Filming the jaguar in Pantanal (Brazil)

[Ronan Fournier]

Last summer, I went to the Pantanal, Brazil, with my Canon XLH1 to shoot a documentary about the rich biodiversity of this area. I had been lucky enough to see jaguars with very good weather and light conditions. A very exciting moment since I know this animal is rarely filmed in the wilderness.
You can see the trailer here, I hope you 'll like it: - English Trailer

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Nice trailer Ronan.

The Pantanal has been an area where I've been planning to go on an expedition for years but still haven't gone there yet. Your film has made me want to go even more.

It is a pity that the footage is so compressed on the online trailer, because the birds in flight clips really suffer (plus the fact that I'm watching via a 3G+ Dongle connection, so it gets compressed even more).

Will the film be shown and sold only as SD and DVD, or will it also be in HD and Blue-Ray?

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Ronan,

What a wonderful experience, I throughly enjoyed watching the trailer. Did you go with a group or was it a private trip. Were you filming from a canoe, if so was the camera mounted on a tripod.

One small problem, on the fast movement sections the playback was broken into small lines. It maybe my computer, but could also be your encodeing for u-tube. You may need to de-interlace the footage.

Anyway as I said I really enjoyed it.

Regards

Mick
M & PP Wildlife Video & Travel - Homepage

[Gilles Debord]

Hi Ronan

Superbe film, serat il dispo en DVD et quand? la bande annoce me fait envie. J'aimerai bien avoir ton proféssionnalisme.

A+

Gilles

[Ronan Fournier]

Thank you for your kind comments!
Yes, the YouTube compression need to be improved, I'm going to work on that. Meanwhile I've added a QuickTime version, on the same page.

@ Tony: No Blu-ray version for the moment, it's unfortunatly too expensive for a small company like mine. But if there is a demand, and if Apple give us friendly tools to do it, sure I'll think about it.

@ Mike: I spent 4 weeks there, half-time with a group since the documentary is also about ecotourism in the Pantanal. In the canoe a tripod would have been useless. I used my arms as a stabilizer against the current of the river. But I got a lot of failures. Sometime the Smoothcam filter helps a bit during the editing on FCP, but then you loose sharpness…

@ Gilles : Merci Gilles ! Oui le DVD vient de sortir sur mon site : http://www.songesdemoai.com

[Bob Safay]

Ronan, beautiful. I spent two weeks there a couple of years ago and still remember is beautiful wildlife. Unfortunately, we never got to see a jaguar. I would love to go back. Where did you stay? Were you on the north or south side? Bob

[Ronan Fournier]

Thank you Bob,
I went on the north side of the Pantanal. From Cuiaba, I went down through the Transpantaneira road to Pocone and Porto Jofre, then took a boat.
The best moment to go there is during the dry season, between june to october.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

The start of the wet season is also good, because many animals are congregated onto islands, and many large fish make their migrations upriver and into the flooded zones.

[David G. Burt]

Originally Posted by Ronan Fournier

Last summer, I went to the Pantanal, Brazil, with my Canon XLH1 to shoot a documentary about the rich biodiversity of this area. I had been lucky enough to see jaguars with very good weather and light conditions. A very exciting moment since I know this animal is rarely filmed in the wilderness.
You can see the trailer here, I hope you 'll like it: - English Trailer

What lenses did you use for this project? - Excellent footage

[Ronan Fournier]

Thank you David. I used the 20x lense of the CANON XLH1 @ 99,99%. The camera was handheld in the canoe so you can't use too long focal. Very rarely the EF100mm macro lens for spider and butterfly, and the EF 70-300mm with XL/EF adapter.