Been doing a lot of flying around in helicopters to the tops of mountains to install radio repeaters lately.
Here's a few pictures from some of the locations.


Me standing on 1882 peak above the Dry Valleys


Just a little down the hill from the last photo in an area I call The Catacombs


Near the summit of Mount Erebus, the southermost active volcano in the world.
This ice fumarole is basically a chimney of ice that has formed from the steam coming out of a volcanic vent
and freezing as it hits the cold air.


Looking back to Mount Erebus from the summit of Mount Terror


The radio repeater on the summit of Mount Terror


Looking across to the Royal Society Mountains from the summit of Mt Coates


On top of Minna Bluff

I have also been doing some interactive 360 degree panoramic shots of a lot of these areas. Open them with quicktime then click and drag on the picture to look around.
Here's the link...
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=f32c1f3f4fb6d9e5#cid=F32C1F3F4FB6D9E5&id=F32C1F3F4FB6D9E5%21631

A few emperor penguins have been hanging around on the Ice Shelf near the airfield for a while now molting...


Panorama of the three emperor penguins with the Royal Society Mountains in the background


Emperor patiently molting


Emperors and Mount Erebus


Pair of Emperors

And here's a couple of older adelie penguin shots, they have been hanging around Hut Point lately...






Another piece of local art, the Gargoyle on top of the fuel tank...

January is the warmest time of the year here, most days will peak above freezing in temperature, then drop a few degrees below at "Night" when the sun is lower in the sky.
Spending a lot of time working at the airfields means a lot of photo opportunities with the planes...


C-17 following a guide vehicle from the Pegasus Ice Runway


Pre-flight checks before take-off


C-17 heading north to Christchurch, New Zealand.


Mount Discovery lit up by the midnight sun behind some storm clouds


As well as looking after the airfield electronics, we also look after the remote weather stations.
To get to this one involved riding snow mobiles out across the ice shelf to the middle of nowhere
for 2 hours to reach it.


Ice crystals forming on the shore of Ross Island from the changing tides.


Water run-off from the melting snow from the hills around McMurdo cause running streams for a
few weeks in the peak of summer.


Martin the troll who lives under the bridge that leads to the Crary Lab
 

Summer temperatures are here, it is often just above freezing in the middle of the day, and of course we are almost at the summer solstice, when the sun is highest in the sky. We have had 24hr sunlight for nearly 2 months now.

The sea Ice is beginning to get soft, so airfield operations have been moved out to Pegasus, the runway on the permanent ice shelf.
McMurdo is turning into its usual summer dust bowl conditions as the snow and ice melt away from the volcanic grit & rock underneath.

I've been getting a lot more footage to help make the summer section of the movie flow more smoothly, and putting the new time-lapse dolly I built through its paces. So far it has performed very well.

Here's a few new photos


The dolly at work at the sign overlooking Scott Base


Filming close-up detail of melting ice


The airfield out on the sea ice in front of McMurdo Station. The ice is about 2 meters thick, floating over very very deep ocean. Planes weighing up to about 250 tons land there. A month from now when the ice has thinned, the annual supply ships will be making their way through the same area where the planes are now parked.


Lenticular clouds forming around Mount Erebus the other night, as seen from the sea ice runway


Walking around at work the other night in blowing snow giving flat light conditions. You have no sense of direction, no shadows, everything is white, you can see your feet, but can't make out the ground under them, so it is easy to trip up on snow drifts.


Scott Base in black and white and green


Merry Christmas from the largest group of Santas furtherest from the North Pole.

Well, weather permitting I'll be headed back to the Ice on Tuesday for somewhere between 4 to 14 weeks.
Very much a last minute thing to fill in for someone who had to leave unexpectedly.
I'll be working with the Airfield Techs, basically looking after the electronics and comms equipment that keeps the airfields operational.
It will however give me the chance to get some extra summer footage for the film in my spare time while I am there. Since the rest of the movie team won't be ready to start work on post production until early next year, the timing works out pretty well.

The other day I built a motion control time-lapse dolly, that allows me to create nice tracking shots. I designed it without any drive belts so it would not have mechanical troubles working in the cold.
Here's a demo clip with shots from around Christchurch I did to try it out...

Time-Lapse Dolly Cart Test from Anthony Powell on Vimeo.

OK, just a quick update since it has been a while.
I have a rough cut of the movie together that clocks in at about 2 hours at this stage. The plan is to get it down under 90mins for the final cut.
I'm working with some incredibly talented people form the New Zealand film industry (more details on this in another update), and we are hoping to be able to get a full symphonic soundtrack recorded.
This pushes the time-line out quite a bit more alas, but should make for a far better film that will be well worth it in the end.

We are now off the Ice, taking a year off to work full-time on getting the "Year on Ice" feature film completed.
I'm at the stage now where I have finally finished rendering all my time-lapse footage from the last 7 years into usable footage from the over 1,000,000 individual photos taken.

In the process I have worn out several cameras, and broken plenty of equipment in the extreme cold.
Occasionally I have gone to recover a camera after leaving it out overnight, and found it tipped over and buried in a snow bank, or worse, face down, lens first in the rocks.
The end result is that I have gathered a lot of great footage. It will be something very unique, there are many sequences that have never been caught on film before.

I currently have a rough cut of just time-lapse footage alone that runs for about 90 minutes, but I plan on cutting about 30 minutes from this, then adding about 30 minutes of regular interviews and other fun footage. Enough to put everything into context for the viewer, but avoiding a running commentary so that people can enjoy the experience of what it is like to spend a year in Antarctica for themselves.

The winfly plane flights have come and gone, bringing with them about 350 new people, mail, fresh fruit and veggies, old friends, and new cold and flu viruses to infect us toasty winter-over folk.
The return of the sun is helping to re-energize our T3 addled brains (see the blog entry from this time last year), and general station activities involve everyone getting ready for the start of the summer season at the end of the month.

The first Winfly C-17 plane emerges out of the fog on the runway

Passenger disembarking the plane into the -45 degree air

Transporting the passengers back to McMurdo across the Ice Shelf, our first view the sun in over 4 months as it
briefly skirts the horizon at noon.

Mount Erebus to the north casts a shadow across Mount Discovery to the south-west

Polar Stratospheric Clouds (Nacreous Clouds) in the upper atmosphere being illuminated by the sun below
the horizon. These clouds form when ozone-depleting gasses crystallize in the extreme cold, creating incredible
rainbow hues when the sun hits them.

Nacreous Cloud

Nacreous Cloud behind ice ridge

Nacreous Clouds above Mount Discovery in the twilight

Nacreous Clouds being illuminated by the moon

Moon set over Salient Peak

Aurora above one of the McMurdo fuel tanks. Not too long now and it will be too light at night to see auroras with
the return of the sun.

Moon rise

And lastly, here is a video clip I made up from about 400 individual photos I took last year showing what it is like to fly from Black Island, across the ice shelf, past the Pegasus Airfield and land at McMurdo.
To watch the Hi-Def version follow the link to vimeo...

Fly-Lapse from Anthony Powell on Vimeo.

We ended up with a total of 33 films from 17 different Antarctic Stations
And the winners are...

Best 48Hr Film
Rothera (UK): The Quest of the Golden Roll

Best 48Hr Acting
Mawson (Australia): Mace Perfume

Best 48Hr Cinematography
Bellingshausen (Russia): One Day of Vladimir Fyodorovich's Life

Best 48Hr Screenplay:
Rothera (UK): The Quest of the Golden Roll

Best 48Hr Use of Required Elements
Rothera (UK): The Quest of the Golden Roll

Best Open Category Film
Macquarie Island (Australia): Eradication

Congratulations to everyone.
There were a lot of really great films this year, making it hard to choose.
We had a great time with them here, and hope you did too.

Have a look at the previous post for links to the films to see them for yourself


Aurora over the BFC building the other morning.

The sun is due to start rising today for the first time in 4 months. Yay.

Most the Antarctica bases that took part in the Film Festival had their screenings this weekend, and the votes are beginning to trickle in from all over the continent.
I'll update this entry when the winners are announced.

The films are available to download online at this link...
http://cid-f32c1f3f4fb6d9e5.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Antarctic%20Movies
Note, not all videos are suitable for younger viewers!

For the 48-hour film making section, films had to be made in one weekend, and include
-A roll of toilet paper
-A comedy head piece
-The character of a "Temperamental Continental Chef"
-The line of dialogue "Do you want to buy a dog?"
-The sound of a can opening

Here's a couple of the 48-hour films that are available on youtube and vimeo...

This is the one that Christine & I did at McMurdo...