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Director / Producer: Kevin White

A Filmmakers Collaborative SF Production.

This video was produced by Full Frame Productions (Dir/Producer Kevin White) in San Francisco.

Narrated by Peter Coyote.

Visit San Francisco Ocean Film Festival website and buy tickets: http://www.oceanfilmfest.org

After making this film, I now realize what a dangerous undertaking disentangling a whale is, no matter how much experience or training anyone has. I consider the network team to be heroes of the ocean and creating this film for them was an honor.

The film is a five-minute immersion into the rescue activities of the Whale Disentanglement Network, which comprises of numerous governmental and non-governmental agencies, fishermen, and other trained individuals throughout the USA and Canada. The Network conducts regular training with a view of increasing the pool of volunteers, the quality of data collection and reporting, as well as safety reinforcement.

It is unclear how many whales are affected worldwide, but recent scar analyses of humpbacks in northern Southeast Alaska indicated that around 50% of the population has experienced a recent entanglement. Although the risk of death is not immediate, it is the effect of the entanglement that may cause the animal to starve to death, experience physical trauma or develop infections resulting from wounds. When physically compromised they are susceptible to other threats such as ship-strikes as well as reduced reproductive success. Not every entangled whale is a candidate for disentanglement operations. When an entangled whale is reported, experts consult with the reporter or first responder and try to assess the degree of entanglement to determine whether a disentanglement response can and should be mounted.

There is also an equally important need to prevent disentanglements. David Matilla, research coordinator and rescue advisor at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary says, “our efforts are not just an effort to help the one whale, but it is a conservation effort to try to prevent whales in the future from being entangled”.

For more information on Whale Disentanglement visit:

http://www.nero.noaa.gov/whaletrp/plan/disent/

http://hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov

http://hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov/res/rescue_help.html

I like the size and weight of the NX 70U. I’m not a huge fan of having menu and camera settings adjustments on the touch flip-out screen – annoying as it is, you get used to it.

The Active Steadyshot is awesome.

The sound captured via the XLR mic attachment is good although you can hear a hissing noise (camera noise) during filming, but it’s not in the final video.

Focus and Iris buttons / Zoom, Focus, Iris Ring Selection: The flip-out screen when angled facing slightly up or downwards, covers the buttons and selector switch. Again, annoying, but you get used to it. Cupping the camera in your left hand and operating the buttons with your left thumb works quite well.

I had an issue with the zoom rocker – it’s very sensitive and speedy. Try to gently squeeze it and you’ll also get an inconsistent zoom. It’s best to use the touch screen zoom for steady slow zooms.

The infra-red capabilities allowed me to shoot in the dark without disrupting the turtle’s nesting routine. The camera needs to be set in automatic mode, the lens shade taken off and the IR light activated. Don’t expect military grade IR – the subject needs to be 3-5 feet away and the picture is fairly grainy. Add light from a flashlight and you can get a better image. In my case it needed to be a red light so as not to disturb the nesting animal. It wasn’t perfect, but if it’s all you’ve got… then at least you’ve got an image. When not filming IR, using an onboard LED light works like a charm.

White Balance was generally set to auto white balance for convenience. However, changes in color were noticeable (in post) when working different angles in heavy shaded areas / high contrast areas (see the coconut tree climb clip).

Water resistant only when audio / handle and mic NOT attached.