Bryce Comer-The last remaining mountain caribou-Long form

[Bryce Comer]

Thanks Marj for the encouragement. I will have to leave it until next weekend to reply properly to your post as i am about to head up to Slocan to work & unfortunately i don't have internet there.
Because i have no internet where i am working at the moment, i have had to upload my update for my entry before it was really finished. I have also had to upload it to Vimeo here http://www.vimeo.com/4585851 & not the UWOL site, as i can't find the email from Meryem telling me the password etc. If anyone could please forward the email on to me that would be great. Anyway, back to my entry. I have not yet had any success in finding the mountain caribou, but haven't given up hope yet. The Biologists i am hoping will help me out, aren't able to at the moment, due to the election going on here at the moment, so i will need to wait until that's all over before i will have any hope of getting the help i really need on this project. The sequence i have uploaded is just some stuff that i will probably use in the final film, but it will more than likely be trimmed down to fit the sequence i have in mind for it. No voice over yet, as what i have in mind for the final film wouldn't really fit this sequence properly. Anyway, i hope you could please help me out with the technical details of how i have shot it so i might be able to improve things for my final film.
Sorry too that i may not get the document uploaded until next weekend as like i said, i won't have access to the internet, & really need to be on the road up to Slocan about 3 hours ago.
Bryce

[Mat Thompson]

Hey Bryce

Some beautiful light in the deer shots, and I love it walking in the water. It would have been lovely to cut to a close up of this as a detail. Which I guess seems to bring me to my main thought while watching the footage, 'range'. The Coyote hunting was fabulous behaviour and nice light and you got some nice shots. But wow this could have been mind blowing if you could have cut to some close-ups or details to turn it into a solid sequence. What is the range of your camera and is this going to cause similar problems when you eventually catch up with those Caribou ?

Mat

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hi Bryce, lovely shots in a lovely light! I liked it alot! A bit long sequences, but as you said, you was in a hurry.
Would like Mat, love to see some more close-up shots of both the deer and the coyote. As I can see from your clip the coyote is much like the wolf we got here in Scandinavia, almost the same behaviour. Did you sit in any hide during this takes?

[Catherine Russell]

Hey Bryce:

You have a real knack for lighting! It turns your filming into a magical experience. The filming of the coyote was a rare find. I've tried with no success to get those guys on film. They are wily and so aware of an on-looker. Well done! This is a works in progress so I have no comments on your overall theme and where this will be going. You have a great start, and as others have mentioned getting cuts to close ups would have made these fabulous clips exceptional. Good job Bryce!

Cat

[Chris Swanberg]

Wonderful footage. I noticed you didn't upload it in HD... maybe if you have more time you can reload it that way. Also I understand the "throw something in" syndrome. I liked your musical acompaniment.

The Elk would be perfect for some "hooves in water" foley effects - with great effect I think.

The coyote footage was wonderful... I assume you must have been in a blind? I'd have been terribly excited to have been seeing that unfold in the viewfinder. Your coyotes look large like the ones in the Western Nevada mountains (well basin and ranges) that I have seen. The ones around me here in the Calif Central valley are like small dogs in comparison.

Love to see all this start coming together. Great start!

Chris Swanberg

[Bryce Comer]

Hi all,
Thank you all very much for the comments on my latest submission. I hope to use some of this footage in the final film, but it will most likely be shorter versions & may well be seperate sequences alltogether. I am trying to get some footage of other animals that live in the areas where the mountain caribou live & what effect if any they have on the mountain caribou. So far i have the footage you have seen along with a bunch of other scenic footage, but i am still trying to get more footage of elk, more footage of white tail & mule deer, & i'm hoping to get some footage of moose, of which i have seen, but haven't been lucky enough to have been in a position to get footage of yet. I also need to get some footage of the predators that live in these areas, so will be looking at getting footage of bears, wolves & cougars, & If i can pull all this off, i think i will deserve a beer of two when i'm done!! :)
Matt & Per, I would dearly love to be able to zoom in further on my subjects, but unfortunately, i only have the 20x zoom on my XH A1 plus the 1.8x extender which equates to roughly 1200mm. Most of the footage of the elk was from about 80 meters away & i was pretty much zoomed in all the way. The footage of the coyote was from about 60m away, & on both occasions, i was just lucky enough to come along them at the right time. On both occasions i stood very still next to a tree using it as "cover". On both occasions however, after a while i was in fact spotted, & my quarry soon disapeared!
Chris, it's funny you should mention the footage of the elk in the water & how it would lend itself to some nice foley sounds of the hooves in the water. When i watch the footage directly in the camera, i can hear the hooves spashing as plain as day & thought when i first watched it how it really made the shot! I still don't have my good editing computer with me here in Canada, but certainly plan on having it in the next month or two, so hopefully i will be able to get the sound that i hear from the camera & make it so you hear it like it do for the final version. (Assuming that it makes the cut of course!)
Cat, thanks for your kind words, i was so excited to get that footage of the coyote i was shaking the whole time!
Ok, & now for the big news......... After 5 months of searching, i have finally been lucky enough to get some footage of my quarry. It was last Sunday morning at about 4.45 am when i came accross a herd of about 12 mountain caribou. I was lucky enough to be able to capture about 10 minutes of footage in total. There is still atleast a couple of meters of snow in the mountains here so i finally have some of the "winter" footage i have been after. I would still like to get some more, & plan on heading back up there in the morning & will look at another likely looking spot. Ever since last weekend i have been on so much of a high i can't believe it! At last i feel like my project is starting to find its rails!
Thank you so much to all of you for your support & enthusiasm for my project as it has been you that have driven me on over these last couple of months striving to get this sort of footage.
Best regards,
Bryce

[Chris Swanberg]

Bryce.... know that as you go along, you drag an entire bunch of folks anxiously awaiting... and hoping. Glad to hear you had a good encounter....anxious to see it. Hope to see more.... soon. ( and hear watery footsteps from our ungulate friends).

Chris

[Jeff Hendricks]

Bryce,

I am sure I missed it somewhere but where did you film this? I liked the Caribou but I really thought the Coyote (was that a coyote, fox or wolf?) whichever it was it was very interesting watching it stalk it's prey and the edited cuts kept the interest up on the subject...it told a good story which I enjoyed.

Looking forward to seeing more

[Mike Sims]

Bryce-
That’s a nice series of clips you’ve shared with us this time. I thought some of the elk shots were a little dark. You could probably open them up a little in post but I’m not sure you would want to. The darker clips have a nice “very early morning” feel to them. If that’s what the story calls for they’re OK. It’s mostly noticeable when cut against lighter clips. Are you in a blind or stalking? The shots with the elk walking through water got me thinking about this Foley stuff I’m trying to learn. I could see myself (or you) walking in a bucket of water twice. Once for the hind legs and again for the front! Coyotes have such an extensive range and such plastic behavior that animals from one part of their range can behave very differently than those from another. One thing that seems pretty universal is stalking rodents in thick grass. I loved the bit where it wagged it’s tail like a dog in anticipation. They are shot at and persecuted so much around here that it’s hard to get close. Still photographers use “predator calls” to get them in to the camera with good results. I’ve tried it for video and it works to a degree. All I get is a shot of them popping their heads up, saying “Oh, it’s you”, and ducking down less than a second later. It sure is refreshing to see your shots of natural behavior. I’m terribly excited to hear that you got your first caribou footage. Good show!

[Marj Atkins]

I think Chris is right - you are drawing a lot of us along with you on your mission because the story of the making of your movie is just so incredibly interesting. What you have put together so far is fantastic and the footage of the Coyote that you managed to capture was amazing. Beautiful light as some have already mentioned. I'm especially excited for you that you have managed to track down your quarry at last. Wonderful stuff.

BTW Your Phase 2 movie on the Uwol site, even though it has _2 at the end of the name is in fact a copy of your Phase 1 movie. Not sure if they have been swopped or not like Steve Siegel's were but you better check. I have notified Mat but haven't had a response so I'm not sure if he got my email.

[Bryce Comer]

Thanks all for watching & commenting on my entry. This of course was just to stay in the competition & these clips will be drastically reduced in length for the final film.
Jeff,
yes it was a coyote that was stalking the ground squirrel. It really was a fantastic experience to witness that. All the time i thought it was sure to spot me, but it wasn't until it came to within about 30 yards of me that it happened to spot me & then took off at a million miles an hour! The other shots were actually of Elk. I will be including footage of elk, moose, & deer in the film as these "prey" animals venture into the clear cut blocks where logging has taken place in the old growth inland temperate rainforests that the mountain caribou inhabit. These animals intern attract predators that sometimes turn their attention to the mountain caribou instead of the prey they would normally go after.
Mike,
thanks for the comments. I was playing around a bit with the exposure when i was filming both the coyote & the elk. There are certainly some better exposed shots than others, & i will only be using the better ones in the final film. It was very early morning though, & the elk came up towards me from the direction of the rising sun, so exposing them correctly was a bit tricky. I wasn't in a hide when i filmed either of these two sequences so didn't get too much footage before being spotted. I have been using a blind a bit since & will likely be using it far more for the rest of my filming. Funny story actually about using the blind. Last week i was up in the mountains & set up my blind by a slow section in a small stream hoping to get some footage of elk or maybe a moose at the water. I had set up the blind & was very comfortable in it sitting in a chair & waiting for something to happen. After about half an hour, 3 elk showed up, feeding at the streams edge, then proceeding to walk out into the water, all the time a beaver was swimming in the foreground of the shot, then when the elk began to walk out into the stream, the beaver slapped its tail on the water & swam off. That was great, but no sooner had the elk dissapeared, but another beaver came out onto the bank 20 yards right in front of me. Needless to say, i managed to get some really nice footage of him. He stayed there happily eating & grooming himself until well after it was too dark for me to film. I had a long way to drive back home, so wanted to go but was a bit reluctant to move for fear of disturbing him. Well in the end i thought, ok, so now i really have to go, so i got out of the blind, to pack things up. Of course, the beaver took off pretty quickly with a big splash of his tail. The blind i have is one of the types that you simpy unfold to a certain extent, then it pops out using the spring metal frame. Really easy to put up as there's really nothing you have to do, however, folding the darn thing back up is another story, & while sometimes it can be pretty painless, this time it didn't want to play, & i was left standing there for at least 10 minutes trying to get the darn thing folded back up. While i was standing there getting more & more frustrated with not being able to fold up the blind, the beaver calmly came back to the same spot right in front of me & continued to groom & feed. Seems i didn't really need the blind for him after all. The footage i shot of the coyote was infact in an area where hunting is prohibited, so i guess that may have made it easier, however, i think most coyotes are pretty shy critters & getting any good footage of them is a challenge.
Marj,
thanks for the heads up on the phase 1 & 2 films on the uwol site. I haven't checked it out yet, & am running out of time to do so as i am heading back up into the mountains shortly to do some more filming. Hopefully i can get it sorted out when i'm back next weekend. Thanks also for your encouragement, any positive comments from you are a real motivator for me. If i could produce anything like what you & others are doing, then i will be very happy.
On another note, as i have said in other posts about this film, i will be looking at how the predator prey relationships work with the caribou, & i'm happy to say that i have now got some wolf footage in the can for the project! I have also seen my first grizzly bear the other weekend, but unfortunately just got the focus right, when he dissapeared behind some bushes & i didn't get another shot at it. Hopefully i will get some footage of the grizzly bears, & will be able to include that in the film. Cougars are another predator of the caribou, but getting footage of them will probably be a harder task than the caribou themselves!
Ok, thanks once again to all,
Bryce

[Chris Swanberg]

Ohhh... I covet some of that beaver footage !!! Love to see it.

Chris

[Mike Sims]

Yes! I also would love to see the beaver footage. Many are surprised to learn that we have beaver in the Chihuahuan Desert. They live in the major river systems like Rio Grande, Rio Conchos and Pecos River. They are very wary as there was a trapping industry here as late as the 1960’s. I’ve never seen them give the classic tail-slap that you describe so well. Normally when they detect a human they just sink like a stone with hardly a ripple. They don’t build stick lodges. Instead they excavate burrows in the bank with underwater entrances so they can just disappear. It’s been a mighty long time since we had Grizzly Bears though…

[Bryce Comer]

Hi Mike & Chris,
I will try to include some of the beaver footage in the next submission if it fits in, otherwise i will try to post something just of the beavers for you.
On another note, i now have some footage of a couple of moose for my film so now i really need some grizzly & cougar footage. I have heard of a mother grizzly with 2 cubs hanging around an area just up the road from here & have been up a few times looking for them but so far haven't been lucky enough to see them, oh well, i still have a bit of time yet i guess.
Bryce

[Bryce Comer]

Ok, now i'm starting to get excited. I was lucky enough to get some more mountain caribou footage last weekend. Light was really nice too, so that helped a lot.
On the Saturday evening i saw a total of 9 moose as i was getting ready to get some sleep. 3 were bulls, 2 cows 1 with an older calf maybe a year or two old, the other cow had 2 calves with it that were obviously very young as they were both only a couple of feet tall. Unfortunately it was way too dark to get any footage of the cows with the calves as they both showed up just as it was getting really dark. Still really nice to see though, that's the best part about this competition, & i guess filming wildlife in general, you get to see so many really beautiful things!
Hope everyone's projects are coming along.
Regards,
Bryce