The Art of Filming Crocodiles

Crocodile
Perhaps he had crossed the river just to see if I really was a crocodile.

While working on Sri Lanka I often saw crocodiles that quickly disappeared beneath the surface before I was able to capture them on film. That was kind of frustrating. I had, for several years, tried building hides up in the trees, inside hollowed trunks, hides virtually invisible for the human eye, but the crocodiles, which are highly intelligent creatures, always knew I was there.

Over the years I had gotten to know the Swedish wildlife filmmaker, Jan Lindblad. One evening we were talking and I asked him what I should do to film crocodiles. He hadn’t really worked much with crocodiles and didn’t have any concrete advice, but he told me that he had learned a few tricks over the years. “One way,” he said, “is to sound like the animal, smell like the animal, or move like the animal that you are trying to film.”

Well, crocodiles grunt similar to pigs but most of the time they’re pretty quiet, so imitating the way they sound wouldn’t be easy and I wasn’t really interested in smelling like a crocodile. Moving like a crocodile, that might be worth trying.

A couple of days later I decided to try it. In a clearing in the middle of the jungle I found a mudflat dissected by a meandering river. Through the binoculars I spotted five crocodiles. I left the rest of the team in the jeep that we parked about 400 yards away, far enough to avoid scaring the crocs. A few yards from the jeep I laid down and began the slow, arduous task of crawling on my belly like a crocodile, pushing the camera in front of me on a specially-made sled. After every push forward I stopped to make sure the crocodiles by the river hadn’t moved. Three hours later I reached the edge of the river. The crocs were still maybe 50 meters away.

Suddenly one of the crocodiles on the other side of the river slid into the water. “Well, that’s that,” I thought, “it’s not going to work this time either.” I lay perfectly still, my head in my hands, waiting for the rest of the crocodiles to do the same thing, but nothing happened. Strange! Surprisingly, off to my left, a pair of eyes slowly broke the surface just a little bit more than an arms-length away from where I was lying by the river’s edge. Apparently the crocodile from the other side had not been frightened, but had come across to check me out. Was he simply curious, or was he looking to see what could be on the menu this hot afternoon? It didn’t matter to me in the least. I was so ecstatic that my efforts had paid off, I had finally gotten close to these shy giants. Slowly I turned the camera and focused on the crocodile’s eyeballs. I started the camera rolling and we laid there, staring at each other for a couple of minutes. When I had gotten my sequence, the eyes slowly disappeared under the water and the croc swam across to the beach on the other side of the river. When he had gotten comfortable in the afternoon sun, he opened his mouth. That is a sign that the crocodile feels safe and happy.

Perhaps he had crossed the river just to see if I really was a crocodile. Apparently he decided that, despite some rather obvious defects, I was acceptable. For the rest of the afternoon, until the sun was going down, I crawled around amidst the crocodiles like I was part of the group. It’s important to test every possiblity in order to succeed, even in some things seem a little crazy.

Birth of a Filmmaker

Stefan Quinth - age 3
My interest in wildlife and nature began at an early age.

My motivation is to produce films that will encourage people and help them see new possibilities. We need positive messages in a world where the media has, unfortunately, become pessimistic and violent.

You know that children are fascinated by anything crawling on the ground: worms, beetles, and all kinds of animals. I was the same way growing up. Wherever there were bugs, I would be there digging them up. I grew up near fields and woods. My father, who didn’t really share my interest for wildlife and things that crawled on the ground, told me often, “Be careful in the woods, son, and never go close to the stone walls because there are snakes there.”

Snakes? Well, at four or five years old, I just had to find out what was so dangerous about those creepy, crawly creatures. I had no choice but to crawl on and around the stone walls looking for the things I was supposed to look out for. So that’s what I did and my interest in wildlife and nature was sparked.

When I was 15 years old I worked after school, evenings and weekends as a photographer and journalist for the local newspaper. It was rewarding to tell stories with words and pictures. But I was soon introduced to something even more exciting and rewarding, filmmaking! When I was 17, my friends and I produced a film that got a lot of attention. We didn’t really have a name for our film until after we held a press conference. On the front page of the local newspaper was a picture from the film under the headline, “Tarzan – Son of Moose.” We thought that sounded pretty good. Later, I sent the film to Swedish Television and they called the very next day and asked if they could purchase the film. I’ve never sold a film that quickly to a television station since then.

When the film had been aired all over Sweden the verdict was in. The Daily News (Dagens Nyheter) wrote the next day:

”There are many talented and ambitions wildlife and documentary filmmakers in this country. But the film that took up the majority of the last episode should have stayed within the confines of the closest friends, to be shown only after consuming the sixth or seventh cocktail of moonshine and Coca-Cola. That anything so embarrassing and asinine could be shown on Swedish Public Service Television is disgusting. Is this what our license money pays for? If I worked for that organization and had been responsible for choosing that film for public viewing, I would go underground and not emerge again until the trumpets sounded on judgment day.

Well, he certainly didn’t spare our feelings but, can you believe it, the Daily News’ critic had suffered through our entire film and written about it!?! It didn’t matter to us at all if he liked the film or not. That was my first film to be aired in every house all over the country. The door to a world of filmmaking stood wide open.

Gone in Seven Minutes

Uyak Bay, Kodiak, Alaska
Uyak Bay where the SS Aleutian went down in 1929.

The S.S. Aleutian sailed from Seattle in the spring of 1929 with 300 passengers. Her captain was John Gus Nord, a Swedish-American with an unblemished, 30‑year career sailing the North Pacific. During the night of May 27th, most of the passengers disembarked at one of the canneries where they would be working over the summer. The weather was calm and the visibility good as the ship continued deeper into Uyak Bay with the remaining 15 passengers and a 135-man crew on board.

At 5:30 a.m., just south of Amook Island, there was a violent tremor, followed by a horrifying noise coming from the hull. The flagship of the Alaska Steamship Company had struck a submerged rock. Captain Nord, who understood immediately what had happened, ordered full steam ahead, hoping to beach the ship, but she was too damaged. The rock had torn an enormous hole in the hull, and the ship quickly filled with water. With her propellers high in the air, she sank, just seven minutes after the collision. An eerie silence was all that remained after the ship went down, reported one of the crewmembers. Not even a ripple disturbed the surface of the water.

In what was later lauded as the most efficient act of live-saving at sea, the captain and his crew deployed the lifeboats and evacuated everyone on board, with one exception. Manuel Dorras, a young crewman, drowned when he left the lifeboat, returning to the sinking ship to rescue his lucky horseshoe.

Everyone was stunned by the tragedy and their narrow escape. Captain John Gus Nord never quite recovered from the shock. He mourned his ship as if it were his own child.

It was assumed that the S.S. Aleutian had sunk in very deep water, and no attempts were made to salvage her. In 2002, seventy-three years after the accident, Steve Lloyd, author and shipwreck historian from Anchorage, Alaska, found the ship resting just 220 feet below the surface.

Following the dive line into the inky darkness the first sight of the ship is the two masts, now covered in white anemones, rising out of the darkness like ethereal watchmen. The ship is still intact after all these years despite the powerful currents. Shipworms have devoured most of the wood fittings but the hull remains, and the Aleutian is now a living museum, deep below the surface of Uyak Bay.

(Excerpt from “Kodiak, Alaska – The Island of the Great Bear”. The book can be purchased from http://www.cameraq.com/eng/books.html )

Don’t miss our first ”Kodiak Scandinavian Film and Culture and Festival” on Kodiak, Alaska, November 6-12, 2017. See www.cameraq.com  for more information.

Finding the Kad’yak

Newspapers
The discovery of the Kad’yak made headlines all over the nation.

The California gold rush, which started in 1849, flooded the state with people and increased the general wealth. Along with a higher standard of living came a greater demand for ice, which was a difficult product to obtain and deliver.

By the mid-1800s, the economy in Russian America had hit bottom. The sea otter population had diminished, and the fur trade on Kodiak collapsed. Thankfully, a new source of income presented itself. In 1852, the lake on Woody Island, an island near the city of Kodiak, became one of Alaska’s most valuable assets. In the winter, the ice on the lake was sawed into blocks and shipped to San Francisco. When the first load sold for $75 a ton, the Russian American Company realized that ice was a very profitable commodity. They soon had competition, however, when the first ice machines were invented. Twenty years later, machines had taken over the business entirely.

The Kad’yak was one of The Russian American Company’s smallest ships. She was a three-masted bark, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide. Her hull was covered in copper to prevent the growth of barnacles and other marine organisms.

On March 30, 1860, the Kad’yak left Woody Island bound for San Francisco, loaded with 356 tons of ice. Perhaps he was running late, or perhaps Captain Illarion Arkhimandritov was not superstitious. For whatever reason, he failed to observe the usual custom of paying his respects at Father Herman’s grave to receive a blessing for the voyage. Locals would later blame Kad’yak’s fate on this omission.

Shortly after setting sail, the ship hit a rock, tearing a large hole in the hull and quickly filling with water. The crew abandoned ship and went ashore in the lifeboats. But the ship didn’t sink. Her cargo of ice kept her afloat, drifting between the islands. Four days later, she sank in Icon Bay, off of Spruce Island. Ironically, the top of the ship’s mast and yardarm, still visible above the water, formed a cross marking her watery grave, directly in front of Father Herman’s chapel.

Since the 1970s, people had been searching in vain for the sunken Kad’yak, using the location parameters recorded in the ship’s log. Bradley Stevens suspected that those parameters had been misinterpreted and,143 years after she sank, believed he had new clues about Kad’yak’s position.

On July 21, 2003, we left the Kodiak harbor on board the Melmar. Our captain was Joshua Lewis, a teacher and fisherman from Kodiak. With great expectations, we arrived in Icon Bay, lowered the magnetometer into the water and fastened it behind the boat. A magnetometer, a device that resembles a miniature submarine, is an ultra-powerful metal detector that can detect metal buried or submerged far below the surface. Towing the magnetometer back and forth, we mapped the floor of the bay. When we reached the position Bradley had marked on his map, the magnetometer indicated the presence of large metal objects. Could it be the Kad’yak?

We began diving that afternoon, and by evening, we had found several pieces of copper. Cautiously optimistic, we returned to Kodiak.

Early the next morning, we were back in Icon Bay, and on our first dive, we found what appeared to be part of the ballast. We also found two cannons, an anchor, and a chain that matched the time period of the Kad’yak. Convinced that we had made a substantial discovery, we reported our findings. The news spread across the nation, and all diving was stopped in Icon Bay. Because of the historical significance of our find, all exploration rights for the shipwreck had automatically transferred to the State of Alaska.

The following summer, the East Carolina University organized a marine archeological excavation of the lagoon, and we who had found the shipwreck were invited, somewhat reluctantly, to join the expedition. With support from NOAA and the National Science Foundation, the university had the resources and the competency to complete the task. Though many artifacts were uncovered during the excavation, the most significant find was the copper hub of the ship’s wheel with the name “Kad’yak” inscribed in Russian letters, which positively identified the shipwreck.

When the excavation was completed, the remains of the Kad’yak were again buried in sand. A large portion of the hull and other artifacts from the ship lay in wait for someone with the authority and the resources to uncover her secrets. Barring that, Captain Arkhimandritov’s old ship will rest in peace at the bottom of the lagoon for centuries to come.

(Excerpt from “Kodiak, Alaska – The Island of the Great Bear”. The book can be purchased from Camera Q )

Don’t miss our first ”Kodiak Scandinavian Film and Culture and Festival” on Kodiak, Alaska, November 6-12, 2017. See Camera Q for more information.