Stretching the limits

Most people think that water from the mountains is pure and crystal clear – this message is promoted by the labeling on water bottles”, says the French producer Julien Tricard, “but microplastics have been found even on Mont Blanc.” The film Pas si douce documents French scientists David Gateuille and Frédéric Gillet on their expedition to Mont Blanc. At an elevation of more than 4,000 meters, they took samples that contained particles of polyethylen, polypropylen, and PET.

In order to shoot this documentary without producing a huge carbon footprint, Julian Tricard chose to produce the film remotely. “Flying by helicopter to the top of the Mont Blanc wasn‘t an
option. The only possible way of getting up there was climbing.” For this back-breaking job, he hired the experienced alpinist and filmmaker Bertrand Delapierre. After the preliminary discussions with the producer in Paris, which were held via video conferencing, Bertrand Delapierre accompanied the scientists with a camera as they took samples on their way to the mountain top.

The researchers also targeted nanoplastics, which are a thousand times smaller than microplastics. Due to its size, which can be compared to a virus, nanoplastic material may even cross cellular barriers. Biologists spotted microplastics in the ocean as early as 1972, but there have been few research studies on the distribution of these microscopic plastic particles in the atmosphere. To understand the global dimensions of this problem, atmospheric researchers are analyzing the movement of microplastics through the troposphere.

A drone could not be used to film the mountain scenery in the Western alps from above because of the altitude and cold temperatures. So, the aerial cinematography was done by the French company No Gravity Films, which uses ultralight aircraft for aerial shots for film, commercial, and broadcast productions. It‘s even possible to mount and stabilize full format cameras and large cinema zoom lenses on their ARRI SRH360 gimbal.

“Compared to a helicopter that consumes 200 liters of kerosene per hour, the ultralight aircraft with its twelve-liter fuel consumption per hour is a real ecological alternative”, says pilot Jason Barrault, who operates the Paris-based company together with production manager Damien Schneider. “If we have to fly to distant locations, we also film stunning landscape imagery along the way, and we save it as stock footage.”

The Pas si douce production benefited from this practice, because it got aerial shots from Mont Blanc without having to charter an aircraft. Remote production has already worked out for several documentaries by Lucien Productions. For Les Incorrectes, a documentary about the French athlete Alice Milliat, who launched the Women’s World Games in 1922, local crews were hired to interview top athletes in New Zealand, Bulgaria, and Algeria.

The director Anne-Cécile Genre remained in Paris, where she asked her interview questions via Zoom so that the interviewees could see her on a laptop screen. The production managed just fine without air travel, which paid off for the budget as well as for the environment. “It saved us 15,000 euros”, sums up the producer. “If we had booked flights, the production’s current carbon footprint of 2.8 t CO2 would have been more than four times greater – 12 t CO2.”

Photos: © No Gravity Films, Zimy Da Kid