I’ve lived in the Sierra Nevada for over 20 years, and have spent hundreds of nights in the mountainous backcountry of Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks. Through all that time, I’d never seen a bighorn sheep. Tracks, yes, poop, definitely, but the actual animal? Nope.
That all changed back in March of 2015 when I was hired to document the release of some sheep into Yosemite’s Cathedral Range. Since then, I’ve spent many days in the company of bighorn as I worked on this newest episode of Yosemite Nature Notes. These animals live up high (sometimes over 14,000 feet) and are pretty alert and elusive. The fact that they are the color of the rock also makes spotting them difficult. My advice to those who want to see these sheep in the wild? Befriend an employee of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who has access to the GPS data and radio telemetry collars! It’s much easier that way!
Or, just go spend time around Mount Langley in Sequoia National Park in the early fall. That place is crawling with sheep.
Pinnacles National Monument…er, I mean NATIONAL PARK!
A few year ago, I got a great gig to make a film about Pinnacles National Monument. I had spent time in the park, and had a fondness for the area, which is located in the dry coast ranges of Central California. In order to document the seasonality of the park, I spent over a year shooting off and on, and had a great time exploring the park through both time and space. While I was editing, however, the situation in Pinnacles changed, and the National Monument became a National Park, and what was to originally be short web-video orientation film was now going to be playing in the theater of the brand new Visitor Center. So a few more changes to the script, and we were finally ready to release the official film of the newest National Park!
Ghost Towns of Yosemite – a Western
As a kid, I was never a big fan of Westerns, probably cuz I grew up in the midwest, and I didn’t really have an appreciation of the western landscapes. Now that I’ve lived “out West” for 25 years, I’ve grown to appreciate the film genre more and more, and I had westerns in mind when I shot and edited this episode of Yosemite Nature Notes about some old silver mines found near Tioga Pass.
Our story starts with a lone ranger walking into town…
Have you ever been to Lava Beds? I’m going to guess that the answer is “no” since it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. I had never been there either, until I was hired to produce this short video about one of the awesome lave tube caves found in the park. (PS: Lava Beds in actually in California, but it’s the far north-east corner, so it feels more like Idaho than California)
I’m stoked to have another episode of Yosemite Nature Notes accepted to the Wild & Scenic Film Festival! This is the sixth short film that has made the cut in Nevada City over the years, and I can’t wait to go back up there for another party this winter!
This year, I will also be presenting the Bison episode of Yellowstone InDepth, which you can watch below, along with Black Bears.
Enjoy! And if you’ve never spent time in Nevada City, I suggest you check it out!
I recently attending the fantastic Wild & Scenic Film Festival to present a couple of episodes of Yosemite Nature Notes: Birdsongs and Monarchs & Milkweed. It was great to be back in Nevada City and among many of my favorite brother and sister filmmakers. Jeremy Collins did a live presentation of his new film Drawn, with my buddy Shawn Reeder providing live accompaniment on the guitar, Amy Marquis presenting Love in the Tetons, and John Waller shared his touching film Mending the Line. Lots of parties and late nights, and a great day bouldering along the Yuba River. I can’t wait to come back next year!
Yosemite Nature Notes – the periodical
One of the questions that I’ve often been asked about the web series Yosemite Nature Notes is why did I use that old-fashioned typeface for the video titles. Hopefully this episode will provide an understanding of my motivations.
Falling Leaves at 240 frames-per-second
I recently rented a Sony FS-700, which has the powerful ability to shoot very slow motion footage, and made this short video celebration of fall in Yosemite. My mom says this is her favorite Yosemite Nature Notes.
The mysterious Snow Plant (sarcodes sanguinea) has always been one of my favorite plants since I first moved to Sequoia National Park and saw them for the first time. Like many of the folks in this video, I was always confused: Was it a plant? or a fungus? or an alien invader? And even though there was a great photograph of a hummingbird nectaring on a sarcodes in the Lodgepole Visitor Center in Sequoia, I had never actually SEEN a hummer on a snow plant before. Now I’ve seen dozens, and I spent a fair bit of time trying to catch the little buggers with my camera for your enjoyment.
Has anyone ever tried to imagine everything that happens on a typical summer day in place like Yosemite National Park?
On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 thirty filmmakers set out on this ambitious mission. What had started as a casual Twitter conversation a few months before was now finally happening. We had scattered ourselves throughout the park, from the Mariposa Grove to Tuolumne Meadows and spaces in between (map). About half of us could be found in and around Yosemite Valley: at Glacier Point, climbing Half Dome, at the top of Yosemite Falls, and even in the kitchen of the Ahwahnee Hotel (map). At over 1200 square miles, there were vast swaths of the park that we didn’t cover. That’s because our focus wasn’t the empty wilderness, but the popular roadside attractions that the vast majority of Yosemite visitors experience.
From thousands of photographs and hours of footage, we created this window into One Day in Yosemite.
Of course, we weren’t really sure what would happen that day or how we would put it all together. “We’ll find the story in post!” was our joking mantra for the project. We did “create” some situations, such as working with the hang glider pilots, or arranging for Sean Jones and his son M’so to climb Cathedral Peak, but many things just popped up, like the helicopter rescue on Half Dome. (All shooters had a standing order that if they saw a helicopter, SHOOT IT!) Other avenues turned into dead ends, such as the bear-chasing wildlife biologist who never saw a bear, or the group of students from Dunbar, Scotland who were following in John Muir’s footsteps.
Our ambitions were high. Originally we hoped to produce a 40 minute documentary, but after reviewing footage and seeing what we did and didn’t get, we decided to set the bar a little lower, aiming for something under 20 minutes. I spent probably two full months off and on this fall and winter editing the project, and it was only when I gave up the idea of a traditional documentary and started thinking of it as more of an art-doc that things began to fall into place. I was amazed that I was able to whittle it all down to under 15 minutes, keeping it quick and snappy and hopefully leaving the viewer wanting more.
As part of the Yosemite Nature Notes series, this project was primarily funded by the Yosemite Conservancy, a partner of the National Park Service in Yosemite. Since this was such a complex project, we also received support from Kessler Crane for many of the time-lapse shooters who used their awesome gear, and BorrowLenses.com provided dozens of cameras, lenses and other gear.
From concept to completion, my partners in crime on this endeavor were Ryan Christensen and Jonah Matthewson from Bristlecone Media, but the biggest thanks goes to all the shooters who worked day and night to get the shot. Way to go Chris, John, Julie, Andrew, Sheldon, Ryan, Jonah, Ryan, Gustaf, Cody, Shawn, Vanessa, Dustin, Colin, Alex, Brian, Matt, Joe, David, Ryan, Ed, Chaz, Jim, Kris, Garrett, Daniel, Josh, Kristin and Jeff! (whew!) This project couldn’t have been done without all of you!
click to embiggen
Since it was posted to YouTube, it’s already been a smash hit, with nearly 50,000 views in the first week, and I’ve been blown away by many of the comments that I’ve read online. After watching, many viewers talk about the spirituality of Yosemite, and several have said that the film brought tears to their eyes. People who have spent a lifetime exploring the park were reminded of past visits, and those who have never been are planning their own adventures.
As of today, the video has been shared by the Atlantic, Grist (“The Yosemite video to beat all Yosemite videos.”) and the Huffington Post, but my favorite write-up comes from Peter Koch at the Active Times:
“Its 15 minutes tell a deeply human story of one of America’s greatest wild, natural places, and does an awesome job of weaving the two seemingly-at-odds storylines together in a way that reflects what the whole National Parks system represents: Humanity and nature as codependents working together for mutual preservation.”
It makes me very happy to think that we just might have pulled that off. Good work, team!
