The River

When it comes to filming nature and wildlife I’d have to say that water ranks right up there as one of my favorite subjects. I guess it’s no wonder that my sign is Pisces.

Whenever I go out to film nature I’m always looking for rivers, streams and creeks to videotape.

In the past most of my films were just pretty images set to music. “The River” was my first go at trying to tell a story from natures perspective.

I had scouted locations, calculated where and when the sun would rise and set and as I shot the footage, I started to hear the story of the river inside my head. The more I filmed, the stronger the rivers voice became.
So, when it came time to put it all together all the pieces just fell into place.

In a lot of film and video circles, I’m know as the water guy. One of my favorite ways to shoot water is in slow-motion.

I do what’s called overcranking. Basically I record the water at a hight frame rate, say sixty frames per second. When I edit my footage however, I’ll edit my project to play back at twenty four frames per second this making the motion of the water slow down by two and one half times. You can easily find examples of this in this film.

And as always, shoot the ordinary and make it extraordinary!