More on the BBC Wave Series
May 8th, 2009 by Adam
From the BBC South Pacific Series:
The South Pacific, known as the place where surfing originated, is home to over a quarter of the world’s water and approximately 20,000 islands. These isolated islands exist in some of the most pristine waters found anywhere in the world, harbouring life that is rarely seen.
Some of the biggest waves in the world break on south pacific islands. The storm swells that created the waves in this clip travel over 3000 miles to break on Pohnpei’s shorelines.
Useful Facts:
- The location of the surf shoot is Pohnpei (formerly known as Ponape), Caroline Islands in The Federated State of Micronesia, a place well known within the international surf community for it’s world class reef breaks.
- The $100,000 high speed camera used to film this surf sequence can operate in super slow motion and high definition at 20 times the speed of a normal HD camera. The camera is a TyphoonHD4 which has been specially modified by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, UK, and is similar the the one used on previous BBC landmark series such as Blue Planet and Planet Earth. It required a special housing unit designed and built by German specialist high speed cameraman/technician Rudi Diesel. Until this film no one had ever tried using this type of camera underwater before
- The cameraman who filmed the clip is 27-year-old top surf Australian cameraman Bali Strickland. He’s filmed many of the world’s best surfers at the top surf destinations.
- The surfer who is featured in the clip is 33-year-old Australian world class surfer Dylan Longbottom. Dylan is a world renowned big wave surfer and surfboard shaper. Known for pushing the traditional limits of both aerial surfing and big wave tow in surfing, Dylan won the monster tube award in the 2005 Billabong XXL awards. These days Dylan is developing his board shaping business (Dylan Longbottom designs) and continues to track down and surf the biggest and deadliest waves he can find.
Information provided by Rubber Republic
This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Surfing News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
