louis-Étienne Picard, Riparia, Andrea Reid, Mikayla Wujec, Sofia Smeja, The Bennet Lab at McGill University, Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Fusion Cine, Revered Cinema
Special Thanks // California: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), Helen Cullen, Nancy Jacobsen-Stout, Susan Von Thun, Andrew McKee, Knute Brekke, Bryan Touryan-Schaeffer, Ben Erwin, Mark Talkovic, Randy Prickett, Dale Graves, Todd Walsh, Diana Li, Alison Sweeney, Alana Sherman, Joost Daniels, Kim Fulton-Bennet, Casey Sapp / VRTUL, Birds Eye of a Big Sky, Fusion Cine
#NatGeoWomenOfImpact