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May 4, 2024 · With stunning visuals and pioneering use of time-elapsed photography, Chasing Ice served as direct evidence of the warming of the planet. Images showed millennia-old ice sheets radically transforming over just a few years, contributing to the rise of sea levels, and making manifest the way the world is undergoing fundamental transformation due ...
Nov 6, 2012 · It didn't always work: Chasing Ice is a story full of frustrations, when the team found that rock falls and deep snow had crushed or buried cameras. Some of the cameras took to...
- Site Director
- 2 min
The team behind Chasing Ice reunites for one final mission to close out the Extreme Ice Survey project: an unprecedented 15-year photographic record of the melting glaciers.
- Filmmaking
- Ice
- Climate
- Impact
- How to Host A Screening
What inspired the story of chasing ice?
Director Jeff Orlowski was connected to James Balog through a mutual friend, and would meet on occasion in Boulder, Colorado when he visited. Jeff was a photographer, and a huge fan of James’s work, and really wanted to collaborate with him. In 2007, he started his project called the Extreme Ice Survey and Jeff signed on as a helper. When Jeff first went with the EIS team to Iceland to begin installing their first time lapse cameras, Jeff filmed the entire trip. It was mostly just to document...
What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
The biggest challenge was the harsh environments. We had weather as low as negative 30 degrees. One winter night in Greenland, the crew actually thought they might freeze to death in their cabin. Their heater was leaking gas so they decided to go to sleep without it and woke up in the middle of the night from their own teeth chattering. But as cold as it was, and as difficult as it may seem, that was also the fun stuff.
how many locations did you shoot?
The list is too long! Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, Glacier National Park in Montana, the Alps, Bolivia, Canada…wherever James went, we followed. Beyond the work in the field, we filmed scientists and experts all around the country who could help explain why James’s work is so critical.
What was the biggest challenge for the extreme ice survey?
The single biggest strain and risk in this project was actually the financing. It looks scary to go into those crevasses, but the team knew how to do that and had confidence in their knots and anchors. The thing that really stretched us to the limit—the film included—was the economic stress. It was extremely intense and it didn’t let up for five years — everything from employing the companies who operated the helicopters, to the airplanes that got us to Alaska and Greenland, and the finances...
what does a calving event sound like in person?
It sounds like six 747s flying right over you! This huge roaring sound of a calving incident is almost identical to the roar of those big jet airplanes.
what is climate change?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), “Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature precipitation, or wind patters, among other effects that occur over several decades or longer.”
Isn’t this just weather?
Rising global temperatures are accompanied by changes in weather and climate. According to NASA, “the difference between weather and climate is a measure of time: Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere ‘behaves’ over relatively long periods of time.” Simply put, even though we may have an extremely cold winter day or season, this doesn’t mean that the planet as a whole is not significantly warming over an extended period...
why is climate change happening?
Over the last 100 years, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing the planet to warm at an unprecedented rate. While we can trace the majority of greenhouse gases to the burning fossil fuels to produce energy, deforestation, industrial processes, and some agricultural practices also contribute to emitting gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are necessary to warm the planet in order to support life on earth,...
What impact do you hope chasing ice will have?
We hope the film will help people realize through visual evidence that climate change is having a real affect on the natural world, and in turn humanity. It’s really hard for the average person to see the impact that humans have on the planet, especially when we live in a huge, beautiful country like America. You can drive across the States and spend days just looking out at huge open fields, and think, “how is my little car supposed to be having some sort of impact on all of that?” The time...
Have you seen any change come from the film yet?
Yes! In Spring of 2014, we launched the Chasing Ice Ohio Tour with the goal to use the film to shift the political conversation around climate change. We focused the tour on one Congressional district, represented by Congressman Pat Tiberi (OH-12), who had been listed as a climate change denier. During the tour, nearly 10,000 people saw Chasing Ice. 80 collaborating organizations joined our movement to engage the Congressman directly and hundreds of constituents in the district reached out to...
What can we do to help?
In order to inspire action, we first need to agree that there is a problem. The most important thing you do can right now, do is share Chasing Ice and other climate stories — help shift perception and advance conversations around climate change. That’s where change starts. We also need to be creative and inventive to solve this problem collectively, adopting an equitable and intersectional approach. Intersectional environmentalismrecognizes the disproportionate number of ways in which environ...
How do I host a Screening?
If you’re just watching the film in your home or with friends, there’s no need to register, just stream the film and enjoy! If you’re hosting an event or screening the film for an audience, head to our Screenings page to learn more about which licenses may be need.
How much does it cost to host a screening?
Ro*co Films handles the licensing for domestic screenings of Chasing Ice, click here to view pricing for different types of screening licenses. For international screenings, please email info@exposurelabs.comfor more information.
What kinds of venues can I host a screening at?
Check out our Planning Guidefor ideas on where and when to book your screening! Depending on the size of your event, you can host screenings anywhere from your living room or backyard, to classrooms and school auditoriums, office meeting rooms, aquariums, museums, and more.
Mar 11, 2019 · Balog documented the work of the EIS in his film Chasing Ice. Using it as a case study, the authors identified some strong points of the film: It forces viewers to bear witness through effective storytelling.
Nov 16, 2012 · In Chasing Ice, director and cinematographer Jeff Orlowski documents Balog’s ambitious plan to install 25 separate time-lapse cameras across the globe in order to record receding glaciers and shifting ice, dire omens of a changing climate with no audience to bear witness.
People also ask
Was Chasing Ice successful all the time?
What is the film 'Chasing Ice' about?
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Nov 8, 2012 · His first attempts didn't work. Windswept rocks smashed the cameras; microprocessors failed, batteries exploded, and foxes chewed the cables.
