Reply With QuoteThat would be some risky faking. I think it is all real and they are really just crazy as hell. I love that show.
Got a link to the site Casanova?
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/de...iestcatch.html
That would be some risky faking. I think it is all real and they are really just crazy as hell. I love that show.
Got a link to the site Casanova?
Go to Discover Channel.com and they have a link to the fan site.
Lots of talk back and forth about the rescue being staged. Evidentally the camera crew wasn't on board when it happened, they had left a video camera with the crew to document stuff. So, that in a way explains the poor camera angles and what not. It was Andy Hillstrand manning the camera, according to the website.
I think parts of the rescue might have been staged later on (like the deck scenes and what not), but the look on those guy's faces afterwords ain't acting...
Its a brotherhood of competitors.........Cool ass show. I think the saved dude was for real, lucky guy. Why disect the show? Take it at face value and enjoy it.
ya! and the saving capt was sure Hugging the camera!
Reprinted without the permission of the LA Times
The tale of 'Deadliest Catch's' two crews
The fisherman's life captured on the Discovery Channel show is tough. The cameraman's life at sea is no picnic either.
By Lynn Smith
Times Staff Writer
April 16, 2007
LIKE most people who work day and night aboard crab vessels in the Bering Sea, Doug Stanley has stories.
There was the time he couldn't get his footing on an ice-covered deck in minus 20-degree temperatures. "Every time the boat would stall, you'd be looking at an ice slide, straight down to a 4-foot railing separating you from the water," he said.
And the time he jumped in to untangle a line from a buoy. "I can tell you what it's like to be in the ocean staring at a ship. It's like a building is dancing in front of you."
He's broken his ribs. He's smashed his teeth. And he loves his life at sea as much as any crusty adventurer who mans Alaskan fishing vessels. "I cannot explain to you how wonderful and incredible it is for me."
But Stanley isn't a crab fisherman. He is director of photography for "Deadliest Catch" Discovery Channel's most watched and Emmy-nominated show last year, now in its third season. It airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays.
Filmed in the cold, wet darkness of the heaving seas, the documentary-style show, needless to say, demands more from a camera crew than typical reality or wildlife programs. The "Deadliest Catch" cameramen work in close quarters with the fishermen, sometimes 30 hours at a stretch. Their cameras get wrecked by saltwater, lenses are constantly fogged or iced over.
"You have to be able to do everything they do. This stuff is very testosterone-oriented," said cinematographer Eric Lange. "You have to go blow for blow with them and get that respect level. Then they don't care if you're there and what they're saying," he said.
Doubling as producers, the cinematographers must also capture the characters' stories. That the Emmy-nominated episode was shot with a lens blasted with ice, cod fish and salt water supports that "it's a story-driven show," Stanley said. "It's not about the photography." He wore his smelly orange fisherman's slicker to the red carpet.
Johnathan Hillstrand, captain of the fishing vessel Time Bandit, was filmed pulling off one of this season's two rescues at sea. "Me saving that guy I don't know if there's anything like that on film," he said.
Hillstrand said he hadn't even realized how dangerous his job was until he saw it on TV, and he has become close friends with some of the photographers. "I have a lot of respect for those guys," he said.
What it takes
Crab fishing is considered "deadly" for anyone on board mostly because ballast is tricky to control on fishing vessels that can tip over with the extra weight of ice or too many 700-pound crab pots. Lengthy seasickness can also be dangerous if the person doesn't make the effort to eat or drink enough. But rewards can be high: If all goes well, a fisherman can earn $250,000 in six months. If it doesn't, he might not come home at all.
The cameramen said the only comparable job would be a war correspondent.
Producer Thom Beers had no idea what he would find when Discovery commissioned him in 1998 to tape a two-hour special on Alaskan crab fishermen. "Little did I know, there would be the worst storm in 25 years, 70-knot winds, 40-foot seas. Two boats sank; seven men drowned. They never found the bodies.
"It was a feral experience, such an amazing adrenalin rush. I've never seen anybody work so hard under such harsh conditions. I had to go back."
Four years later, he talked Discovery into another show that found its audience, and its crew, by word of mouth.
In addition to résumés, Beers' Original Productions gets lots of calls from friends of friends who just want the adventure of being on a boat. Many have already been directors of photography on their own shows. Most climb mountains, lead river-rafting excursions or ride motorcycles in their spare time.
Beers said: "We look for that real gleam in their eye. Someone who's not worried: Is there air conditioning? What's the menu?" It doesn't always work out. Hillstrand said some get so seasick they have to be helicoptered back to the mainland. Others just don't reup.
Co-executive producer Jeff Conroy said he also looked for a special set of social skills to be able to avoid confrontation with the fishermen and still film their private moments.
"It's a very delicate dance we do with these guys out there. We have to survive this ordeal too," said Stanley, who at 44 is the oldest returning crew member. "It becomes imperative that they get along with you, like you and accept you. There is battle done on those boats, on the docks. It's a place where men solve their own differences. It's not something you want to get involved in at sea where you're outnumbered 7 to 1."
To get along, he said, he's developed a manner of give and take. "I'll go inside the galley and make them peanut butter-and-honey sandwiches, clean bathrooms, light cigarettes and stick them in their mouths when it's raining."
Even so, some fishermen object so strongly to being filmed in an emotional state that they'll lock themselves in a room. "It's always a temporary thing," Stanley said. "We end up telling those stories too."
Once, he said, a crew threatened to throw all his cameras overboard when they learned he was planning to shoot a surprise "man overboard" drill planned by the captain. "It took me 24 hours to get back into their graces and operate the cameras," he said.
This season will include behind-the-scenes footage, some shot by the crew themselves.
Telling tales
Some footage will show the crew drinking with the fishermen in Dutch Harbor, the notorious island seaport 800 miles off Alaska where the men regroup between trips. "It's Wild West crazy," Stanley said. "The bars are the beating heart of the fishing industry. It's the only social environment they know, the bars of Dutch Harbor. Everyone is telling stories. We crawl across the floor on our lips at the end of the night."
That's where the cameramen fish for stories.
"I learn everything about each character on the vessel, at the bar, drinking heavy," Stanley said. "One year we didn't get too much bar time in and it affected the show."
Not all captains were willing to let cameramen aboard their vessels. Some crab fishermen are superstitious and refuse to let women or redheads aboard. The Time Bandit was one of the most cooperative. Hillstrand said: "Usually, I talk to myself in the wheelhouse. Now I have someone to talk to. It's sort of nice."
One fisherman, Hillstrand's brother Andy, was so interested in photography that Stanley taught him how to shoot. He managed to capture one of the most dramatic scenes in Season 3's fourth episode a rescue of a man overboard when the production crew was back in Dutch Harbor.
"It's very shaky and erratic. But it captured the moment," Conroy said. "In a normal shot, you say, 'Wait, stop. Can we do this again?' There is no 'do this again' on the Bering Sea." The most honest moments are often imperfect, he said.
After several seasons together, the fishermen and the cameramen said they have learned to respect and appreciate one another.
"The Alaska boy is a different boy from a boy from the lower 48," said Stanley, who lives in Auburn, Calif. "I have an image of them swinging on a swing set with grizzly bears walking by."
But like them, he said sea life "gets in your blood." Now, he said, "I understand these guys better than I understand a lot of people."
Hey Chase, I thought American Idol was your favorite, you need to get over Sanjia getin the boot!
Ya, you and I both know who the american idol fruitcake is! You Sanjia bumper sticker havin, can't miss an episode bein,
can't wait for his first album lovin, sanjia wannabe. By the way, what time are we playing golf? Please remove the Sanjia
stickers from your golfbag before you enter the clubhouse.
i hate crab legs,sum a bitches would go bankrupt if they counted on me,closest thing to fish i eat is ....y.
made for TV fishing................thats never been done before.........LOL yes i did funny thing i thought the same thing with the cammara man right thier when they were putting on the orange suits. that didn't make sence what were they going to do jump in after him??
any rescuerer must don a survival suit since the risk of being pulled over is high when lifting a body back onboard.... as for the ship following watching the guy over the side.... that is common practice for ships to run close when heading the same way... since it was edited... they could have be following for an hour... who knows.... seemed real, and his hair was wet... I just watched it again... just to check..... but in the end... who knows what is real after an editing room gets a hold of something... I do know that cameras are left on various ships and a crew works with the coast guard too.... they try to get as much footage so the editing can make a great program... the amount of camera crews are used sparingly and then supplamentl cameras are left with crews... or just a single person operating a camera is onboard....
No, but I had it TiVoed.
You didn't "f" me up. I read the first sentence and skipped right to post reply.I love that show! Sig is a MADMAN!!
No, but I had it TiVoed.
You didn't "f" me up. I read the first sentence and skipped right to post reply.
Hey, they let me out of the funny farm free and clear..........
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