My first wildlife documentary short film.

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Rudy Pohl

Rudy Pohl

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"Sandhill Cranes - Dancing Giants during the Fall Migration"

For the last 10 years I have been trying to find an opportunity to photograph, and in the last 3 years, film Sandhill Cranes on migration in our area, but without success. This past Fall I got lucky. I shot this footage back in November 2024 and have been working periodically on the editing it since then. It's been a real labour of love for me and my wife and we have grown to love these beautiful, graceful Giants in the process.

Challenges and difficulties:
The major problems to overcome all had to do with the shooting conditions. The Cranes were on private property 1000 feet away, so way too far away for good IQ. Also, much of the day was warm and sunny so there was terrible atmospheric turbulence (heat shimmer) a lot of the time. It was quite windy for much of the day with gusts up to 50 kilometers per hour destroying the audio and shaking the footage. The biggest challenge in the editing part was matching the subtle blue-grey colour of the Cranes in the many clips shot across a wide range of lighting conditions from 11:00 am to sunset at 5:00 pm. Being somewhat of a perfectionist I was unhappy with the image quality and wanted to throw out the footage and quit the project more than once, but my wife said "no way" and encouraged me to make the best of it and finish the job. I'm glad I did.

Gear: Canon R5, RF100-500, RF200-800, + RF1.4x
Recording formats: 4K60K crop, 4K120
Shot in Standard Picture Profile 8-bit
Editing: Davinci Resolve 19, edited on and exported from a 1080p timeline.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Hope you enjoy it.
Cheers,
Rudy :)
 
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Excellent documentary Rudy! Just goes to show that interesting behaviour and excellent storytelling are more important than just having good IQ (which wasn't that bad)! Glad you persisted -- It was well worth the effort and would have been a shame not to put this together even though I know that it's a lot of work. Very nicely done! (y) :)
 
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Garfield said:
Excellent documentary Rudy! Just goes to show that interesting behaviour and excellent storytelling are more important than just having good IQ (which wasn't that bad)! Glad you persisted -- It was well worth the effort and would have been a shame not to put this together even though I know that it's a lot of work. Very nicely done! (y) :)
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for your encouraging words, Gary. They mean a lot coming from someone as skilled and talented and dedicated to the craft as yourself.... much appreciated! (y) (y) (y)
Cheers,
Rudy :)
 
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