UK Wildlife Film School

Today we welcome Ric Swift, the Managing Director of the UK Wildlife Film School. Ric is an accomplished freelance cameraman, as well as a member of the Guild of Television Cameramen (GTC) and the International Association of Wildlife Film-makers (IAWF).

Ric Swift Camera / Field Craft Instructor

Wildlife Film School

Photography: Wildlife Film School

Tell us a little about yourself and the UK Wildlife Film School? Coming from 12 years of military background, including serving with UK Special Forces, operating as a photographer / video cameraman as part of a covert surveillance unit; I spent most of my time out in the field and a lot of that time sitting in hedgerows or other camouflaged locations in all types environment watching and filming subjects at a distance many years of perfect practice for when it comes to filming wildlife.

The UK Wildlife Film School has now been running for 8 years, and today is one of the most comprehensive wildlife film schools in the world, certainly in terms of hands-on practical experience.

We give you the opportunity to learn and experience first-hand what is required to work and live filming in the wild, using the latest professional Sony 4K cameras and Apple 4K editing suite/system, whilst operating out of a tented base-camp in remote locations.

Sound is extremely important in film making, pictures without sound lack something and they don't look right or feel right when you watch them.

For you and the UK Wildlife Film School, what is the importance of sound' in filmmaking? Sound is extremely important in film making, pictures without sound lack something and they don't look right or feel right when you watch them. Sadly, a lot of students that attend a course with us are only initially interested in operating the camera, so don't give the sound much thought. Only when you show them the rushes in silence and then again with some audio, do they appreciate just how important sound is.

How is the recording of sound included in the courses that you run with the School? If we are filming stags (like we were on The Isle Jura with Henry and Lukas in October) we record the sound using the Rycote Cyclone and a Sennheiser microphone running directly into our camera, this helps in the edit with such things as lip-sync. The extra atmosphere that is added to the end film by doing this is phenomenal, approximately 80% of a stag rut is audio, bellowing from one stage to another, if you were to not record this, you would me missing a large chunk of the atmospherics and action from your final film.

We use three Rycote Windshields with our students to help them capture clean audio; the Cyclone works wonderfully; the Super-Shield is a very good traditional piece of kit, and a Windjammer for a Roland R-26 field recorder.' Ric Swift

For the people who attend your course, what do they expect to gain from the whole experience? Experience that's hands-on, practical experience' and the ability to go away from the course with the knowledge that if someone asks them to do something, they will be able to do it to a higher standard than they could before they attended the course.

Our Film School moto is Real Wildlife Real Locations Real Skills Real Experience', what we mean by this is simply:

Real Wildlife All the students on our courses will be filming real wildlife' as apposed to captive animals kept in a pen, cage or observation tank in a studio.

Real Locations All of the locations we work in are real locations, open moorland, a river valley or the side of a mountain, as appose to inside a wildlife rescue centres or places where the animals are kept in pens'

Real Skills During our courses our student all learn real skills, we don't just teach, we allow them full hands-on learning' where they can go away from a course having undertaken the production tasks required to produce a film out in the field, themselves.

Real Experience This is what really counts you can learn as much as you like sitting in a classroom, but until you have gained some actual physical experience' out on location in the wild, it's all just theoretical.

When you are out in the field' recording wildlife, what kinds of sounds have the students captured? Audio recorded directly from an animal (such as the bellowing of a stag) or ambient sounds such as birds, wind through the trees or the grass blowing on a hillside. You can't really film footage of the sea breaking on the shore without the audio, and if you try to add audio recorded at a different time or from a different location it just simply doesn't work as it is out of sync.

Also there's the voiceover. Out on location you are not sat in a warm wind-proof acoustic studio, we have to make a shelter from the wind (often using a dome hide) and record good clean audio, we use a Rycote Cyclone and a Sennheiser mic running directly into the rear of our camera to get the best results for the final film. If we are sending part of the group off to capture ambient sound separately; we may use the Rycote Softie or the Super-Shield Kit if it is particularly windy and record audio directly to a Roland R-26 field recorder.

The locations where you run the courses are all very wild' and rugged' in themselves, does this pose any particular issues? And what about any issues for capturing good, usable sound? There is always a lot of equipment to carry. One of the major things we have noticed over the years is how the students don't necessarily think of this before attending a course. We're not in a studio or on a film set where everything comes out of the back of a van a few yards from where we are filming. We have to carry everything on foot to the filming location ourselves.

The main audio challenge is the wind, even on a still day you nee

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