To start off the hunting season, I was given the opportunity to video Pat Reeve and Nicole Jones of Driven TV. For me this was going to be my first time ever filming for a nationally televised hunting show. Talk about crazy! I videoed a lot of my friends growing up and always wanted to be a part of the TV side of hunting, but I had no idea coming right out of high school that I would be already behind the camera for a show. I met with Pat, Nicole, and Shane one of their cameramen on August 29^th  early in the morning and made the 10-hour drive to our first hunting camp in North Dakota. You would think we would be just enjoying the ride maybe catching up on some sleep but, no, the filming started right away! Shane and I were running cameras in the back seat. Pat told me this was the first part to any hunt. He really stresses on making a story out of every hunt because he feels the story behind the hunt is what makes a better production.

    We ended up stopping in Schell’s in Fargo so they could purchase their licenses, but there was no time to shop during my first visit to a Schell’s. We ran the camera catching every moment in the store. Along the ride, Pat had me get driving shots of the road, scenic shots, and unique things about the trip.

    One shot that Pat really liked was a good looking “time lapse” which is a shot that takes place for a long period of time that shows fast movement when fast forwarded in post production. So the shot he had me do was driving through the badlands. When arriving at Bad Lands Hunting Company, we filmed a meet and greet with the outfitter and didn’t waste any time to get out hunting. While in the ground blind with Pat that night, I asked him a ton of questions trying to learn as much as possible. He said what really helped him get where he is today in the hunting industry was always having the camera rolling, catching as much footage as possible of the hunt. Since he filmed all the time, he always tried to make the shot creative. He told me, “Make every shot the best it can be, by working angles, audio, and items in the shot.” We ended up not killing any bucks that night. When we arrived back at camp I filmed some of the camp and the great food the made us for dinner.
 
    The next day, we were back at it again. Sitting in the ground blind in the morning I continued to learn a lot about filming. There is a lot of detail to make a shot as well as it can be. I had to make sure the tripod was level, the mic was working fine, my white balance was right, and I was in the hunting mode. We did an opener of the hunt while the sun came up and we looked back at it right away after I filmed it. I thought the shot looked good, but after Pat saw it, he told me it was not. My framing was way off and it was too tight. He said, "Every shot must be framed so you don’t have any dead space,” because it makes the shot boring.  Also Tom Miranda once told Pat while he was filming him, “You film to tight” and Pat repeated it to me, because I was so tight on the shot I was cutting off some of his head.

    We ended up seeing a few nice bucks that morning and I realized it was hard to stay steady, as they were only 65 yards out and my heart was racing. This was definitely something I was going to have to try to work on was controlling my adrenalin because it can make the shot shaky. During the day while we weren’t hunting, Pat had me do more “Time Lapse” of clouds going over the hills and also driving shots. Every time before I would go and do a shot Pat would remind me “make it creative.” Pat always seemed to be thinking what would make a good shot. If I didn’t recognize a shot he would tell me one. Like when he had me film the thermometer that read 100 degrees. This was something I would have never thought off but it help make the story.

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The next night we sat in the some ground blind again I had the camera running a lot trying to catch the story of the hunt.  Got shots of mules coming into the field, turkeys, and a hawk looking for mice. While in the blind, Pat made a game plan if a buck came in and how we would handle the situation. Next thing I know, we got two nice bucks in velvet headed our way. I tried taking deep breaths and being very steady with my shot. As they came within 50 yards I slowly zoomed into them. Pat whispered, “I’m going to shoot the 8 pt.” The bucks continued to walk closer and I kept on them as they got in some brush. I slowly zoomed out to show the depth of the field, but them going around the brush wasn’t what I expected so I had to lean with the camera to find them again. Then, as they cleared the brush, I zoomed back in. Pat said, “you got them!” “Yep,” I said and thwap! They all started running and I did my best to stay on the deer to see if he went down in the field. Sure enough he did and it was on film.

I came back to Pat. I had to adjust my camera’s iris to bring in more light in the dark blind to show Pat. He was very excited and so was I. It was just like shooting one. We hurried through his reaction and ran to the deer because daylight was fading. This whole time I’m trying to keep my framing right along with the hundreds of other things I had to try to pay attention to. It was a somewhat stressful moment hoping I was getting production quality shots. We then filmed going back to camp and Nicole seeing the deer. After all was said and done, we went back and watched the hunt. While the deer came in, Pat said I did a great job following the deer and keeping it steady. He also said my white balance and colors looked well. When the deer came to the brush I did a good job of backing out with the zoom. He wished I wouldn’t have had to make the tripod off balance if at all possible. When I zoomed back into the deer for the shot, he wished I had zoomed to show only the 8-point, instead of staying wide on both off the bucks. He said I did a good job following the deer go down afterwards and was impressed with my first video hunt.

For me it was a great learning experience. I cannot wait to learn more about filming.