Please find the WFN Newsletter for the month ending March 2023.
Should anyone wish to add/write anything to the next newsletter, please feel free to email it to me at info@wildlifefilmnetwork.com
Points of notice for this month:
New – 1. New members
New – 2. I hope you are all getting out in this glorious weather.
New – 3. We are looking for a location to hold our WFN Face-to-Face network meeting on Saturday 22nd of July
New – 4. We’re already making plans for 2024
Repeat – 5. We would love to hear from our international members
Repeat – 6. Please use the Forum
Repeat – 7. Please talk to your friends and colleges about joining the Word
1. We lost 2 members last month:
We actually lost two WFN members which as you can imagine is not good. Let’s hope it’s not the start of a worrying trend!
I have to add though… One of the members leaving said it was because the WFN wasn’t doing anything, and he wasn’t doing any networking…
So I pointed out to him that it’s up to the members to do things as well as just me. I have set up the idea and the network and the website, and it is now time for all of the members to become as involved as they can.
…and pointed out that, he had never,
– Attended a Face-To-Face network meeting himself,
– Suggested a location for a WFN Face-To-Face network meeting,
– Attended a zoom meeting,
– Written an article for the newsletter,
– Posted a post on the forum,
– Commented on anyone else’s post on the forum,
– Updated his profile page with either text or photos, since originally writing it,
So it was more of a case of He wasn’t doing anything, rather than the Network.
… Sadly, he had no comments to make about that.
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Again I would like to ask you to encourage everyone you know or work with to join the Wildlife Film Network as a member! The more members we have, the better the network will be. If the Network stays in limbo for much longer, it’s going to die off, which will be of no use to any of you!
2. I hope you are all getting out in this glorious weather
Wow… can it get any better. I do hope you are all out making the most of this glorious weather and long summer days. Should anyone be up to anything they wish to share with the rest of the WFN, or want to chat with people about a future project they are working on (That is what the WFN is all about) please feel free to write an article about it, so we can add it to next months newsletter. Adding a few photos would make it even better.
Simply email it to us at info@wildlifefilmnetwork.com and well spread the word.
3. We are still looking for a location to hold our WFN Face-to-Face meeting in July
We are now looking for members to suggest we hold our July a location in which they would like us to hold our face-to-face network meeting on Saturday 22nd of July 2023.
Sadly, again, if we do not hear from anyone, we will not hold a meeting.
4. We’re already making plans for 2024
I haven’t done much with reference to the WFN and it’s over the last month (since posting the new Photo Comp/Awards at the end of March) as I have been replacing / strengthening the floor in my caravan and adding/building an edit suite into it, to make it much easier to edit / work on location.
After finishing the caravan I am going to add a large box to the back of my Land Rover to make it possible to carry even more film kit and stuff! I am doing all of this as I am starting to make plans for the summer of 2024, where I plan to actually get out into the wilds and film / produce something myself again.
Sadly we only have the one wildlife film course this year, running in August. Whilst this will prove to be a good course (at that time of year) the future of the Wildlife Film School cannot go on as it is with just one course a year. It is not really viable to ‘hang around’ for 11 months of the year, just to then work for one.
I have been in discussions, via email, with WFN member Antony Roberts (ZED) about some very ambitious plans to relocate the Wildlife Film School to Africa. (I don’t know if many of you know but I lived in Tanzania for 2 years, a few years ago, completely fell in love with the landscape, wildlife and people, and have been wanting to return ever since) However, logistics, timing, government permits and funds are all slowing the process more than I would like, so I am looking for something different to do in the UK next summer before I hopefully relocate to Africa.
I am not sure if you know, but it is now 25 years since I undertook my 9-month long trip to paddle a sea kayak solo around the whole of the UK, and I am seriously thinking about reigniting the idea to visit a section of it again over the summer months during 2024.
The monthly plan is as very simple at the moment, and effectively involves making a series of ‘travel documentaries’ about paddling my Sea Kayak from the Isle of Arran up the whole of the west coast to Cape Wrath. (And weather / time permitting, possibly onwards towards The Orkney Islands and Shetland. Visiting such places along the way as Knapdale, Jura, Mull, Skye, The Outer Hebrides etc.)
It would be great if some of you (WFN Members) wanted to join me to help produce a series of films under the banner of the WFN Doc’s and Film Unit. ( https://wildlifefilmnetwork.com/production-synopsis/production-synopsis-1/ )
The general idea to not only to film the trip, and all of the wildlife seen during it; but also to visit prominent places during my original solo paddle, as well as revisiting areas where I have previously run a wildlife film courses along the route. I am planning to take the caravan so we will have a proper edit suite to work in; but there will also be filming of / and from the Kayak, underwater filming, ariel filming of both the kayaking and the landscapes; as well as filming me walking, mountain biking and possibly even driving.
During the productions we would be able to accommodate (use) all our WFN members skills from Camerawork to Audio recording, editing, graphics and music; as well as being able to use the skills of researchers and writers to help what small amount of scripting there will be to flow smoothly etc.
So if anyone would like to join me for a few days or a few weeks (I really do not mind how long anyone stays for) let me know with plenty of notice and we can get things moving.
…Naturally, I will let you know more as things progress in these newsletters and will update both the Wildlife Film School and Doc’s and Film Unit sections of the WFN website over the next few weeks.
5. We would love to hear from our international members:
We are aware that whilst the WFN is a great place for our International Members to display their experience, skillset and contact details; it is very hard for them to become involved in the actual day to day interaction of the website as they are not in the UK. However, we would like to encourage them to become as involved as they can with the WFN either by writing something we can add to a monthly newsletter, or by posting a thread in the WFN Forum – It would be great to hear from you.
6. Please use the Forum to start chatting amongst members: (It’s free to use)
I know that Forums are a bit out of date now, but we have added one to our website as a way of people being able to hold a written conversation about things outside of the Zoom meetings etc. It’s a great place to talk about production techniques, equipment used, problems you experience whilst producing a film and any other subject. It’s also very useful as it doesn’t have to work around time zones so could be an extremely good way of communication with those further afield.
If everyone put just 10 minutes a week into chatting on the forum it really would come alive!
7. Please talk to your friends and colleges about joining the WFN:
The WFN will only ever be a good as its membership. The larger and more diverse the membership is, the better skills pool we will be able to reach into to find crew to produce our DFU wildlife documentary / films. So please feel free to mention joining the WFN to anyone who you feel may be interested.
Please remember:
We are not just wanting to have memberships from wildlife camera operators. We are also looking for sound opps, editors, scriptwriters, location scouts, presenters, narrators, graphic artists and music composers, producers and directors (to mention just a few) as well as scientist working in any subject related to wildlife, and environmentalists and conservationists. The bigger the mix, the better !
