Yellowstone Footage

n8ture

n8ture

Veteran
Ok, I was a little board today workin on the website. So, I thought I'd play around with some of the footage I shot in Yellowstone last time I was up that way.

To make it a little more challenging, I limited myself to the first four P2 card backups of Yellowstone on my hard drive. So, if you get bored by variations of the same shot, that's why. :)

Usually during the downtime from early morning and evening magic hour, I run around playing tourist and shoot anything that looks cool.
I was amazed by the huge volumes of water that were flowing while I was there.
Anyway, let me know what you think. The file is about 39 meg.

http://www.iowafilmmaker.com/Yellowstone.mov
 
Gorgeous shots. The porcupine cracked me up! :) I would love to see this full res. Are you taking them for stock or is there an intended project?
 
Wow, that's sick outdoor footage! How close were you to that bear? Loved the high shots, buffalo , porcupine, and all the falls, it definately did not feel repetitive. My only slight gripe was the music, a little on the hallmark tip. But please don't be upset, apparently I'm quite the critic. I like the natural sound at the end. More Yellowstone if you please!
 
filmstox said:
Gorgeous shots. The porcupine cracked me up! :) I would love to see this full res. Are you taking them for stock or is there an intended project?
Click to expand...

Just shooting for stock. Every now and then I put some stuff together and enter it in film festivals etc.

I have several projects in the works but never seem to have time to work on them. :)

dogcat. No offense taken. I figure after I used Rammstein in a previous clip I posted, I better mellow out a bit. :)

I need to get one of those electronic rangefinder things cause everyone always asks how close I was. :)
You'll notice the bear is the one moving and not me. :) I always let the animals come to me.

Course, my wife loves to tell the story of how I was filming Rosy the black bear near Tower Junction in Yellowstone. She was tearing up a huge dead tree for bugs right by the road.
She worked her way in front of me and I knelt down to get a better angle. Well two cubs shot out of the grass right next to me. They had been there the whole time and I never knew it. I thought I was a gonner but she just kept on tearing up the tree.

Later I found out it was Rosy and that she was one of the most tolerable bears in the park. :)

blackbear.jpg
 
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That's the next question I get asked right after "How close were you" :)

Nope, I've never seen it. I never forget that these are wild animals and no matter how mellow they seem they are vary dangerous.
 
Seeing as you shoot nature stuff, rent that movie soon!!! I didn't mention it as a cautionary plee. It's more because I think you will love the film, the actor, and then the director. ( Herzog's hot!!)
 
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Kevin,
You mentioned you were working on your website, so I checked it out. If you'll allow me to make one suggestion, you should put up a different picture of yourself on the "About Us" page; the one that's there now reminds me of several horror films. The rest of the site looks great (and all your footage is beautiful).
--Jeremy
 
snarton... Yeah, Julie wants me to change it too. :) There's still allot of work that needs to be done on it so maybe by the time we officially open, I'll change it. :)

Still trying to figure out how to put together a good demo reel for the site. I know jack about design so it's pretty basic, but I'm glad you lliked it. Thanks!
 
Kevin,
Beautiful work. You can never go wrong with a trip to Yellowstone/Grand Teton. Do you ever get to the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival? It was held last September... and is at Jackson Hole again in 2007.

As a fellow wildlife photographer/producer I completely agree about allowing the animals to come to you. I always seem to get my best material that way. If the animal decides on its own to get closer it's going to be much more at ease and natural... where as forcing myself on the animal just irritates it and puts it and me at risk.

Have you done much shooting in the Lamar Valley? I have some incredible wolf and grizzly memories from there. One of the most beautiful places on earth.

Would you mind sharing your camera settings that you used on this shoot? Also, how much color correction did you do? Those yellow flowers just "pop."

Thanks. Anad again, great work.
Jim
 
Jim,
Yellowstone is a gold mine for nature photographers. I try to get out there as often as I can. The day I arrived a friend of mine photographed a wolf pack taking down an elk right by the road. His pictures are incredible. Wish I had shown up a day earlier. :)
Shot everything right from his car.

Lamar valley is awesome. It's funny how you learn all the little spots to find what you're looking for. It's like Rosy near Tower Junction. Don't know if she's still around or not.

Did you ever film Charger the elk before he was killed by a poacher? Wish I had the HVX back then!!

There's no color correction on those shots. That's how it came out.

Here's my settings:
720pn at either 60fps or 24 fps
Detail Level 0
Detail Coring +7
Chroma Level +2
Master Ped -4
Gamma Cinelike V
Matrix Cinelike
Course, it really helps to film during magic hour too.
Some of the shots like the Artists Paint pots were mid day just because I was busy filming the good stuff at magic hour.

I'm hoping to get back there this fall or maybe Alaska and do some more filming.

Andrew, I just modified one of the presets in Compressor with a data rate of 1.42 Mbps and set it for 50% of the source video. The audio really added allot. I think without audio is was only like 23meg. I even sampled down the audio some to make the file smaller.
 
Kevin,
Didn't get a chance to see Charger. Every year I go out to the Lamar Valley to spend time with the Druid Peak Pack of wolves. Got a chance to see the alpha male and female 21M and 42F take down an elk. It was amazing. 21 literally ripped off a hind leg and went trotting back to their den with it. Truly amazing. 21 was quite a wolf. He was the most prolific breeding wolf in Yellowstone/Grand Teton until he died not long ago. I believe he was ten or eleven... pretty old for a wild wolf. I'd like to go back during the winter sometime. The wolves are a lot easier to see and film. It's just cold as the dickens.

Thanks for passing along your settings. I'm just getting into the HVX having spent many years with my trusty Beta SX. Are these the settings you typically use or do constantly adjust them?

Jim
 
If you go to Alaska, try to get an airboat tour. They can travel way up into the glacier streams and across gravel bars, unlike jet boats, and they don't disturb the salmon eggs on the bottom of the shallow rivers the way jet boats do. I actually know a pretty good guide up there who owns our old airboat.

I was born in Alaska, and I lived there just long enough to save up for my VX2000, then moved to Texas. It was a bad trade. Alaska is stunning, to say the least. I lived on the top of a hill overlooking Big Lake, and every night was magic hour for about four or five hours, before a shallow blue darkness that lasted for 30 minute or so, then it was dawn.

At any rate, I liked your footage, and I think you need to hit Alaska soon. It's gorgeous. Of course, in Alaska, the bears are not nearly as mellow as Yellowstone. I've never seen a bear walk in Alaska. Everyone I've ever seen was either growling, standing still, or running full speed. Had a few close scraps with them, actually. So has my Father.

Anyway, didn't mean to hijack the thread, I loved your footage!

~ John.
 
Thanks Don,

I did forget to post some of the Utah stuff didn't I? Let me see how my bandwidth is doing. I put together a nine minute video from that trip. I could spend years shooting there as well.

Here's a still from a shot at Green River overlook in Canyonlands NP at sunset.
No color correction, that's how it looked.

Canyonland.jpg
 
Hi Kevin,

Your shots are panned very smoothly. Did you use a steadicam or zoom in and pan in post-production?

Nice work!
 
Matt,

I guess if they're any good it comes from years of practice. :)

Everything was just shot of the 503 head.
Wanna know my secret? :)
I start panning or tilting before I want the shot to start and then I just trim the excess off and viola! smooth pans and tilts.

I have yet to be able to get real smooth starts and stops with the 503.

Sometimes I'll hang some weight on the HVX to make it heavier. That smooths things out too.
I try all kinds of stuff. Holding my breath while I pan etc.
Who knows if it really works or not but it seems to for me. :)

Glad you liked the clips!
 
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