Thanks for the comments. Not offended by any of them.
As far as the recreates, sometimes those are necessary for transition from one scene to the next. I know some people will claim they don't like them, as it is "not as it happened." Very little of what ends up in our final episode is a recreate, so if you think you are watching LOTS of recreates, some of what you find to be a recreate is actually as it happened.
If we want any sort of quality, flow, and transition, we need certain clips. We try to get them live, but if the live clip is of low quality, we are going to use the recreated clip for that transition. Look at shows that have none of that, little if any transition, and I think for the most part, their production quality is ....... well, not what we shoot for. That might be my personal preference of what I want to see in a TV show and not what others care about.
We often have two camera guys, so that allows us to capture the real deal as it happened, and have less recreates. We always have one camera on the animals, and if possible, one camera on the shooter/hunter(s). Sometimes it doesn't work that way, and both are on the animal.
One thing about our show is that we are not in a controlled environment like most shows, so it is very hard to get everything and get it perfect as it happens. We don't have a TV in the tent where we can review footage, then go out and get what we might have missed of not gotten perfectly. Therefore, we have to work hard to get it right, as it happens, at the highest possibly level of quality. And we do some recreates, in the event the "live" clip is not of the quality we shoot for.
I understand you may not like the changing camera angles from an "over the shoulder" view to a "face on" view. But, I am not going to have footage of the back of my head while I am talking. Other shows may, but we won't. As such, we are going to use many different camera angles. Maybe some like the back of talking heads, but I don't and am annoyed when I see it on a show. Probably a quirk of mine.
Yes, there is a level of logistic and safety problem with set-ups where we try to get that face on footage as it happens. When possible,we try to anticipate the set up and place a camera out in front, if at all possible. Can't always be done. When it works, it is very cool. We will never do it in a hurry or in a situation that endangers a camera guy. In those instances where we can't get it as it happened, it will be recreated.
When we come back from an episode, we need every thing possible for the editors. We do not have the luxury of say a midwest whitetail show where they can go and recreate missing pieces in the back 40, if the editor tells them they missed a clip or the live clip was bad. All our hunts are for different species in different terrain, with different weather conditions. So, we have to do our best to capture it and get it while we are in the field.
Your impression that there are too many recreated scenes is actually a compliment to us and to the camera guys. There are very, very, few recreated scenes in any of the final edits, so much of the stuff you are seeing and thinking is recreated is actually as it happened, so that is a good sign that we are doing it "as it happens" to a good level.
I think if you asked any of the guys here on Hunt Talk who have been in the episodes, they would agree with how little of the end product is a recreated scene. We have so many cameras with us, that we can capture a ton of different angles, live.
Example would be the New Mexico archery elk episode for Season Three. We had four cameras with us, between Troy and I. The big Canon with the zoom, the small Canon I use for POV shots, a GoPro helmet cam, Troys DSLR. It is a pain to carry all of that, along with tapes/batteries/cards for such, in addition to all the gear we are packing in our MR packs, but it is the only way you can get enough angles and clips to capture it as it happens.
I know that very few other shows are doing it that way. And I don't blame them, as it is a ton of work, even if you had the benefit of controlled environments, as opposed to the backpack hunts we do. At the risk of sounding boastful, OYOA is one of the top shows in outdoor TV, in terms of production values, especially when considering the conditions under which it is filmed. That would not be the case if not for the extra work, extra cameras, and extra angles provided by great camera guys carrying lots of camers for many different angles.
As far as the recovery scenes, the only scene I can think of where there was a surprise was in Season One when the camera guy found my wounded elk and they whistled me over. That is what happened. Other recovery sceens are us walking up to animals that we know are already dead and laying there. We know where they fall, so we send the camera guy to set up near where the animal is dead. The idea being that it best to see our reaction as we first walk up to the animal, rather than contrive some sort of fake emotions in a recreate. If that comes across as false surprise, I will watch more closely for that this season, as that is not our intent.
What you have seen on those recover scenes is what has happened. Yes, we knew where the animal was and set up the camera to capture our excitement of getting our first good glimpse of the animal up close. Never any intent to make it look like a big surprise when we find them.
Not sure why the DVDs do not play all the way through. I will ask the reproduction group why that is happening.
There will be tweaks and changes for Season Three, and most of those are based on good feedback, such as this. Thanks for providing such.
My hat goes off to Fin and crew for putting together such top notch videos.
