The final factor was that we needed to make sure our exposure and color temperature settings, both on-set and in [ost, would equate evenly. All dosimetric equipment measured only gamma-irradiation. As with the rest of the show, they felt that it was vital for the viewer to have the same involvement as the characters on screen and so we filmed the entire shot on a steady-cam to give us the same intimate experience of being on the roof. Given that there is historical footage of the liquidators on MASHA roof, this also helped us enormously in terms of accurately representing the environment in post as it existed during that period. Hospitalised in a Kiev cardiology ward, the doctors told him to drink as much wine and vodka as he liked; they had no idea how to treat him. Each day, the liquidators would line up in front of the plant by the thousands to wait for work assignments. Hromadske journalists went to Pripyat with one of the liquidators, Oleksiy Breus. But the health toll for the survivors continues to be a matter of debate. However these machines soon failed as the radiation destroyed the electronics within them: The only plan left at the time was for men, sometimes referred to as bio robots and the only mechanisms capable of functioning in the extreme conditions, to remove the debris by hand. Our brief was simple: to create the expansive Chernobyl environment beyond the rooftop, to show the open core of Reactor #4, chimney, and rest of the plant. Max Dennison: Knowing that we would have an exact virtual replica of the rooftop set thanks to LIDAR, and an extensive CGI model of the Chernobyl environment including a highly detailed replica of the exposed Reactor #4, meant that once any live cameras had been tracked, we knew we would be able to place the shot accurately within our virtual Chernobyl set. A photograph of “liquidators” on the roof of Reactor three taken by Igor Kostin. Writer Craig Mazin and director Johan Renck both wanted to portray this exactly as it was back in 1986 and so they contrived to film the scene in exactly 90 seconds to demonstrate just how intense and dangerous it was. When he got back to his flat, he discovered that the phone had been cut off and his wife was out of town at their dacha, tending her flowers, directly in the path of the plume. Thousands of liquidators however, mostly military officers and skilled professionals, volunteered to participate or to extend their work beyond the initial compulsory term. Max Dennison: Once principal photography had finished, there were a very large number of challenges facing us in Post to complete this shot and to make it look plausible and seamless within the surrounding drama. We’ll be lucky if we’re all still alive in the morning.”‘. Of his shift of 28 men who went out to fight the fire that night, only 16 are still alive (2006). When the chief of the plant’s training programmes, Veniamin Prianichnikov, returned home that morning from a business trip to Lvov, he saw the streets being washed down with decontaminants. The "bio robots" who cleared the roof: true. On the roof of the turbine hall, both gamma and neutron radiation was being emitted by the lumps of uranium fuel and graphite at a rate of 20,000 roentgen an hour; around the core, levels reached 30,000 roentgen an hour: here, a man would absorb a fatal dose in just 48 seconds. They had no protective clothing, or dosimetric equipment to measure radiation levels; the blazing radioactive debris fused with the molten bitumen, and when they had put the fires out with water from their hoses, they picked up chunks of it in their hands and kicked it away with their feet. The award winning 26 minute film The Sacrifice, by Emanuela Andreoli and Wladimir Tchertkoff, documents the physical and emotional toll on those closely involved in the aftermath of the disaster. – Sergii Mirnyi a 27 year old chemist at the time of the disaster. It is likely that at least 300,000 – 350,000 people were directly involved. He received a fatal dose of radiation and he died from acute radiation syndrome on 13 May 1986. Did you have full bluescreen coverage? HBO. The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear meltdown that occurred on April 26, 1986, in the No. ‘I’m afraid of flying.’ Now 58, he has heart problems; his flight engineer is an invalid. Since that time, many liquidators have died or suffer from serious health problems. Sergey Krasilnikov, 65, was one of about 800,000 Soviet citizens tasked with stemming the tide of the Chernobyl … Volodin stayed until late May, and returned to fly in and out of the disaster site for another five months. That was the recognition I received.’. The white streaks at the bottom of the photo were due to high levels of radiation flowing from below. ‘That was the most terrifying thing,’ says Veniamin Prianichnikov. It was a full hour before Pravik and his men, dizzy and vomiting, were relieved and rushed away by ambulance. Below, he could see a village where people were at work in their gardens; when he looked up at the dosimeter, the reading had gone off the scale. Lozovaya residents have already lost the same number of Chernobyl victims. Radio controlled vehicles (as shown in the video below) were initially used to clear debris, consisting of highly radioactive fuel from the reactor core, thrown on to the roof of reactor 3. 4 reactor, throwing it to the ground where it will later be covered by the sarcophagus. Anatoli Zakharov remained on duty at the power station until 2pm, and then cycled home. Afterwards, Volodin was told he and his crew had been so irradiated they could no longer fly. A fatal dose of radiation is estimated at around 400REM – which would be absorbed by anyone whose body is exposed to a field of 400 roentgen for 60 minutes. The Soviets did not have uniforms that could provide adequate protection, so those liquidators enlisted to enter highly radioactive areas were required cobble together what they could. Again, the reduced luminosity of blue would limit the amount of creep into our highly motion-blurred edges which would ultimately help up later on in the post. It was he who last pressed a button on the control panel of the fourth block. ‘I remember joking to the others, “There must be an incredible amount of radiation here. Slowly, ad-hoc plans began to take shape. ‘Find the nitrogen,’ he was told, ‘or you’ll be shot.’, On 10 May, the fire finally subsided; it now seems possible that the graphite simply burnt itself out. The New Safe Confinement (NSC or New Shelter) is a structure built to confine the remains of the number 4 reactor unit at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Ukraine, which was destroyed during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. A report by the Nuclear Energy Agency quotes a figure “up to 800,000”. These people included power plants operators and emergency workers such as firefighters and military personnel, as well as many non-professionals. On the night crew was fireman Anatoli Zakharov, who had been stationed at Chernobyl since May 1980. So any action taking place against that side would always be covered by live set. ‘Everything we did was a waste of time.’, When I asked if he received any recognition for what he did, Prianichnikov smiles darkly. The Chernobyl liquidators were the civil and military personnel who were called upon to deal with consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union on the site of the event. Combined with the ever-increasing crackle of the dosimeters, the viewer was cleverly placed into the heart of the action. It meant that there were no limits placed on where the camera could look – up into the sky, 360 along the horizon, or even down into the open reactor hall, and all in one take. “More reinforcements were summoned. b&a: What were the particular challenges of the shoot? He has already undergone one heart operation he ascribes to the accident. Firstly, we would, for the most part, be shooting on this set in bright natural daylight and as such, the colour spill and bounce of the walls would need to be controlled in such a confined space. The report from the Russian National Medical Dosimetric Registry quotes 168,000 liquidators in Russia. Some workers attached aprons made of lead sheets just 2 to 4 millimeters thick over their cotton work clothing. “Chernobyl is still not understood. During a late night safety test which simulated a station power-failure […] Thanks very much Stix - great to be joining the GB and thank you for hosting Looks like its going to be a good one - really looking forward to it. We also had to cheat slightly the position of the open reactor core for story telling purposes so that it appeared that the liquidators were dumping the broken graphite blocks directly into the core. The scene plays out in a 3000 frame Steadicam camera move and includes a particularly precarious moment where one liquidator gets his foot stuck. "The liquidators were sent into impossible scenarios where even machines failed," photographer Tom Skipp, who photographed some of Chernobyl's … A study by Belarusian physicians however states that the rate of cancers among liquidators from Belarus is about four times greater than the rest of the population. Reached by climbing 78 meters up a spiral staircase. We were like kamikaze.’. All images copyright © 2019 Home Box Office, Inc. On the afternoon of the 27th, two Mi-8 helicopters from Kiev began the first of hundreds of firefighting sorties. Our final challenge was towards the end of the shot where our liquidator trips over a broken graphite block. According to the book, Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter, by author Igor Kostin, the vast majority of liquidators (people responsible for managing the crisis in its aftermath) who were tasked with removing the radioactive material from the third roof were middle-aged. ‘Tracking’ proved to be the biggest hurdle as all the footage was handheld using a Steadicam. The medal awarded to liquidators is shown on the right, it depicts traces of alpha (α) and beta (β) particles and gamma (γ) rays over a drop of blood. Extracts from Sergii Mirnyi’s – Reflections of a Chernobyl liquidator – the way it was and the way it will be (Bellona). Only military chemists carrying dosimeters were silently scanning the neighbourhood to measure the radiation levels.” An account of Sergey Bondarenko’s time in the Zone can be found on the excellent http://chernobylproject.blogspot.co.uk. Therefore, we had to replace the original rock with a fully CG piece of broken graphite.