C21 MEDIA: Whitehead’s White Spark Pictures on new voyage with icebreaker documentary
RSV Nuyina sees ice for the first time (photo: Pete Harmsen/Australian Antarctic Division)
Australia-based production company White Spark Pictures is making a two-hour documentary series about the world’s most advanced icebreaker.
The company has been granted exclusive access by the Australian Antarctic Division to join the maiden resupply voyage of its A$528m (US$374m) icebreaker to begin filming Birth of an Icebreaker: RSV Nuyina.
RSV Nuyina – which means ‘southern lights’ in palawa kani, the language of Tasmanian Aborigines – is scheduled to depart Hobart, Tasmania, on February 9 on its inaugural resupply voyage.
The ship is the world’s pre-eminent icebreaker and through its abilities to go further, travel faster and carry more vital cargo, as well as undertake crucial world-leading scientific research, it may just hold the key to unlocking the importance of Antarctica to the future of our planet, White Spark Pictures said.
The producer added the series will combine ground-breaking technology, feats of engineering and logistics, a wide range of cutting-edge science, history-making endeavours and elements of observational documentary.
The White Spark Pictures team will be among the 118 crew and expeditioners for the entire six-week voyage and an over-ice resupply mission next summer.
Joining Briege Whitehead and the White Spark Pictures team as director of photography will be cinematographer and photographer Michael Haluwana, whose credits include the BBC’s Planet Earth II, where he worked alongside Sir David Attenborough.
Expected to deliver in 2023, Birth of an Icebreaker: RSV Nuyina is being represented for international coproduction and pre-sales by Wild Thring Media.
In addition to the two-hour documentary series, the voyages to Antarctica will lay the groundwork and deploy cameras for a second two-hour series, Hunt for the Million Year Ice Core, described as a landmark scientific mystery and adventure series, which will follow the hunt for the ‘Holy Grail’ of climate change understanding – a million-year ice core.
White Spark Pictures previously filmed in Antarctica for its 2018 immersive VR film, The Antarctica Experience.
Whitehead, founder and creative director at White Spark Pictures, said: “I am beyond excited to be returning to Antarctica and to be travelling there on this momentous and history-making voyage.
“The Australian Antarctic Program has placed a great deal of trust in us, and we cannot wait to capture its latest acquisition, ground-breaking work – especially in the vital area of climate change – and the wide range of incredible characters who work tirelessly under challenging conditions. This epic journey into the ice – and our future – onboard the ultimate ship of the future – will allow us to show the world how science in Antarctica is evolving and how the people who live and work there are uniquely supported.”
Published on February 1, 2022, by Nico Franks on c21media.net