Little did cinematographer/photographer Frank Hurley know when he left Plymouth, England with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition in August 1914 he was recording one of history's most epic feat of endurance. For two years, the goal of crossing the South Pole turned into a nightmare as the expedition's ship, the "Endurance," became solidly stuck in the ice for over a year before buckling under pressure. Hurley had to surrender his camera, but he did save a few reels of his footage as well as 100 photographic plates.
After a miraculous return in August 1916, Hurley used the film he cranked out and the still photographs he shot while on the Endurance to produce his 1919 documentary "South." This was Hurley's second voyage to Antartica, so he knew about film preservation in frigid weather. But nothing quite prepared him for the hardships facing the expedition when the Endurance became ice jammed. What's notable in the Hurley footage is how the crew, foot by foot, attempted to get their ship to the mainland by physically hand sawing the ice in front.
The highlight of "South" was Hurley's footage of the crew unloading all the necessary hardware from the Endurance and capturing the ship's destruction. Hurley returned to the destroyed ship and waded in waist high water to retrieve the photographic plates. "I hacked through the thick walls of the refrigerator to retrieve the negatives stored therein," he wrote a week later. "They were located beneath four feet of mushy ice and by stripping to the waist and diving under I hauled them out."
Unfortunately, he had to give up his camera, not able to film his crew mates when they scampered onto the three lifeboats as the packed ice broke up. They ended up on the uninhabited Elephant Island, where Shackleton and five others, in an open boat, made an 800-mile journey to South Georgia Island, where eventually they rescued the 22 waiting members. This became the last major expedition of the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Director George Butler used Frank Hurley's footage and photos to reconstruct his 2001 IMAX movie "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure." Butler's film crew shot on location at the South Pole where the Shackleton crew journeyed to complement Hurley's work that will forever live in documentary history.
After a miraculous return in August 1916, Hurley used the film he cranked out and the still photographs he shot while on the Endurance to produce his 1919 documentary "South." This was Hurley's second voyage to Antartica, so he knew about film preservation in frigid weather. But nothing quite prepared him for the hardships facing the expedition when the Endurance became ice jammed. What's notable in the Hurley footage is how the crew, foot by foot, attempted to get their ship to the mainland by physically hand sawing the ice in front.
The highlight of "South" was Hurley's footage of the crew unloading all the necessary hardware from the Endurance and capturing the ship's destruction. Hurley returned to the destroyed ship and waded in waist high water to retrieve the photographic plates. "I hacked through the thick walls of the refrigerator to retrieve the negatives stored therein," he wrote a week later. "They were located beneath four feet of mushy ice and by stripping to the waist and diving under I hauled them out."
Unfortunately, he had to give up his camera, not able to film his crew mates when they scampered onto the three lifeboats as the packed ice broke up. They ended up on the uninhabited Elephant Island, where Shackleton and five others, in an open boat, made an 800-mile journey to South Georgia Island, where eventually they rescued the 22 waiting members. This became the last major expedition of the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Director George Butler used Frank Hurley's footage and photos to reconstruct his 2001 IMAX movie "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure." Butler's film crew shot on location at the South Pole where the Shackleton crew journeyed to complement Hurley's work that will forever live in documentary history.