Before Canadian Adventure Productions president Ben Webster took his 35-member climbing team and production crew on the expedition for Ultimate Survival: Everest, a six-hour miniseries for Discovery Channel Canada, he knew exactly what he’d be up against.

Webster, the series’ Ottawa-based producer and executive producer, has led expeditions on every continent except Antarctica, and was well aware of the grueling conditions the ‘hill known as Everest’ presented for both humans and camera gear. He turned to the same climbing team he’s used the last five years, and which helped him produce broadband transmissions and segments for ABC News and Good Morning America from a 2001 expedition.

Webster had used Panasonic cameras to shoot previous climbs, and this time opted for four Panasonic AG-DVX100 camcorders, a DV-format system with film-like 24p capability, and one HD camera. The doc series first aired on Discovery in November 2004.

The climb took place last spring, with a team including: three other camera-wielding, veteran climbers; 11 Sherpas, all of whom did some shooting; director David McIlvride; DOP Frank Vilaca; a couple of Discovery reps; a satellite communications expert; a few kitchen helpers and runners; and even TV host Valerie Pringle and her sister for a time.

All were prepared for the elements and rigors of shooting in the high altitudes of Mt. Everest, but Webster says it was nonetheless one of the most daunting experiences of his life.

‘It was by far the most stressful climb for me,’ he says. ‘It’s such a hard environment in which to work. The concept of being able to capture everything everywhere on the mountain – no one thought it could be done. We were running five different crews at a time, telling the different stories to give you a good idea of what it’s like going up – on a personal level, but also the whole ‘seeing the circus’ aspect.’

Webster says others have tried to make similar docs on Everest, but have either ‘bombed’ or fudged the footage a little by shooting mostly at base camps or ski resorts after the climb ended. This was not the case with Ultimate Survival: Everest, in which he and his crew ran their cameras at all times during the climb, careful never to let an important moment slip by.

‘At 136,000 feet, your body is starting to die,’ he says. ‘When people start to die, you’d better get the shots you need, and if you have a mechanical failure you don’t have time to fix it. That’s the intensity of the environment and why it’s good television. You see people break down and [reveal] their true selves during the process. It’s the same thing with the equipment.’

The DVX100 cameras, weighing less than two kilograms each, provided footage of Everest that had rarely, if ever, been recorded.

‘In that environment, where weight is everything, the ease and size of the cameras were important considerations,’ Webster recounts. ‘The ease with which you can use the controls is also important, because you can’t use bare hands; you’ll lose fingers in a matter of minutes. We all suffer from hypoxia [absence of oxygen reaching living tissues] during a climb – the higher you go, the dumber you get – so the cameras had to be idiot-proof in a way, and these cameras worked extremely well.’

The crew shot at F5: 24p, and the DV footage was later uploaded and edited together with base-camp footage shot on Panasonic’s high-end HD AJ-HDC27FP Varicam. The HD material was primarily shot by Vilaca, who was not as seasoned a climber as the others, but Webster says the DOP showed ‘great courage’ and got about 24,000 feet up Everest, shooting everything he could along the way.

About 180 hours of footage were shot during the expedition, and Webster says even the most shrewd camera techie would be hard-pressed to figure out where the HD ends and the DV footage kicks in.

‘When you shoot [DV] in F5 at 24p it’s absolutely beautiful,’ Webster explains. ‘The stuff up high is shot on DV product because it’s too hard to get the heavy HD cameras and the people who have the skill-sets to shoot up there. I’m sure 99% of the population would never know it’s not the same cameras.’

Webster credits Panasonic with providing the technical support needed to make the shoot a success, after he led a mock-expedition up the mountain to test the variables before production. That support, combined with the crew’s fearlessness, were the keys to the project’s success.

Webster says there has been some demand to screen the project at various film festivals. He is currently set to lead his fifth expedition up Everest in the spring, where he will be teaching a virtual class from the mountain for Ottawa’s Algonquin College. He is also in talks to produce another doc on Everest in 2006.

-www.panasonic.ca

-discoverychannel.ca