The survival show Man vs. Wild follows outdoorsman Bear Grylls through some of the harshest environments on Earth ‘ from the deep freeze of Siberia, the soggy rainforests of Panama to the unforgiving heat of the Sahara. What may be more impressive, at least to those in the production biz, is that a cameraman is undergoing the same ordeals of climbing down waterfalls, jumping out of helicopters and swimming through rivers all while shooting. That cameraman/DP is Simon Reay. We spoke with Reay about battling the elements, devising a camera package and workflow that would withstand whatever Mother Nature throws at them, and how his job, like outdoor survival itself, essentially boils down to willpower.

Do you have to do a lot of work in pre-production in terms of determining what equipment you will need for these varying harsh environments?

SIMON REAY: We discuss the general idea of each show beforehand so I have an idea of the scenarios that we may come up What is the crew for this?

The crew is normally myself and the sound recordist (on most shows Paul Ritz) who form the core of the operation but even that sometimes slims down to just Bear and a small camcorder. We also have a rope safety guy on hand for when we do the big climbs and stunts so I can follow Bear down or up when he’s climbing

Do you have a climbing or outdoor background?
Not officially. I have a boy’s background: messing about outside, tree climbing that sort of thing. I suppose this is an adult version of my childhood but now I get to do some exciting filming and I’m also paid for it. I was never a big climber but now it’s something I do because of this job. I enjoy the combination but I’m not about to go out at the weekend and go climbing.

What is in your kit?
We use four cameras. Panasonic HDC27 Varicam, Panasonic HVX200 P2 with Century wide angle adaptor, Panasonic AVC HD SD9 with Century Fish Eye adaptor and the Sony A1. I’ll do as much as I can on the Varicam but if there are physical constraints where I can’t get that camera into certain places such as a climb or anything underwater I’ll use the HVX200. Whenever Bear goes off alone and is filming himself he will use the AVC HD SD9 unless it’s on Infra red in which case he’ll use the A1. So it comes down to physical logistics each time.

We started off doing this series in DigiBeta but at the start of season three we moved to HD. We picked the Varicam primarily because of the variable frame rate for use when Bear is performing a stunt. It’s not a drama and we don’t use multiple camera angles so it provides the viewer with a more detailed look at the action. It also has great latitude and a very good viewfinder.

[In terms of lenses] I shoot 99% of the show on the Canon HD J22. We do carry a wide angle as well but it never really comes out of the box. I prefer tighter lenses for this show and I’m quite animated with the zoom so as to force the eye to look at a something specific in the frame as opposed to letting the eye wander on a wide shot.

The HVX200 has seen some serious hard work but it has performed amazingly. We have used tape-based cameras of this size that have failed on numerous occasions especially from humidity and shock. With the camera we were using before we had a jump in Panama where we jumped from 50 feet down into the water with the camera in an underwater housing and the impact of falling into the water knocked the tape off the heads. The tapeless nature of the HVX200 has been essential for the high impact shots we perform in water. Tape-based compressed systems cannot cope with even slight impact so the P2 format was perfect for this, and we could shoot 50fps when required. It still amazes me that the Scubacam underwater housing has survived considering it has been dropped from great heights onto its front element.

It’s strange to hear that because I think a lot of people assume tape is more stable than solid-state recorders especially in these solid-state recorders.

Not in my experience. But it has to be said that the Varicam has been bulletproof for us in many different environments. I’ve never had it go down so far and the kind of places we go to you just can’t have unreliability. I’ve been massively impressed with the HVX200 in terms of picture quality and its ability to match the Varicam so well. We’ve used that camera in so many ways and it’s stood up brilliantly.

Is this all shot with the camera on your shoulder (or handheld in the case of the HVX200) or do you have any support rigs?
No, Just my shoulder.

Do you bring multiple Varicams and HVX200s?
No. Just one of each. Neither has ever gone down. If the Varicam did I’d happily shoot with the HVX200 for a few days. But after 30 shows it’s been bulletproof so there’s no reason to lug a spare around.

How long are these shoots?
Generally about eight days on camera.

Do you use any filters or are you just trying to capture a raw, clean image and get it back to post.
A bit of both. I always shoot with a Tiffen 138 circular polarizer and a Tiffen Haze 2A with Arri MB 20 matte box for the Varicam. The HVX200 has a 4×4 polarizer and UV17 with Vocas matte box. These filters also serve to protect the lens and they tend to become disposable items on this shoot, but better to lose a filter than a front element.

What is the hardest to shoot in? The cold? The heat? Or the wet?
It’s weird. When you are stuck in the middle of the Sahara you wish you were in Siberia and vice versa. The harshest place we’ve ever been was Scotland believe it or not. It’s the combination of cold, wet and damp that penetrates right through you and the equipment.
I find in all these environments it’s important to maintain your work ethic. It’s just a mind game really, overcoming the conditions in your head and concentrating on your job means the environment becomes irrelevant because all that matters is capturing the shots. It’s so important to capture the sense of an environment rather than just the scenery and that’s the part which is so easily lost! I always try to keep that in mind and make the extra effort to get those shots no matter how miserable the conditions. Otherwise I know I’ll regret it when I watch the show.

What have you learned anything about the cameras in rough conditions?
The main thing I’ve learned is that the manufacturers’ specifications on equipment do not bare a lot of resemblance to the real world. I’ve used the Varicam at temperatures of around negative 45C degrees, totally unprotected, and had no problems apart from the rubber record button on the lens freezing, that’s all! The story I hear most often is the one about the tape snapping in the cold. That is a myth and I’ve never had that. Generally it’s the thing that you don’t expect to fail that will, so my advice is – Test everything yourself.

How do you deal with the P2 footage on set and was there any apprehension dealing with that on such a shoot?
We’ve grown quite confident with P2 material now and our data workflow is this: Material is shot onto two 8GB P2 cards in the camera. Once one card is completed it gets removed and downloaded onto the Panasonic FS60 drive then erased from the card and put back in the camera and so on. Each evening the material is copied from the FS60 and placed on a laptop internal drive and backed up on a separate external drive. Once it is backed up in these two places we will then erase it from the FS60. The rushes can be viewed on the laptop with the P2 Viewer software. Once you go through that you become confident with the term ‘format,’ which is a scary word that means erase.

In terms of using the solid-state workflow was there anything you had to account for or that differed from you normal workflow?
Yes, we had to establish a workflow which could operate in the way we wanted to shoot. What worked for us won’t necessarily work for another shoot. In the beginning all the rushes had to be delivered on tape. So the production company had to create tape rushes from our P2 material and then import it back into the suite with new timecode. That meant you lost all the metadata but fortunately this has now changed and rushes can be delivered in P2 form maintaining that dataflow.