To Howl With Wolves is the first episode in my documentary mini-series, Conservation Crossroads, which explores grassroots conservation in Indiana. This episode features Wolf Park, an animal education institution in Battle Ground, Indiana, whose mission is saving wolves and saving wilderness.
PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY
The cover image for the episode on the official series website
A resting spot at Wolf Park
A picture provided by Wolf Park, one of their wolves with a pineapple
The YouTube thumbnail for the series episode
PROJECT DETAILS
OBJECTIVE
The goal of this episode was to explore the mission and efforts of Wolf Park and to understand the importance of wolves in their native habitats.
EXECUTION
Wolf Park is in Battle Ground, Indiana. I was able to stay with relatives close to the area while filming. I filmed two sets of interviews with my Director of Photography and went independently to film b-roll. We used Black Magic 4k and 6k pocket cinema cameras for all three interviews as well as b-roll. Wolf Park also provided me with footage of R+ reinforcement training since I was unable to be in the paddock with the animals or attend a session myself.
I spent several hours in DaVinci Resolve Studio to edit the final deliverable. I was even able to experiment with the skin smoothing feature to cut some of the worst of Khaz's unfortunate sunburn.
EXTRAS
I learned during production that the scientific name for the American Bison is "bison bison bison". One of the bison is named Licky, because she likes to lick people. I was also able to get pretty close to some of the wolves, however, I was not allowed within the fence.