After James Balog had succeeded in spreading a warning about the imminent threat of climate change as far and wide as possible in the 2012 feature “Chasing Ice,” a culmination of his work with the Extreme Ice Survey that placed time-lapse cameras on 21 glaciers to capture their steady erosion, he took many of the cameras down as a practical matter. However, there was one left in the Svínafell, Iceland where the largest ice cap in Europe sits and while Balog continued to travel the world raising awareness of the rapidly depleting glaciers, knowing what it would take to convince others when it was something he hadn’t even believed in himself early in his photography career and using the evidence that his small crew had scaled mountains to capture for the benefit of millions, he still can’t exactly fathom what has become of Svínafell upon his return 15 years later in “Chasing Time,” lamenting “So much of my work took place on what is now a big lake.”
If Balog wonders if his legacy will disappear along with the ice cap, he can be assured by his former camera assistant Jeff Orlowski-Yang’s compelling coda to “Chasing Ice” and its follow-up “Chasing Coral,” about the equally concerning ecological effects of the disappearance of underwater reefs, that his message will outlive him, which can come as a comfort when Balog doesn’t know how much time he’ll have. Orlowski-Yang sprung into action upon learning that his former mentor was diagnosed with cancer, which would’ve been devastating under any circumstances but particularly unnerving when considering how fearlessly Balog had lived his life without incident, and builds around the retrieval of the last time lapse camera that the photographer set up to consider what a remarkable life he’s led. But “Chasing Time” honors Balog’s ethos when it ends up looking towards the future than him reflecting on his past as Orlowski-Yang brings along Sarah Keo, who previously worked with him on the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma” as a production manager, to co-direct, a passing of the torch that reflects the nature of his own relationship to Balog who taught him so much.
Just as apt to move audiences to tears and it is to take action, “Chasing Time” presents extraordinary sights beyond the ones that Balog and his crew have gone to such great lengths to capture over decades and with the 40-minute film recently making its world premiere at Hot Docs before a special screening next at the Seattle Film Festival where it will be part of a bill with “Chasing Ice,” Orlowski-Yang and Keo spoke about how they came to collaborate on the project, how both got to pursue passions they hadn’t been able to before on a film and being able to find a satisfying resolution to a story that still is far from over.
Jeff, how’d this all come about for you?
Jeff Orlowski-Yang: I met James Balog way back in 2007 when we started “Chasing Ice” and, after we made that project, our professional paths kept moving forward. A couple years ago, James said he was going to take down the very last time-lapse camera that we set up 15-plus years ago and he also had a cancer diagnosis a couple years back, and we had been talking for years about if we should do a follow-up. Everybody keeps asking what’s the status of the glaciers and how is James doing, so it just felt like the right time now to go back and to close out this project. We wanted to make a standalone piece that people could watch and see this reflection of time and mortality and life through our relationship.
Sarah, that seems like it must’ve been an interesting dynamic to walk into as a co-director. What was this like to take on?
Sarah Keo: Fortunately, Jeff and I have been working together for about five years now, so it was really easy to enter this co-directorship between us because we were already starting off with a foundation of trust and mutual respect in addition to our shared goals and creative vision. It wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it might be going into it, and Jeff was such a lovely mentor the entire time. Going in, he made it clear that I understood that we were equals and peers and we always had a relationship of open communication, of having space to explore ideas and reach decisions together, so it was a really great experience. I’m excited to continue working with Jeff on projects moving forward.
Jeff Orlowski-Yang: One of the big things, as we were recognizing that I would probably play more of a role in front of the camera, was having Sarah’s eyes on all of that was really, really essential. We actually made a rule that I was abstaining from how I was represented in the film and really deferred to Sarah and our editor Dave and our producing team to shape however I was to be used in the film, and to be able to have a team that I trust and support made it very, very easy to be willing to be vulnerable and to put my story out there as well.
Sarah Keo: When we first started conceiving of this, the core of the story really were these time lapses and showing this visual evidence of the landscape changing over the course of 15 years. The early conversations between Jeff and I and our team were, what is the story at the core of these glaciers? But I specifically remember being on the phone with Jeff when he shared a very vulnerable story with me about getting a phone call from James about his cancer diagnosis and how world shattering that was for him in that moment. And the way that he told that story was just so beautiful and raw and real. And after he was done, I said, “Jeff, I think this is the story we need to tell.”
From there, we started developing more of this arc around James and his cancer diagnosis and we started seeing this parallel between James’ journey and the melting of the glaciers and the impermanence of the landscape. Through hearing Jeff talk about how much James influenced his career and his worldview,, I realized that the way that we can get audiences to see James needed to be through Jeff’s eyes, so that’s why we started pulling Jeff more into the film as a character because it was really important to understand how much this one individual has had an impact on Jeff’s life.
It seems like you were okay with it Jeff, but what about James?
Jeff Orlowski-Yang: Not immediately. [laughs] I’m smiling and laughing because we did our best to keep James in the dark about where the story was going. A big part of that, too, was that we did a lot of audio-only interviews with James where before we went out in the field and between various trips, we just sat down in my living room and just had microphones with no cameras just to talk, breaking down the tension that can happen when the cameras are rolling and people are very aware of themselves. So a lot of those reflections on life and mortality and his cancer diagnosis came through those living room conversations and honestly, that’s where the title of the film came from. James was just pontificating on time and those ideas and themes really started to emerge. Obviously, there’s a lot of trust there. We shared an early cut of the film with him, and he was really touched and moved by what he saw and I knew we had his blessing. We were wanting to honor his story and how do we best tell the story that could be told from this team’s experience. And he was okay with all of that.
Sarah, what was it like to make the trip to Iceland?
Sarah Keo: It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and career, being able to be an outsider looking into this team that has had a 15-year-long relationship. It was so challenging in some ways, being a petite Asian woman who’s 5’3″ and trying to keep up with these boys with the camera equipment and the hiking. It was a little grueling at times, butJeff made sure to train me ahead of time by taking me out to Rocky Mountain National Park and forcing me to hike with camera equipment in the snow. And you can’t help but fall in love with the landscapes when you’re there in Iceland. It truly is a stunning and magical place and it was really wonderful being able to capture these landscapes through Jeff’s cinematography, through James’ photography, and to share it with the world in a way that is helping people to understand why these issues matter and why it’s so urgent for us to address climate change now.
It’s interesting to hear about the equipment because there’s a point in the film where James says, “Oh, I can’t believe we did this,” as he’s taking things down and it seems so antiquated. Were there things you could do with the equipment now you couldn’t do 15 years ago?
Jeff Orlowski-Yang: The cameras that we used this time were so much better than the cameras we had 15 years ago. I remember they didn’t even have GoPros when we started “Chasing Ice,” so I was using other action cameras for the first time that didn’t make it into the film. There were no drones. All of the shots in “Chasing Ice” were helicopter shots, so for this project, the equipment is so completely different, and it really allowed us to lean into how do we want to tell the story with all of these tools available to us, [as well as] hoping that the equipment doesn’t get in the way of the storytelling. The tools just become a means to an end of finding that emotional arc.
Jeff, every one of your films has had a strong musical component, but I think this is the first I’ve seen you actually credited as a composer and a songwriter. How did that end up in the mix?
Jeff Orlowski-Yang: In keeping with the themes of mentorship, I’ve been playing the piano since I was five years old and I’ve always wanted to do soundtracks and more composition. Mark Crawford is a composer that I’ve worked with on a number of projects. He scored “The Social Dilemma” and the team was really encouraging me to lean into this, so I’ve been on the receiving end of mentorship around film composition and getting to do this with Mark. We just recorded an end credits song that’s going to be added to the end of the film and in the end credits song, there are two artists who have been working together and themselves are a mentor/mentee duo, so the themes of the film just continue to surface in all sorts of ways.
Sarah, what’s it like for you getting to this point with this?
Sarah Keo: I’m very proud of the work that we’ve accomplished, and being that it’s my first time directing, I really learned how collaborative this filmmaking process is and how much trust it requires and how much better a film and story can be when you give your collaborators trust and space to be creative. So I’m really proud of our entire team — our producing team, editors, every single person who touched the film, and this finished product and excited to share the story with the world and hope that it engages and touches audiences in the way that this story has touched us.
“Chasing Time” will screen again at Hot Docs as part of Shorts Program 2 on May 4th at 2:30 pm at Scotiabank Theatre 5. It will next screen at the Seattle Film Festival on May 11th at 3:30 pm at the SIFF Cinema Downtown.
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