Nature film? Yeah. I'm workin' on it.

Do you ever ask yourself: gee, what happened to that nature film Bob was working on? Probably not. But if you did, the answer would be this: "LAY OFF ME! I'm working on it, OKAY? God, some peoples kids..." Or something like that. As last year got busier and busier with paid work, this personal project got pushed to the back burner, but it certainly didn't disappear. As items on the back burner tend to do it's been percolating softly. Just plugging along in the background. Now that I've gone through a full cycle of seasons, I'm going back and getting more footage of things I missed the first time around. Filling in the blanks, as it were. More ice, more fish, maybe a couple birds if we're lucky, better light, better sound. Not to mention a bunch of new help from friend, photo aficionado, and wildlife biologist Travis D. Bartnick. Ha, I said it. Now you're really committed, Travis. It's public. That means all 6 regular readers of this blog now know that you agreed to help. Can't back out now, amigo. Just kidding...I only have 5 regular readers.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay warm.

Nature Film-Sneak Peek 2.

Another little rough cut of footage shot for the nature film. Again, we're still right at the beginning here, but I'm getting more and more excited about this project. Pretty fun. And of course, Marvin had to take a crack at it too. Turns out he's not so great at action footage. But I still see the possibility for some other interesting film snippets with him.

Nature Film-Sneak Peek.

I've been in a big debate with myself about whether I'm ready to announce this or not, but at this point I'm too excited to keep it to myself. So here's a quick sneak peek at a scene from the new nature film centered around the Souix River currently in production at Hired Lens Photography. This is just a rough cut of some recent footage that will be part of one scene. But don't expect to see a final cut any time soon. If this project is a marathon, we're still not even to the first mile marker. There's hours of footage still to be shot and logged, narration to write and record, and, of course, the most tedious bit of all: the editing. Right now, I'm tentatively looking at Spring 2013 for an actual release of the full film, but that could (and probably will) get pushed back even farther. I'm just trying to be honest with myself, these projects take some serious time. Not to mention, I still need to get footage from three more seasons. I'm also looking for a few more sponsors. That's part of why I'm sharing a little preview right now. I have a couple partners/sponsors on this project already, but I'd love to get a couple more. Any one interested? Drop me a line.

Sun Printing Stop-Motion.

The good people at Sun Printing in Wausau finished up the final editing on this stop-motion video we started working on together last month. This started as more than 3,000 still frames and got pieced together into this little film. I shot most of the stills and put them together into raw footage and then the creative department at Sun did the heavy lifting of trimming those clips into a great little story. I love it. Well done, team. Well done.

Like photos...only they MOVE!

Here's a little sampling of the first couple film clips out of the new camera, the Canon 5D MkII. To be honest, I've been pretty hesitant to start working in video. It's a whole different animal. Different software, different files, different problems. And frankly, I still have a lot of things I want to try with still photography. But after playing with this feature on the new body with some really good lenses in front of it. I'm starting to see the potential to do some really cool things. No solid plans yet, just inklings of ideas. But watch for more of this stuff coming up soon.