How to Film a Hunt

I have spent a lot of time hunting in the company of photographers and cinematographers. Sometimes these have been miserable experiences, full of missteps by the camera operator that scared off our prey. More often I've really enjoyed working with them.

It has occurred to me that I bear some of the responsibility for the times that the hunt did not go well. As a professional hunting instructor I should be teaching these people how to accompany a hunter in order to get the best possible material on camera. My approach has evolved over the last six months or so and now I like to make a point of talking to these colleagues ahead of the hunt.

The following is an email that I wrote to someone who will be our second camera for a filmed hunt in Northern Virginia this weekend. After I hit 'send' I realized that this would all be pretty good advice for anyone new to filming animals in the wild, whether or not there is hunting involved. Environmental filmmakers can learn a lot from hunters and this is a good place to start.

Alex,

Helenah tells me that you'll be coming along as our second camera for this weekend's hunt in Fauquier County. I want to go over a few things with you about filming a deer hunt that are probably rather different from most films you may have worked on in the past.

What I am doing as the hunter with a scoped rifle is very similar to what you are doing with the camera. We both need to determine where a deer is likely to appear at a given time and we need to make sure that we don't do anything that will scare it off. We both need to point a tool precisely at the animal and push a button at just the right moment.

The deer can sense us primarily through sight, sound and smell. If it knows that we are there then we probably won't even see it. It will circle around and stay out of sight and we'd just go home empty-handed. For us to have a chance you need to prepare thus:

1. Sight.

Don't wear anything blue or blue-ish. Deer see reds and oranges in gray-scale but they see the blue end of the spectrum very well. So no regular blue jeans. If you can wear full camouflage then that is great but don't go out and spend money on it. Earth tones are fine. Greens and blacks and grays and browns are all good.

Think about your rig as well. For example, Helenah's shoulder rig has a lot of bright blue plastic parts that need to be wrapped with black tape before taking on a hunt.

2. Sound.

Avoid loud fabrics that make a loud 'zip' sound when a twig slips against it. A lot of jacket shells and backpacks are made of this kind of thing. Don't wear anything that will make a crinkly noise when you need to flex your arms or legs.

When you pack any snacks be sure to only bring things that you can open quietly. A bag of potato chips, for example, would be a bad idea. Transferring food into a Ziplock bag can be a good way of dodging loud packaging.

In advance, adjust your camera to be as quiet as possible during operation. If it makes little beeping sounds when you press buttons then disable that feature. Don't think that any electronic sound is too quiet to be heard. The deer and most other animals in the woods have much, much better hearing than you or I do. Cell phones and other such devices should be turned off. Not just set on 'vibrate', but actually off.

3. Scent.

Do not wear any artificial colognes. Avoid using scented shampoos or soaps if possible right before the hunt. Try not to break a sweat. We aren't trying for 100% scent elimination here but it needs to be reduced as much as possible without getting outrageously inconvenient about it.

No smoking, please. If you are a smoker then try to get through the day using patches or nicotine gum or something like that. Cigarette smoke is a dead give-away of human presence and it hangs in an area for a long time.

Before actually hunting, you and I will need to establish a few hand signals so that we can silently understand each other. We need to set up our positions in ambush such that we can always make eye contact. Last time that Helenah and I tried to film a deer hunt I ended up pulling the trigger and killing the deer before she had the camera on the deer. The whole day was wasted. We don't want that, but we also don't want to be talking or making noise right at the key moment when the deer could be scared away. So our communication has to be silent. I need to be able to let you know that I see a deer and I'm about to shoot it, and then I need to understand when you are ready and filming the deer and I can pull the trigger. Speed will often be important here.

If we see a group of deer then sometimes it will be difficult to communicate which one I'm going to shoot, especially if they are moving. When we have a group of deer together then you should usually try not to guess which one I'm going to take. Zoom out far enough that you can get all of them in your shot together. Only try to zoom in really close when there is one particular deer that you can be certain I am going to try to take.

Regarding distance and lenses, I will not take a shot out much farther than 200 yards. I have gone out on hunts before where I expected to take a deer at 150 yards and then one stepped out less than a dozen yards away. This is almost as awkward to immediately adjust for with a rifle scope as it is with a camera. In general, the closer a deer is the greater the danger is of it spooking suddenly and the quicker we will need to take the shot.

This all probably seems really complicated and annoying, but hopefully you will find that all of these tactics can be applied to filming animals in the wild even when nobody needs to kill anything.

-Jackson

[Photo copyright 2011, 2012 by Jackson Landers.]