00:00okay so hello and welcome to another video my friends I hope you're all doing
00:05very well for those of you joining me for the first time my name is George and
00:10I'm a professional wildlife photographer and cameraman and that's pretty much
00:15what I do on the on this channel is take you with me on my trips out into the
00:21field filming and photographing wildlife currently I'm based in northern Greece
00:28and it is super hot today it's 36 degrees so please forgive me if I start
00:34sweating today what I wanted to do was make a video for you giving you some
00:43tips hints advice mechanical and creative in terms of filming wildlife the first
00:57we'll start off with the technical mechanical points the first point that
01:03I wanted to make which I've spoken about before in a previous video where I was
01:09talking about my favorite bits of gear for wildlife filmmaking I'll put a link up
01:14here somewhere for you if you haven't seen that one already it might be of
01:18interest to you the first point is having a decent tripod I won't labor the point
01:25too much here because as I mentioned I've already spoken about it in that video
01:30but suffice to say that for wildlife filmmaking you need a solid tripod that
01:38is going to be sturdy and stable enough to support the weight of kit that you're
01:44going to put on it it's an absolute prerequisite if you want to record broadcast
01:52quality footage of wildlife is to have a decent tripod okay enough said about
01:59tripods I don't want to bore you on those the second point is actually related to the
02:05tripod and that is the kind of head that you use on your tripod for filmmaking
02:12again it's pretty much a prerequisite that you use a fluid head no other head is able to do what
02:20a fluid
02:20head can do and provide you with a smooth enough motion that a fluid head can and it basically
02:28once you unlock the the head it allows you to set levels of friction so that you have smooth panning
02:37and smooth tilting as well and and and that'll give you much much smoother shots than you would on a
02:45normal ball head photographic ball head so that's point number two point number three
02:54is also linked to that and that is to actually if you have a fluid head is to actually balance
03:03your kit on it
03:05what do I mean by balancing it's basically is finding the center of gravity for your kit so if I
03:11show you here if I loosen the plate you can actually slide it
03:15the the the camera forwards and backwards on the head so you want to try and find the center of
03:22gravity
03:23so that when you do tilt either down or up the camera stays there regardless without moving
03:35and doesn't just drop forward or drop backwards if you have your
03:42your camera not balanced properly then when you just turn away suddenly it'll just start drifting
03:52and tilt forward on its own or backwards and you don't want that you want it to be nicely balanced
03:57uh on the tripod um it can be a challenge when using a zoom lens such as this one because
04:04this does shift
04:05the center of gravity um so you need to find a happy medium basically and adjust the friction accordingly on
04:13the um on the head the fourth uh technical point mechanical point um that i want to make is to
04:22uh use an evf
04:24um this one is the port keys uh li i think it's called um and it's a it's a budget
04:31option um
04:33but it does its job just fine um certain benefits with using an evf uh the first and for me
04:44one of the most
04:45important is that it actually adds an element of stability um to um to filming so you normally have
04:55two points of contact on the camera uh your hand one hand on the handle the other hand on the
05:00lens
05:00itself uh either racking the zoom or focusing uh so that's two points by having an evf and resting your
05:09head on it it actually gives you a third point of contact which again adds to the stability and it's
05:16especially true for when you're tracking uh an animal through uh a scene the fifth and final uh point that
05:26i
05:26want to make for the uh my list of technical mechanical uh tips uh is to use a telephoto zoom
05:35lens uh rather
05:37than a uh a fixed uh prime lens um a couple of reasons for that um the first is shot
05:46variety um by being able
05:50to rack between 60 and 600 on this one um i'm able to shoot without interruption uh different focal lengths
06:00to provide my editors uh with a variety that they can cut between uh because in wildlife filmmaking
06:10you can't it's not enough to have just one static shot um of a scene and just letting that run
06:17uh viewers uh the audience will lose their interest uh engagement from that um from watching so you need
06:25that's why between five and ten every five ten seconds there's a cut you'll notice when watching
06:31documentaries on tv um and being able to uh um be shooting wide and then rack in carry on shooting
06:43uh tight
06:45allows the editor to cut uh between those two uh clips um without any losing any of the action that's
06:52happening in front of the camera the second reason uh i recommend a zoom lens as opposed to a fixed
07:00prime
07:01um is in is again in terms of tracking especially birds in flight so in photography um when you are
07:10when you see a bird up in the sky and you bring your camera up to to photograph it your
07:15eye is on the
07:16same plane as the lens um so it's quite easy to actually find the animal in frame and then
07:22focus and shoot with filming um it's and especially setting in a setup like this it's not that simple
07:30because there is an offset between where your eyes are looking whether it's looking uh just out into the
07:38scene or looking through the evf or looking on the back screen there's an offset between your eyes and
07:45and where the lens is looking and trying to uh triangulate that basically and pick up the animal
07:52in the sky is quite difficult having a zoom lens means you can start off wide um and then as
08:01you pick
08:01up the animal in frame uh and focus then you can rack your zoom in either slowly or quickly uh
08:09and then carry
08:09on tracking the animal through the scene so yeah um hugely beneficial uh for that purpose is being able
08:19to actually locate the animal in frame uh for those uh flight shots okay and that brings us to my
08:27uh creative
08:28list uh of tips for you um and it's basically uh comes down to uh providing your editor uh whether
08:39it's uh
08:40somebody else in a production company or yourself um with choice in the edit suite uh by giving a wide
08:49variety of shots they can cut between to be able to tell the story because the difference between uh
08:55stills photography and um filming is that we are uh telling stories um with still photography uh it you
09:07can capture a beautiful image uh on its own uh of a particular animal and that's enough you've captured a
09:13beautiful shot uh with filming it's not enough uh you need to be telling a story um oh that's the
09:21idea of
09:21it at least and like any good story uh it will have a beginning a middle and an end um
09:27and in order to
09:30tell the story beginning middle and end you need a series of shots so the first shot that you'll need
09:36is a shot that sets the scene that brings the viewer into the world of the animal that you are
09:42telling the
09:42story about um so that that can be a wide shot um it can be a drone shot uh and
09:50it basically introduces
09:51the country the region the environment whether it's on a mountain or a lake or the ocean wherever it
09:58might be it brings the viewer into that world um and it allows you to take the next step in
10:06telling
10:06your story which is to introduce your character um and there's different ways you can uh introduce
10:13the character you could for example uh just uh from the from the scene setting shot uh just show the
10:21animal uh cut to the a shot of the animal within that uh environment a nicer way of doing it
10:28a more
10:28interesting way of doing it is to reveal the animal somehow uh it can be a simple reveal uh by
10:34panning across the scene and finding the animal in the environment uh it could be a mystery reveal
10:41uh which is an interesting way of doing it as well whereby you might have um for example uh some
10:49leaves
10:49uh bushes rustling moving around and you catch a glimpse of fur or something in the bushes and then
10:56eventually the animal comes through uh and is revealed to be a little fox or something um
11:03um you could have a uh an otter uh so if you have bubbles moving across the water so you're
11:10panning
11:10across filming the bubbles and then the animal surfaces and reveals itself to be an otter um so
11:18interesting ways of of revealing your character your main character so third on the list of uh shot
11:25variety uh would be the action sequence um the behavior basically that you're telling the story about
11:32that that that animal exhibits uh and in order to film that uh again going back to what i was
11:39saying
11:40when i was talking about the zoom lens is being able to shoot wide mid and tight uh is hugely
11:46important
11:47in telling that story um like i said you need to be able to let the editor cut uh the
11:54action uh from from
11:57wide to tight uh to keep the viewer engaged and you don't want to miss any shots so if you
12:05have an
12:05animal facing one way um and then you stop filming from the wide shot and you rack in your zoom
12:13you want
12:13it to be in the same position and being able to do that quickly uh it will will help point
12:19number four
12:20shot variety uh would be the tracking uh shots traveling shots of which there's a few ways that
12:27you can do that um you could have the animal entering frame uh so if you predict where the animal
12:37if you
12:37see it in the in the environment and you see where it's traveling you can pan ahead of it frame
12:42it up
12:43focus up and let the animal enter cross and exit the frame a static shot um you could have it
12:53you could be where you're just following the animal and like i said uh before where you just graduate
13:00gradually bring the camera to a stop and let the animal exit frame um you could have like for the
13:09mystery reveal with the otter example have the animal appear within the frame so you predict where
13:15the animal will surface uh allow it to surface do its do do what it's doing and then you can
13:20either
13:20carry on following it or you can allow it to exit uh the frame also uh so fifth on the
13:27list of shot
13:28variety would be uh the detail shots um whether that's um going in really tight on plumage uh going really
13:37tight on an eye uh on claws uh whatever that might be but but just showing that physical trait of
13:46the
13:46animal uh that you want to that is part of the story um so it could be you know uh
13:53focusing on the
13:54beak on the teeth whatever it is it's just super tight detail shots um all helps to create an interesting
14:02story being able to cut to those kind of shots number six on the shot variety list uh would be
14:11a
14:11portrait shot uh so it's basically a video portrait um of the animal still in the frame whether it's
14:20perched on a branch or sat in the shade it's uh basically a static shot of the animal um which
14:28is
14:28just a beautiful portrait beautiful light beautiful environment so that brings us to number seven uh on
14:34our shot variety uh list um which would be a closing shot because you want to round off the story
14:41in a
14:42nice way uh so you would need to capture some kind of uh finale uh closing to that story so
14:50it could be
14:51a shot of a shot of the animal going off into the distance whether it's a a jackal trotting off
14:57into
14:57the darkness whether it's a bird flying off into the into the mountains um just something that will
15:03round off the story and give it a nice end lastly uh number eight on our uh shot variety list
15:13uh and that is b-roll of the environment that the animal lives in um and that can be anything
15:22from
15:22tight shots to wide shots of uh trees bushes flowers bees um anything within the environment that the
15:31animal lives in and the importance of those shots is they act as bridging shots uh for when the editor
15:37cannot link um two clips together they might use a bridging shot b-roll of the environment in that way
15:45to actually um cut between those two shots uh and that way it creates a bridge it's also a useful
15:53way
15:53of actually um for the editors to bridge between two sequences so you might have a sequence one sequence
16:00of a fox and then followed by a sequence of a badger and it's linked by um a clip of
16:07b-roll of the
16:08environment uh so super useful way of uh of uh giving your editor uh choice in the edit suite uh
16:18shoot
16:19lots and lots of b-roll of the environment uh like i said tight shots uh and wide shots and
16:27that uh pretty
16:29much wraps up the uh list of shot variety uh the last point uh i want to make uh the
16:37last tip i want to
16:38give you uh in terms of filming wildlife and making your edit that much better uh that much more uh
16:46rich
16:47um is to not forget about the sound and there's different layers of sound that you might want to
16:53record so you there's the ambient level so that would mean uh recording the um the background sounds
17:01of cicadas uh of bees buzzing um of the wind blowing that sort of thing of the a rushing stream
17:10in the
17:10shot that's all background sound and then you layer on top of that sound of the particular thing that
17:17you're recording the um the animal that you're filming so for example if you had uh uh an otter
17:25chewing on a fish you might want to add sound that sound you might want to have that sound uh
17:31to layer
17:31in uh of the otter as it's crunching on those uh on the bones of the fish um and it
17:39makes the edit that
17:40much uh richer like i said um if you can't record it in the field yourself if you don't have
17:47the
17:48recording equipment to be able to do that um the alternative is to find it online in one of the
17:55very
17:55many um music and sound libraries that exist uh i think there's art list is one epidemic sound is
18:05another and there's so many more that you can have a look for i'm not sponsored by any of those
18:13by the
18:13way so that rounds off my list of tips hints and bits of advice for filming wildlife i hope you
18:22found
18:22it useful and you're able to put it to some use in one of your own future projects so it
18:30just remains
18:30for me to thank you so much for watching and i shall see you all again very very soon bye
18:36for now
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