About a year ago I posted about Oasis: The Birds of the Esk Valley. Oasis was my third wildlife film, and first attempt at producing a long documentary, at 27 minutes. I received some very useful constructive criticism on this forum, and Oasis is doing the rounds at local and national wildlife and conservation clubs and societies; I have been pleased with the response to this amateur production.

Nature's Cauldron is the working title I have given to the sequel to Oasis. I have been shooting footage since January 2011 and hope to have all the material shot by autumn 2012, and the film completed by January 2013. This documentary will take the viewer on a journey through some of the less well known habitats of Lothian Region in SE Scotland.

I threaded together some of the footage for the WWF 2 minute film competition:

Disconnect and Reconnect on Vimeo

Among the ten main species which will feature are crossbills:

Crossbills and Young West Cairns January 2012 on Vimeo

and ring ouzel:

Singing Ring Ouzels on Vimeo

I hope to post periodically here for feedback and advice, which will be welcomed :)

Neil

Hey Neil,

got some nice shots of some pretty birds and covering some interesting behaviour, the only pointer I'd say for now is make sure your using manual focus and focus on the bird, some of your shots were focused on the tree, and the same goes for the exposure, a number of shots the tree was correctly exposed but the birds were blown out a bit. And if your going to use audio, make sure its of a decent enough level to create a atmospheric effect or confirm what one is seeing, and then get rid of audio which you don't want like I think the first video you could hear somebody walking by with shoes on.

Keep the passion!

Adam