On the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona lies the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. Some of the most incredible and unique landscape in the country, its true majesty is showcased in a new short film shot and produced by Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinović called Vermillion Tempest.
The remote and unspoiled 280,000-acre landscape in this national park is a geologic treasure that includes terrain from the Paria Plateau, Coyote Buttes, Paria Canyon and the Vermilion Cliffs. The Vermilion Cliffs get their name from the iron oxide in the rocks that gives them a reddish hue, a color mixed with white Jurassic-era petrified sandstone. Unique features in the National Park described as either “brain rocks” or “cauliflower rocks” were likely formed after earthquakes lithified from sand into rock.
The second part of a timelapse trilogy in cooperation with BBC Earth, the two filmmakers Heffernan and Mehmedinović shot the landscape over two days and two nights of intense meteorological conditions, including high winds, thunderstorms, fog, and heavy rain. Luckily for us, these trying conditions make for a stunning film.
The first part of the trilogy, Wavelight, is an equally stunning look at Arizonian vistas.
Heffernan and Mehmedinović are launching a Kickstarter on April 3 called Skyglow that will fund the two filmmakers’ exploration of some of the most exotic dark sky locations in North America while simultaneously examining the biological and psychological impacts of light pollution. For more on their projects and the upcoming kickstarter, check out the Skyglow Facebook page. Â
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