A couple weekends back, I hosted the first ever White Knuckle Video School here in Iowa.  After it was all said and done, I’m exhausted – but it was so worth it!  We had a mix of current team members, new team members, and guys who were just interested in learning more about the world of video.  Overall, judging from the feedback I’ve received, it was a big success; and hopefully the first of many!

Here is one-half of the class.

My primary reason for conducting the class was to improve the quality of footage and storylines we receive from our team members each season.  My editor and lead cameraman Kyle Reenders and I spend literally hundreds of hours going through footage and to edit our video each year.  Considering we burn through about 100 hours of tape ourselves, we usually plan on some serious review time each fall.

This is the other half of the guys who showed up for the class.

Here is a picture of team members Walter Eastling and Steve Reenders getting ready to have some fun in the class.

The most important aspect of our videos is that we try to tell the truly year-around story about each hunters season.  Basically, my goal from the beginning was to show how much time and energy I put into hunting big mature bucks each season.  The only way to show this is to film as much as possible, from shed hunting, to velvet footage, and through the season.  We film everything, and this allows us to tell a much better story than simply a hunt and a kill.

This is an example of a timeline I drew on the board to explain to the class.  It takes an incredible amount of good quality footage taken throughout the year to tell a good story.  This was the point I drove home over the weekend.

The goal for the video school was to teach everyone the lengths at which both myself and Kyle go to each season in creating our storyline.  We wanted to show everyone that they are in-control of the story they tell regardless of what they may or may-not tag each season.  This was the core concept that I was pushing throughout the day – and I think each person walked away with some ideas on how they will tell their story this fall.  Because we aren’t a production company that focuses on “the kill” only, this takes a lot of the pressure off our team members, and will hopefully mean many immature bucks will make it another year, as we are trying to lead by example – not by the number of kills in our videos.

Telling it like it is…

This is a picture of WKP lead cameraman and editor Kyle Reenders explaining the “Rule of Thirds” to the class.  The rule of thirds is a simple filming technique that says to locate the object of your footage in one of 4 areas of the screen.  This creates the best look on-camera.

The school started out in the class-room with video examples of each of the topics we covered.  We also did filming demonstrations in the class room, and tried to keep the class as visual as possible.  This is usually the best way to retain information.  Following the classroom portion of the class, we went into the field where I showed the team members some tips and techniques for setting stands for filming hunts.  I’ve found over the years I can show someone far better than tell them.  So that’s what I did!

Cameramen Kyle Reenders and Jeff Mayne documented the stand hanging examples for a video class that we will edit at a later date.

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Starting the demonstration on how Kyle and I routinely set-up for filming.

Another angle.

Climbing into position to start hanging some stands.

Here  is a picture of the new Muddy Outdoors hang-on stand.  This is a great little stand for the money.  It’s completely adjustable, only weighs 10 lbs.

Once in-position, I’m explaining why we set our cameraman stand higher off the back side of the tree.  This allows the cameraman to have a great angle if an “over-the-shoulder” shot presents itself.  This is something we consider to be critical in a set-up.  If the tree doesn’t allow our cameraman stand to be above the hunters stand, we simply move the hunters stand lower.

Here is another angle.

This is a picture of a camera bag we use when filming hunts.  I had it custom made by Gray Wolf Woolens last year because there wasn’t a bag that did what we needed.  Jeff Aulik, owner of Gray Wolf made us concept bag last year.  After using it, I had him make a few changes, and now we’ve got a bag that does what we need it to.  This is the bag we carry our camera in and out of the woods with.  We’ve found by packing the camera in separately is far easier than trying to jam everything into a single back-pack.  We use a separate backpack to pack in our camera arm and other camera gear.

Another big reason for the video school was to get new team members introduced to existing team members.  With team members coming from Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois to attend the school; it was awesome seeing all my buddies, and making a bunch of new ones!  What a great time, I can’t wait until next year! 

The guys watching me work.