MuskOx at Sunset
 

Hi all, I've been up in the mountains for a week filming the muskoxen. The weather have been from severe to real nice during this days. My project is developing well and I manage to get good footage in all kind of weather.

The Canon XLH1 camcorder are functioning well under this conditions. I use a Porta Brace camcorderjacket for my camcorder. I also got some nice chemical handwarmes which I tape to the body and viewfinder to protect it from the tough outdoor temperatures reaching well below -25 degrees celsius + gale wind.

Attached is a couple of pics showing this beautiful mammals in the evening sun. This pics are taken with the 20x HD L lens provided with the camcorder. I have captured the pics from the videotape (not used the photo-function). The colors is original from the tape. I used a polarization filter and ND set to 1/6, shutter is 1/50 (PAL-system) and aperture set for a proper exposure.

Enjoy!

Wow! Great stuff as always Per!
Please post some footage when you can.

Beautiful animals and good work, Per. My greatest respects to you for braving those cold temps and high winds!

Rick Phillips

Hi Per Johan

Great shots you have. Are you working on a film of these animals or selling the footage? I haven't been out filming much lately as I'm bogged down in the studio doing post work on a 96 minute Chinook salmon film shot over 8 spawning seasons with the XL1. Spring is in the air here in the Rockies. Keep up the good shooting Per Johan.

Leon Lorenz
www.wildlifevideos.ca

Very good pictures.
You do great work, Per Johan!
I'm looking forward to whenever you get the completed film ready.


Trond

Love Those Shaggy Beasts!
 

Those are bright and beautiful scenes. Many of us are used to shooting in air that isn't so clear and ideal for picture quality. But, I don't think we envy you being in those super-cold temperatures. You will be rewarded for your hard work, by having footage that no one else could produce.

I'd like to know some more about this herd of Musk Oxen. How are they doing in terms of their population and survival in this region? Do they have any problems with disease and predators? I've read that they are more closely related to goats than they are to cattle, although all of them are classified as Bovines.

Thanks Steve! The cold is something you got used to. A proverb says: "The weather is not a problem as long as you got the right clothing! (barely translated from my mother tongue)
The clear air which I have some days helps a lot to get crisp footage. By the way this pics are captured from footage where I used the 20x HD lens between 500-778mm. In this focal lenght area shooting is not so exposed to air haze as when you use larger lenses.

This herd was originally captured from East Greenland in two different rounds. The first one in 1931 was not any success because before and during World War II all died of different reasons.
Between 1947 - 1953 a new herd of of 27 muskoxen was released at Dovrefjell. Even though the herd has going through disease and accidents they are the ancestors to the muskoxen living in this area today counting approx 200 individuals. Luckily there are no predators in this area today which can harm this huge animals. The only predator I can think of which is able to harm, the wolf, is not living in this area.

I will strongly recommend you to read the two supplied pdf-files, linked below. They are written by my friend Jens Erixon. He is a professional guide and lives in this area:
http://mountainadventures.no/docs/muskoxeninnorway.pdf
http://mountainadventures.no/docs/aboutthemuskoxen.pdf

Best;

Amazing
 

That's what my wife said and so do I.

Your work is opening our minds to possibilities we do not yet know exist.
Long may you continue to move us.

Per Johan,

Great Stuff. If you haven't already done so. Chris has posted instructions on how to shoot stills with your big lenses. Also allows you to shoot stills while the camera is set to 'tape'.

Ken.

Per Johan, it is always such a pleasure to see your work and to hear your stories. You really have turned out to be an inspiration to us all. You are dedicated to a cause and you are capturing footage we can only dream of. Bob Safay

The footage is online!
 

Hi all, thanks for your comments!

Are you ready to look at the real stuff?
Please download the file before viewing!
http://video-film.no/snutter/muskox-winter.mov (54.1 MB)

Technical info in my first post.

Enjoy

Per:

Beautiful stuff. Questions:

1. How far did you have to walk and how much gear to you pack. ?

2. Was the Quicktime file rendered directly out of Liquid Pro 7, and, if so, what were setting. Or what did you use to render it to Quicktime. (Sorry if this is repeat of an earlier January question.)

Thanks for your comment Chris!

Well, this small herd is not far from where I park my car, approx. 30 min. walk. In winter time with snow on ground I pull my equipment with a sledge, walking with snow shoes. With camcorder, heavy tripod, ekstra lens, clothing etc., I pull approx. 25 kg in the sledge.

I exported a HD720p - mpg2 file from Avid Liquid, then in Sorenson Squeeze Suite the final QT file was born - Sorenson Video Pro 3 codec, 1000 kb/s

Hopefully I answered your questions Chris?

Yes, Per, you did. Thank you. There's that Sorenson Squeeze again.. Seems to be the magic ingredient....

Another articulate study of the body language of muskoxen ... the adults completely at ease with your presence and looking forward to the comfort of temperature below -25c after sunset; the young were huddling and jostling to get a better view of you from the safety of their elders. And not a glimpse of a "talking head" interfering with the arctic atmosphere.

Powerful statement about "hands off" biodiversity.

Beautiful footage Per! I always love your snowy mountains and MuskOx.

Thanks for sharing!
~Gabriel

Per,

Wonderful images and atmosphere. I've watched it several times.

If I may ask, is there is any chance you could use a parabolic mic to capture some of the animal sounds, too? As long as they aren't moving around much this seems like a possibility if it interests you.

Again, thanks and congratulations - the footage is gorgeous.

Best wishes,
Peter
______________________
http://www.parkfilms.com

per Johan,

Always great stuff. keep it up as it is like watching Trailer or prequill to your discovery channel premier!!!

I am down loading the last one as I write this, can't wait.

Peter brings up a question we asked Per last year when he was shooting with his XL2 set-up.

I feel the best way to gain extra sounds of the Musk Oxen would be to use something like a toy radio-controlled 4WD vehicle with battery pack and radio mic strapped on, and then guide this gently into position.

Or if the animals are regularly resting in particular spots, simply set-up your radio microphone equipment in one of those areas prior to their arrival (attached to a rock, or camouflaged and left in position).

You could also overdub some Musk Oxen natural sounds taken from a quality Royalty-free CD that someone else has recorded. You'll need to work with the 'lip-synch' of the animal to match the natural mouth movements with the recorded sounds, but it can be done.

I've been trying to download this for two days and all I ever get is "server not found". I've tried with both IE and Firefox. Any suggestions?

Rick

Strange, I just right clicked and tried to download it and it's working just fine, no issues at all.

Do not directly open the file. Right click the heading until the box drops, and then click "Save Target as...". The file will begin to download to your chosen documents, and then open the file when complete.

I found that Per's clip would play without sound on Quicktime, but plays perfect with sound on VLC player (VLC plays most types of video clips without problems).

Don't know what's up. I figured it was at my end because no one else seems to be having any problems with it. I have been trying right-click save as and it just won't work. I can't even get to the web site...just says site not found. Just tried again from Firefox and IE...no go. Now that I think about it...I've never been able to even pull up Per's webpage because I remember trying a while ago. Guess Charter just doesn't want me to see the good stuff! Youtube I get...fantastic muskox footage...not for me. I'll keep fooling around and see if I can figure it out. Thanks for the info.

Rick

Sorry to hear that some have trouble to download the file! I have made a smaller one at my website:
http://video-film.no/snutter/muskox6.html

Hopefully this will play fine for you, if not please tell me and I will try to figure out sometining.

Regarding the sound of the muskox. In some of my clips it may look that they are shouting, but in fact they almost don't make any sound at all. If you go near enough you can hear the breath but they seldom make any sound.
In the rut season at autumn the male do some roaring.

I have been using Sennheiser shotgun mic. ME-67 in some instances just to capture nature sound, but even in short distance to the animal you seldom hear any but some low breathing mixed with the wind which almost constant blowing.

Thanks Per Johan but the problem is somewhere on my end of the connection. For some reason my network is not able to find the server on your end. The still photos look awesome.

Rick

Rick, I'v got some place in the DvInfo.net server, try to download this version. Remember to rightclick and download before viewing:

http://media.dvinfo.net/xlh1/pj/muskox-winter.mov

Hope this will help you out?

Ok. I got it with no problems. I'm watching it for the third time already. That is just outstanding. Congratulations on your fine work...hope it continues to go well for you. Thanks so much for taking time to help me out so I could see this. Looks like I could reach out and touch one thru the screen!

Rick

Yes, these suggestions would work better for capturing low frequencies which is the parabolic's weakness. I wonder if a radio-controlled car could make it through deep snow - Tony, have you ever tried that? I don't have much chance to play in the snow where I live.

I don't wan't to detract in any way from Per's splendid accomplishment, but it would have even more impact with some natural sound.

Best wishes to all,
Peter
______________________
http://www.parkfilms.com

[QUOTE=Peter Rhalter;

I don't wan't to detract in any way from Per's splendid accomplishment, but it would have even more impact with some natural sound.

[/QUOTE]

Thoroughly agree with you Peter. The visual impact of Per's videography is so powerful in a uniquely natural way that it deserves natural audio to go with it. It may be very difficult to do it but the end product would be an audio/visual model for us all, probably the best I will ever see and hear.

It's so easy for me to say "How about it, Per?" but we do hope you get around to it and sincerely wish you continuing success. From the comfort of our cosy corners we're yelling for more Per, more Per ...

Per - Is your shotgun camera mounted? I don't think you'll capture much at that distance anyway. Like you mentioned, they don't make much sound, so any sound-capture device - your mic - needs to be as close as possible to the subject, and this is why I said use the wireless microphone, or the shotgun with a radio/wireless connector.

Just the heavy breathing, the sound of its rough tongue licking its lips (where it shows it in the clip), snorts, the rubbing sound when one scratches it’s head on the rock, scuffling of hooves, etc, combined with some other nearby nature sounds; plus the clean sound of the wind blowing sometimes to add atmosphere, all blended in with the background music. I'm sure this would lift the visual sequence to a higher level.

On the cinematography level, that looks great with wonderful colours (although possibly slightly too rusty/red in some scenes that bleeds to the white snow). The deep blues were perfect (PL filter used?).
But…and this is minor but, Per, I still felt that there wasn’t enough happening. I know that these animals can spend a great deal of time not doing much, but I would have liked to have seen just a few moments where the Musk Oxen were doing something more interesting.

Yes, the shotgun mic on the camera is mounted. So I got the nature sound in my original clips.

I much agree in that Tony, so I will be thinking out some way to make a better sound recording, or make the sound effects in post. Which I believe is extensive used in some of the great wildlifeprogrammes seen on TV.

I think I'm still progressing to get used to the Canon XLH1. This camcorder can produce marvellous pictures in the hand of a well trained DP.
The colours are questionable, some like them and some don't. I found that I like it this way. I tried several settings (downloaded from DvInfoNet) and some of the others makes more dull colours which is not to my liking. In this particular footage I have used a pola filter and ND set to 1/6. In this way I managed to get a proper DOF in some of my shoots. The biggest problem with shooting these animals under winter condition, is that they are very dark brown coloured. To get a proper exponation of them in the white snow is a real challenge

I have been discussing this with several people. How to make this of more interest to the viewer? I'm well aware that I can't produce a 25 min film where nothing really happend except for beautiful scenery. I have several ideas for this;
include more footage of me, the DP, how he is struggeling in the cold, pulling "tons" of equipment in to the wild to get this footage.
include footage of other common species in this area, which I already started to do. There are Wild Reindeer (spectacular herds of +1000) in this area. The Arctic Fox is unfortunately not in this area any more but the Red Fox is common. The Common Hare and the Common Ptarmigan is a natural element in this area too.
The Raven and the Bold Eagle is two bird of prey which is in this area also. With some luck and patience I could even get footage of the Wolverine.
Both the Fox and the Ptarmigan utilize the Musk Ox by search for food where the Musk Ox has removed the snow. In fact I have observed the fox running through a Musk Ox herd (unfortunately I didn't get this on film.... yet!).
In summer time and especially in the rut season there are much more action among the male. Also the calf are doing cute movements wich I'm going to shoot.
So in the end I think this will be something to view. Anyway I much appreciate all comments from you. Thanks to you all!

Hi Per,

Your photography is very beautiful and it is wonderful to see these beasties back in Norway.

I agree with some comments being made about the sound but lets not be too tough here. The reality capturing the sound palette of any animal is a science in itself, and I will not say most but many sounds are produced in post by the wizard-like foley artists, some of whom are circus jugglers in their day jobs. It is in the foley studio that piles of polystyrene bricks, old filmstock and bags of dry leaves become the sounds of musk ox feeding, walking on snow and scratching their noises and it is these that add the production value. If you ever have the opportunity to watch these guys in action then do it, it is quite amazing to see... one guy in Bristol can virtually do an entire film in one take.

J

I think the extra footage that you mention Per, showing other wildlife living in symbiosis with the Musk Oxen, plus short clips showing the hardships/weather conditions of the actual cameraman carrying his equipment cross-country, combined with some on-location & post-added sounds will make the finished movie superb. I look forward to the end result!

Will you be adding some narrative to the finished program? I think this would also help to maintain interest to a far wider audience.

Sometime last year Chris Barcellos posted a beautiful brief clip of stones being gently polished by sea-water and when I asked him for the soundtrack to go with it he taught me a useful lesson by recalling the incessant droning of insects buzzing around him in blistering heat for a free meal at the time. It's quite likely that Per frequently has strong icy winds to keep away from his soundtrack too.

With regard to your sequence of images Per I really enjoy the serenity you convey by holding your sequences just the way they are i.e the way they are in nature, harsh and beautiful and unhurried. I am bored by the commercial TV standard that images must be chopping and changing for fear that the viewer won't hang around for the ads (which are themselves cunningly but insultingly packed with frenzied sequences of shifting "cool" images)... reminds me that the lousier the pop-song is the louder the beat has to be. I happen to think, rightly or wrongly, that it's not a compliment to assume that viewers are to be treated as consumers.

great footage
 

the coloration and balance of the musk oxen seemed perfect to the eye...lightening up the dark fur and yet having saturated blue tones on the snow...i am a new canon xh a1 owner and am in a quandry about which mode to film in...including the custom dvi outdoor download vs shooting on automatic, and which frame mode...60 i or the 30 or 24f, which has editing issues. thanks for sharing the footage and the inspiration. The kids and i had two wolves last summer within 20 feet of us, an unexpected surprise, and my sone caught it on his cheap jvc. bill