The Time Lapse That Almost Killed a Thunder Bay Videographer
It was 2016, and I was working with an equipment company, Cinevate in Thunder Bay. I was testing out their new time lapse prototype, which is now known as Modo. Basically, it’s a wind-up wheel that attaches to their famous Duzi slider, allowing the camera to move across the slider over the course of ~30 minutes to get a motion time lapse. Seems simple enough- or so I thought.
I did a few tests with a 3D printed model and it was working well, I shot some sunset and cityscape time lapses without any issues. Being a videographer in Thunder Bay, I did some testing of the device during real video projects to see how quickly it can be used when on a time crunch. I got some feedback from other Thunder Bay videographers and let the crew at Cinevate know what they thought about it.
At the time, I was working on a passion project, highlighting some of the waterfalls in the Thunder Bay area. I had shot some time lapses of various waterfalls in the area and wanted to get a clip of this one smaller one right in town, under a bridge. The weather was nice, well as well as it could be given it was May in Thunder Bay, so the videographer in me said “The sun is at the perfect point - go get that shot”. So I set out on my way.
Everything was normal, I eyed up the shot, set up the slider and started the time lapse. I skipped lunch so I sat off to the side and was eating a sandwich while the time lapse was going. The location I set up the shot was out on a flat rock in the river, it was about 1ft higher than the water, so I figured it was a safe zone to post-up. Boy was I wrong.
Near the end of the time lapse, I looked at my feet and noticed a little bit of water running by, I didn’t think much of it but I looked up and the river seemed higher, there was much less rock to stand on, and I was around 15ft away from the camera set up. About 20 meters upstream I saw a 5-6ft wall of water rushing down. That’s when my heart dropped - “Oh shit, there’s a dam upstream and they let it go!!”. I instantly ran over to the camera and managed to lift it up just before the water took it away, and I mean JUST before. When I started the camera was ~1ft higher than the water, by the time I got to it the whole slider was under water and the camera was about 1 INCH from being submerged. I grabbed the gear and started running back to the shore, water up passed my knees at this point and rising quickly. I dove onto the shore and made a clean escape.
No gear was damaged, and I got the shot. Definitely a close call and anytime I’ve filmed near a river I’ve made sure that there is no dam upstream. Funny enough that was also the day I signed up for camera insurance. That was the time lapse that almost killed a Thunder Bay videographer.
- Victor C: Director, Costal Productions