American Cinematographer - July 1986 - 93

Documentary

Photographing the White Arctic
by Randy Love
The small

twin-engine de Haviland Otter
making its third attempt to land in
near-zero visibility at the little village of
Toksook Bay, Alaska. The Bering Sea
was frozen forty miles out, and was
virtually indistinguishable from the hun¬
dreds of miles of windswept tundra over

Lansburgh and Love,
Toksook Bay.

was

which

we

had flown.
From the

airplane I couldn't
sky from ground - it was all white.
Finally the Otter descended, and an or¬
ange runway cone drifted slowly past.

tell

The wheels touched down and
in Toksook Bay.

The
the

blowing

we were

plane shuddered from
though its

snow even

wheels

were motionless on the runway.
The runway was all ice as the pilot
jumped down from the cockpit to open
the passenger door. I saw a frantic look
on his face as he was blown past the
windows of the plane, his hands
-a*"*

searching for a handhold that escaped
his grasp. Fie was blown right by the
door, but after several moments the
door cracked open.
"Welcome to Toksook Bay,"
he said. "It's 80 degrees below zero!"
We piled our gear on the run¬
way.

bush
were

gear,
in a

The Otter took off for the next
community, and there we
5 people, 48 pieces of film
and 12 boxes of groceries waiting
50-mile-per-hour wind for our

-

Eskimo friends and one snowmobile to
meet us. This was our third trip (includ¬

ing one in the summer) to southwest
Alaska. We were following the seasonal
activities of the Yup'ik Eskimos.
The Yup'ik Eskimos we were

filming live about 400 miles west of
Anchorage. Yup'iks are one of two na¬

*

-

-

The Yup'iks are definitely
modern Americans with satellite TV,

VCR's, telephones, snowmobiles, and
computers in their schools. However,
these modern devices don't overshadow
their culture, which goes back 3,000
years in

southwest Alaska. Until only

a

few hundred years ago, no Yup'ik had
ever had contact with a white man.
"Alaska:

The

Eskimos" is the first in

a

Yup'ik
series of

Eskimo cultures in' that state. The
film which director Larry Lansburgh and

educational films for Chevron entitled

writer Gail Evenari

various Native American cultures.

tive

set out to

make is

an

ethnographic documentary showing the
Yup'ik people, their culture, their subsis¬
tence lifestyle, and the inevitable pres¬
sures

"Spirit of the Land," which explores
Some people think that docu¬
mentaries have to have a rough, crude
look. Wrong. There are ways to use

of outside influences.

July 1986

lighting and camera techniques to en¬
hance production value, and still capture
the spontaneity that documentary film
making demands. To shoot a documen¬
tary with a good "look," I applied what
I've learned from shooting theatrical and
commercial productions.
As cinematographer, I put
much thought into choosing equipment
that would allow

us to shoot in any
weather condition that Alaska's winter
could produce. The camera gear had to
be able to function for extended periods
in weather well below zero. I was given

excellent advice by my friend Wade Bin¬
gham, who has shot numerous docu¬
mentaries in Alaska and the Arctic. His
advice on clothing, camera gear, barn-

American

Cinematographer

91
American Cinematographer - July 1986

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