Apologies for the months of radio silence…but we have been very busy bees! Well, as I mentioned previously, Tarka had a brainwave 12 months ago, and decided we should take a break for expeditions and create a TV channel to benefit independent filmmakers!!!

We initially looked at standard television channels, but the cost was astronomical and limited us to the UK, so we then looked online! But online we found all video sites to be plagued with the same problems. In our opinion, great films are not made to be viewed the size of a postcard on a crowded and busy web page, nor catalogued away in a never-ending archive, never to be found again. If you want to know how to deliver film we think you need to look at the experts; TV and cinema. So we set about taking drastic measures to completely redefine viewing film online, by converging TV, Internet video and film festival with the latest in cloud and streaming technologies. It has without doubt been the most difficult challenge we have ever taken on and makes the Southern Patagonian Icecap suddenly feel very inviting!

In a nutshell our new platform, www.itzon.tv, provides film lovers with a huge range of independent films, documentaries and animations from around the world all scheduled into a linear stream. Providing a full-screen, high-definition ‘TV’ experience, available through an Internet browser or Internet-ready TV. And the best bit? It’s FREE!

itzon showcases an eclectic mix of films from all genres, but even if your not an indie film festival goer im pretty sure there will still be stuff you just might like!!! Every week there will be a selection of great adventure, travel and sports films you bound to enjoy. itzon is currently in BETA testing phase, launching our first months festival on the 18th May, when you will be able to catch:

Ten – A Cameraman’s tale: Ski/snowboard freeride documentary, and an insight into the world of freeride through the lens of cameraman Guido Perrini.

Single-Handed: Kevin Shields is known as the one handed climber.  Born with most of his left hand missing Kevin has shocked the climbing world.

Chalk and Chocolate: This beautiful film is of one of the best climbers in the world Natalija Gros, climbing one of the most challenging verticals in Slovenia: Histerija (8c+)

Into Darkness: The secret underworld of caves. Journey with cavers who push through impossibly small passages to some of the final frontiers on earth.

A Fine Line: A cinematic journey that unites the leading edge of winter action sports with avalanche education and responsible backcountry usage.

African Odyssey: A grass roots adventure at its best, 4 ordinary guys, 4 very ordinary motorbikes ride 21,000 km from Capetown to London.

Ascending the Giants: An insight into what motivates the arborists who climb the largest trees on the planet!

The Great Walk of China: our film…for those of you who haven’t yet seen it!

And many more!

You can just arrive and watch what’s playing now, browse the programme guide and digital magazine to see what’s on when, use the itzon Demand catch up service to watch anything you’ve missed and vote on the films as part of the monthly festival competition.

Shameless pleading but…Please spread the word about itzon to everyone you know!! Thank you

(Link to demo vid if you wanted something to embed http://www.youtube.com/user/itzontv#p/u/4/Dz56WUix0kQ )

I am very pleased and proud to tell you that all the hard work that went into ‘The Great Walk of China’ has started paying off and it has recently been shortlisted, along with 3 other films for ‘best independent film 2009’ at the Media Innovation Awards. Incidentally thank you so much to everybody who has been sending us such great feed back and I am sorry I haven’t been able to reply to all of you individually.

The great news of the day is that Pen, Ann and Martin managed to get their resupply and they all seem in very high spirits as they continue along their journey Northwards. The not so good news is that our flight out onto the ice has been delayed again due to bad weather and the aircraft is not available over the weekend… so we are now all crossing our fingers for a Monday drop off. In a bid to try and overcome the irritation of having to patiently sit and wait for our flight back onto the ice we have started training for our next trip. Oh yes… of course it was never going to be long before we decided on our next trip and true to form here we go. Unfortunately I cant tell you what the project is just yet but I can tell you that it requires us to be exceptionally fit and strong and of course it is a world first!!! What possible better training ground could we ask for than the Arctic for such an endeavour?

 

We have been devising a training schedule that will fit in with our surroundings and daily work whilst out on the ice. Staying fit out here is considerably harder than it sounds because you have to be careful about sweating and the intense cold. We’ve spent most of the afternoon pulling our pulks over huge blocks of snow and ice and I caught this photo of Katie wrestling her 110kg sledge up and over the boulders.