Wild Ice

The call came from Elladj Baldé directly. He'd seen my work, we're both based in Calgary, and he wanted a cinematographer for a short film project he was putting together around something he and his friend Paul Ziszka had been doing quietly for years, scouting and skating on wild, ungroomed ice deep in the Canadian Rockies. No arenas, no audiences. Just them, the mountains, and whatever the lake offered that day.

That was enough for me to say yes immediately.

Elladj, Paul, and the World of Wild Ice

To understand this film, you have to understand the relationship at the center of it. Elladj Baldé and photographer Paul Ziszka have built something genuinely rare: a friendship that exists entirely around this shared obsession with finding perfect wild ice in the backcountry. Paul scouts the lakes, reads the conditions, and guides Elladj on safety. Elladj gives Paul one of the most extraordinary photographic subjects imaginable: a world-class figure skater moving through untouched wilderness landscapes.

Neither of them needs the other for career reasons. They do it because they love it. And that dynamic is what gives the film its soul. Wild Ice isn't really a film about skating. It's a film about that friendship, and what it means to find your place in the natural world.

Paul isn't just the BTS photographer on this project. He's a full character in the documentary: on screen, in conversation with Elladj, talking about wild ice, the mountains, what draws them both back out there. The film is largely just the two of them.

How the Production Came Together

Director Mike Schultz came on board to shape the project editorially. He's based in the States and brought a strong outside perspective to the storytelling. Mike produced the project, kept things moving, and got the film through post. What came out of that collaboration is something none of us could have made alone.

On the ice it was a tight crew: Elladj, Paul, Mike, and myself, moving efficiently through the backcountry with a full cinema package. Carrying that much gear onto a frozen lake requires a certain economy of people, and everyone there had a reason to be.

Operating on Ice

To keep pace with Elladj while he skated, I put on skates. That's not a sentence I expected to write on a production journal entry, but here we are. Getting low on the ice, blade level, gives you a perspective that turns Elladj's movement into something cinematic rather than athletic. The lake surface becomes a second sky. The cracks and crystals fill the foreground. It's a completely different world when you're that close to it.

The Camera Package

I shot on the Canon C500 MKII with DZO Vespid prime lenses throughout. The full-frame sensor handles the high-contrast winter light, bright sky, dark forest, turquoise ice, without blowing out or losing shadow detail, which was critical. We wanted to feel the depth of the ice, the crystalline structure just beneath the surface.

The Vespids gave us the close-up character we needed for detail shots like a skate blade, the ice texture, the micro-landscape of the frozen lake surface, while holding cinematic quality on wider environmental frames. Handheld and on sticks depending on the shot, with the camera rigged tight to keep weight manageable when moving fast across ice.

Mike brought a Canon C80 paired with a Cooke SP3 lens and the DJI Ronin RS4 Pro with DJI Lidar for Elladj's performance shots, a tight fast rig that could track him across the ice without missing a beat. Having two camera systems gave us the flexibility to cover Elladj's movement wide while staying close on the detail work simultaneously.

FRAME FROM WILD ICE · CANON C500 MKII · DZO VESPID   |   ON LOCATION · BARRIER LAKE

The Location: Kananaskis in December

Barrier Lake was our primary location, a reservoir at the foot of the Kananaskis Range, about an hour west of Calgary. In December it freezes solid, the water turns a deep turquoise blue, and the mountain reflection in the ice is almost surreal. Paul knew this lake well. He and Elladj had been here before, which meant we weren't scouting blind. There was already a relationship with the place.

We wore life jackets on set every day. Not as a precaution. As a requirement. The ice is unpredictable, open water appears without warning, and you're carrying gear that can't go in the lake. The shot of the C500 MKII sitting a few feet from an open water hole while we set up the next angle is not staged. That's just what the set looked like.

What You Don't Plan For

The moments that ended up mattering most were the ones we didn't schedule. Elladj and Paul just being themselves on the ice. Elladj picking up a chunk of frozen lake and holding it up to the light, Paul watching him, both of them comfortable in a place they'd been a hundred times. You can't manufacture that kind of ease. You just have to be ready and stay out of the way.

The Film

Wild Ice is in post-production and will be released soon. Follow @dcfotofilm on Instagram for updates when it drops. If you want to follow Elladj, he's at @elladjbalde.

If you're putting together a documentary, short film, or any project that needs a cinematographer in Calgary or on location in Alberta, reach out. This is exactly the kind of work I want to be doing.