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White Shark cull, Western Australia: Someone make a film about this please

There are far more Red cams than SI2Ks here and a few owner-users to who read here but stay off the grid. Hopefully they will be motivated to attend and add their little bit to the archive. Rob?? Ben?? Sam?? Peter??
 
Trevor Emmerson said:
Slightly off topic but of great relevance to redusers who work with the ABC and SBS. Following Tony Abbots outrageous attack yesterday on the lack of patriotism shown the way the ABC's chooses to report is news, it emerges they will indeed be subject to intense funding review. This is disastrous news for the industry really, going to cost jobs for sure.

http://images.theage.com.au/file/2014/01/30/5118332/Efficiency_study_TOR.pdf
Click to expand...

Hmm, red flag alright. Probably not worth dwelling on here, much can be said. Certain parts of the ABC allow a large left bias that would ranker the right wing government, so they have little but those parts to blame. It is a natural drift of urban populations and educated elite, and vested interest groups, into their fold and studio audiences. Those parts need to be less full of themselves and they need to attract more balanced audiences rather than trendies that book a ticket, and not allow whackos on for seriouse discussions unless they are the topic or have a firm chance of being right, or at least reasonable, but have balanced panels to discuss things reasonably instead. The conditioning that happens is the reinforcing group think in these things, brings general praise from the studio audience leaving the viewing public, and the unbalanced, to believe that what is praised is generally publicly popular and correct changing public opinion wrongly. On the other hand, there are biased right wing elements in the private segment doing stuff too. It is a shambles it does not balance each other out. I mention this as something to avoid in well balanced documentaries, for moral conscious sake.

As Robert said let's "endit" and get back to the prospect of making a great documentary and avoiding that stuff. It does not matter what they say, it is what you are going to do in integrity, even to change their opinion. Being film makers, in making film, other people are contributing hands on activism.

Trevor, even if you don't want to go forwards in certain ways, the things here others can see and take up those torches in parallel to your contribution.

There are a lot more human and general things I want to make documentaries on than sharks. But best through you in a good way.
 
Trevor and any other West Aussies.

　

There is a strong likelyhood but yet to be confirmed, one Epic can be at Cottesloe for the gathering there at 10am and I will assist that operator.

　

The ideal would be to have three cameras,

　

One for front of crowd, agile roving, mandatory cute shots of kids on parent's shoulders, banner wavers and the public speakers, ideally with sound,
　

One for a wide view from the Cott groyne back towards the beach over the water, picking up the tea rooms to the right and the crowd to the left if it gathers again in the same spot as last time.
　

One camera at a high point on the walkway above the beach with both a wide view and long-reach capable lens, able to pick up incidents should they occur plus the exiting crowd members who do not stay coming back up the stairway past the camera to the carpark strip.
　

If only two cameras and operators can make it, the camera which views from the Cott groyne could shoot the crowd image across the water when it has gathered, then duck back around to the high point near the parking strip stairway but it would be a heavy 600 metre slog on foot for a solo operator to truck it round and get set up in time.
　

If there are any other operators going down, perhaps comment here and we can perhaps divide the labour a little more efficiently than having everyone capture the same shots and miss others.
　

The gathering at Cott will kick off at 10am. Given the parking is a dog down there at the best of times, even turning up at 8-00am could be problematic. As we do not have a field producer or journo, all we can really do is just put together a library of cutaways for a later serious production to use.
　

We could perhaps have one camera with sound keep an eye out for an arranged media scrum and take the interview. I believe the networks collectively hire a single weekend stringer these days who may sit off up on the road and take a quick glimpse from there.
　

Given the conservative leanings of our commercial broadcast media and the intimidation of the ABC, I doubt that the anti-cull beast will be fed by any other than token coverage. The networks may bail out altogether and just use their library footage from last time.
　

For one camera crew, getting coverage may be a bit intense and let;'s face it, I am old git these days and slogging through beach sand is a bit of a challenge. More crews and everyone can take it a bit more leisurely.
　

In absence of media opportunities, any interviews therefore may fall upon us to arrange. - Any takers as field producer/journo?
　

Because this whole saga might well turn out to be Colin Barnett's own Barracks Arch smackdown by the public, it may be of historical significance.
　

Sure, there will be phonecam and handicam footage which will be of reasonable to good quality but as an enduring archive for the future - and as a SI2K driver I hate to say it, - Red footage most likely will be better. -


So Rob, Sam, Ben ??? PM me here on reduser for my phone number if you are likely to be there with a camera yourselves.
 
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You are awesome Robert. Wish I could get up there to help. Next time. Planning a trip up soon so maybe an informal meeting between all who want to be involved to discuss an informal collaboration that might go somewhere. Loving the community spirit.
 
Trevor. If it ends up being only a two-man/one-camera band, the best to hope for will be grabs from here and there. The Epic owner may not have much in the way of recording media so we may have to be very conservative on what we shoot. If any other Perthies have Epic SSD media cards but don't want to attend, loaners would be appreciated. I have posted on the facebook page and am getting some good info on who will speak and possibility of interviews later. Still working that out. If available runtime is an issue, I might have to use the SI2K or EX1. I am really hoping somebody who knows the media business will step up. I have the co-ordinative abilities of a bankrupted chook-raffle entrepaneur. All my stringer news work years back was MOS film camera-operator only with some voiceover recording by the journo afterwards.
 
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Cheers to you Robert and your mystery Epic owner. If the possibility of interviews doesn't pan out, a friendly chat and swap some contact details for a rain check would be equally valuable. Haven't been following any Facebook page, would be interested to hear those names. Had an exchange with greens senator Scott Ludlam on twitter that seemed to indicate he would be in attendance, can you reveal who else is talking?
 
Hello again Trevor.



The owner/operator of the Epic for tomorrow is Peter Cheng. There will be a bit of a tech issue in that whilst I have a good mike and MixPre, the audio input to the Epic is a bit tricky. Sam Winzar has graciously committed to assist with two 128Gb mags.
　


This is the list of speakers for tomorrow at Cottesloe.



Sam Carmody - Surfer and Musician

Jeff Hansen - Director of Sea Shepherd Australia

Hon. Lynn MacLaren - Greens MLC

Christine Milne - Greens Party Leader

Mark McGowan - Leader of the Labor Party, WA

Katrina Love - WA Convenor & Lead Candidate, Animal Justice Party

Ross Weir - West Australians for Shark Conservation- WASC

Hugh Edwards - Journalist and Author

Tim Nicol - Vice President of Conservation Council of Western Australia


A change of plan means Mark McGowan (Leader of the Labour Party in WA) will now be speaking instead of Dave Kelly, previously scheduled.


We are going to be a bit under-resourced for zoom lenses as Peter's Epic is EF-Mount, so none of my PL-Mount lenses can fit. However between his primes, a Nikon 12mm-24mm and for the long shot from the Groyne, a 50mm-500mm, we can probably manage. It is probably going to be a f22 day by 10-00am with an approx. 15 degree north sun. I think we will be sun behind/right on the speakers. My understanding is the Epic is natively ISO 800. I propose using a IRND 1.8. I realise there may be a grad green fringing so may have to shoot a reference plate against white or grey card if I can dig one up. I don't get fringing on the SI2K but I am not using really wide lenses on it either. I will take a polariser as well but I understand there may be antagonism between polarisers and IRND filters. - Any clues on this will be appreciated. 　

Audio. - Does anyone have any info on the correct tip/shank assignment for the small plugs which feed audio into the Epic. I have a MixPre. The outputs I normally use are two channel XLR. The MixPre has a controllable phone out via the headphone connection. There is a headphone outlet on the SI2K which is the normal small stereo phono socket. Does the Epic have a headphone out socket. If it does, then I may be able to feed audio from the headphone outlet on the MixPre and monitor from the camera with the headphones. My only other option is to record double-system to a small Zoom H4n or roll the EX1 as an audio recorder/backup camera - not ideal. This is all very ad-hoc and far too hasty but we do what we can do and can what we can't.

Power. - Peter has two v-mount batteries which he thinks will see us through plus some small RED specific torch batteries which go in the side somewhere.
　


Any advise will be much appreciated. I am going to be a weary old git by tomorrow's end.


　
 
Trevor. Furthur to my earlier, I have since discovered that there is a film-maker documenting the whole thing including this morning's boats since the first protest gatherings on a Panasonic P2, model unknown.
 
So far it looks like we are the only RED crew unless there is another staying below the radar. Far from being competitive, I sincerely hope there is another or more. I hope to hook up with the guy with the Panasonic tomorrow. Hopefully if he is not tied up or shooting for himself or organising the event, he might take time out to field-produce and fix the interviews for us and I can then concentrate on wrangling the sound.
 
Tom, according to federal environment minister Greg Hunt -one and the same who ultimately approved the shark cull- the Great Barrier Reef will actually be better off as a result of this dredging.

"In making the decision Mr Hunt said he had imposed 148 strict environmental conditions on the Abbot Point and Curtis Island developments. That included conditions to ensure the water quality impact from the dumping of dredging spoil was offset. Mr Hunt said the offsets – which would stop sediments entering the Great Barrier Reef marine park from land sources such as farm runoff – would require an overall gain in water quality."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...-reef-coast-20131210-2z3z2.html#ixzz2s2MCBWYF

In essence: the miners get a free pass to wreck havoc because Mr Hunt has identified that farmers pose a threat to the reef too, so he will instead ask them to modify their business operations to "offset'' any and all damage done by dredging- which he essentially concedes does pose a threat to the reef. Evidently the journalist who wrote this forgot to make the point that as minister for environment it is his job to identify such threats as farm runoff and manage compliance with those industries. Instead of trying to bullshit the public with lines like, "but I actually did you guys a huge favour approving this environmental disaster dredging operation, because I did my job on this other thing and on net balance it might just work out ok."
 
2 metre Tiger Shark found dead on drum lines off Cott this morning. Yet another aspect of this botched cull that has backfired, the gov having maintained only big sharks would be able to hook themselves. On the first day that proved wrong as a shark of 1 metre was hauled in and luckily for it was able to be released. Ironically while all this is going on Collin Barnett has skipped the country, travelling to South Africa to give a keynote speech at a mining convention of all things.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/21207739/protesters-take-on-shark-kill-policy/
 
Trevor Emmerson said:
2 metre Tiger Shark found dead on drum lines off Cott this morning. Yet another aspect of this botched cull that has backfired, the gov having maintained only big sharks would be able to hook themselves. On the first day that proved wrong as a shark of 1 metre was hauled in and luckily for it was able to be released. Ironically while all this is going on Collin Barnett has skipped the country, travelling to South Africa to give a keynote speech at a mining convention of all things.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/21207739/protesters-take-on-shark-kill-policy/
Click to expand...

I believe there's a welcoming committee waiting for him in RSA as per the Shark Angels Twitter and FB feed this morning, planning protests for tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/sharkangels/status/429465504500432896

He can run, but he can't hide...always wanted to say that!

M
 
Some stills from todays protest at Cott beach by my friend Richard Watson http://richardwatson.com.au who has volunteered to lend his UAV skills to the project if needed.
 

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