Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

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

If anyone has any recommendation to make on the best codec for enduring digital archival purposes, this would be appreciated. At first look, the images through a damaged 17mm-35mm f2.8 zoom don't look bad at all. The lens has a hard landing in its history. The images through the 50mm-500mm are a bit softer on the long end but colour and contrast-wise are fine. The 85mm prime of course was sweet as you would expect. During the copy process, the copy run stalled so was redone. The checksum thing was fine on the second run. I shall have to get that little app for my SI2K transfers. The SSD drive was quite hot when it was disconnected which is a bit of a worry as it was originally destined to be one of my camera drives.
 
Last edited:
Robert I think the cull has a lot to do with James Price Point, CB was not happy when we lost that contract due to protest. This is a spiritual battle against the greenies of this world for him as much as anything else. He can claim there is a silent majority support for the cull as much as he likes, polls say different- 80% against. Found out yesterday that as well as Premier he also holds the position in cabinet as WA Science Minister, no wonder no environmental impact study was done.

Tony Abbot meanwhile plans to go ahead with stripping old growth temperate rainforrest in Tasmania of World Heritage Status so it can be logged. A move that even the timber industry down there opposes. Amusingly Youtube shut down his account for containing "Deceptive content" after he posted a video spruiking on about how successful Operation Sovereign Borders has been.

http://action.sumofus.org/a/tasmania-forests-abbott/3/2/?sub=fb

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/02/03/11/59/youtube-suspends-abbott-s-youtube-account
 
It has been stated in a few forums that the shark cull is a cynical exercise in management of protest against a broader spectrum of issues. James Price Point, Oakagee Port, Fortescue Metals and the Native Title Tribunal conflict of interest debacle, although that is Federal, not state but with state connection, Chevron at Barrow Island. Unfortunately it is going to be the lot of people to outwait the current administration and suck up any damage in the meantime.

Here is a dumb computer illiterate question. I have made what I thought would be a safety copy of the RED footage from the SSD drive to a hard drive and whilst I have ended up with the same number of files and folders the number of bytes does not match. To play nice with Peter Cheng's Mac computer the SSD was formatted as exFat. The drive that it had been copied to in Windows is formatted NTFS. Would this different file structure account for the slightly lower number for bytes copied? Any clues would be appreciated.

Apparently there is soon to be a public debate on the cull in Margaret River. It could be interesting as Margaret River and Gracetown have been pretty much the frontline when it comes to shark fatalities in more recent times. The guy with the P2 camera will be attending. Is there anyone in W.A with a RED who might put his or her hand up for that one? It is out of our league to cover as we have to earn the daily bread from pursuits other than camera work.
 
Last edited:
Yes, wear out the protest interest (even if just the public's and media's interest in hearing it). But yes, probably a lot of preexisting entrenchment.

OK, guess what, there was footage tonight of dolphins picking bait of drum line 6 years in Queensland by a researcher. There was also foitage of a shark attaching a small boat somewhere in Australia, for a half an hour. Suspicious, there are certain things that will send animals off, sometimes revenge, chemicals. Maybe they polished their boat with something.
 
Hopefully, here's three 1920 x 1080 grabs from the weekend's camera footage, extracted courtesy of Gavan O'Sullivan of Insight Films. From L to R, Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club and Tearooms - A speaker at the event - The crowd seawards of the speakers. That sky may look a bit blown but it is a faithful rendition. It was a hard sky that day. The crowd was looking a bit sparse at 9-30am when the Cott tearooms shot was taken. By 9-50am the crowd had swelled enough to block my access.
 

Attachments

  • SurfClub.jpg
    SurfClub.jpg
    97.3 KB · Views: 0
  • Crowd.jpg
    Crowd.jpg
    91.1 KB · Views: 0
  • Crowd2.jpg
    Crowd2.jpg
    104.3 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
nice shots! i see what you mean stacking it up against some p2 stuff...

probably the reason you have different total size is how the hard drives are formatted, doesn't have so much to do with fat/ntfs but with what the byte size is set at... that's why size and size on disc are usually different, or can be different across drives. still, i'd do a visual check on the footage to make sure you got good copies.

as per archival, one of the best places is online, mixed with 'hard copies' of drives/tapes, redundancy is key. so you could combine all your quicktimes together into one long thing and load it somewhere or everywhere... vimeo, youtube, amazon, ftp with your web storage, depends on how much access you have or whether you want to spend anything.

archival format is still illusive... i would archive the r3d's as well as quicktime files: animation, prores, mjpeg are good.

http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/dav-faq.html
 
Paul. Thanks for the info and comments on the images. The dynamic range is very handy. The sky is faithful to reality. It was a hard sky with the sun at about 9-30am summer time and about 15 degrees north of us at this time of year. There is a lot of detail available to be seen inside the lower level of the building. Frame three of the crowd to seawards is a little bit soggy. That was with the Tokina 17mm-35mm f2.8 zoom. It has a history of a hard landing from about 3 feet up, so that may account for the general softness. FOOTNOTE: Frame 3 may have been underscanned when the jpg was exported which might explain the soft image. In Redcine X that clip is sharp. So much to learn. So little wits to mop up all the new info. Trying to ikmport non-camera source audio into redcine x but is seems that cannot happen. Any advice to the contrary would also be appreciated.
 
Last edited:


Here is a piece of the footage shot at the Cott protest last Saturday. It is not perfect post-process. I make no claim to being a colorist or editor or sound-recordist for that matter.


It would have been good to have had the clean desk audio recording track but such was not to be. A bit of graph work on the audio would help it a little. All I know about the singer is that she performs under the name "Sumi". The proceeds from the song which is her own will be given to "Sea Shepherd Australia". Given more info, I shall edit and correct this post.
 
Last edited:
Reports coming in that a 'very large' shark has been caught this morning off of Meelup Beach, as yet species unidentified but it could potentially be the first GWS victim of the cull.
 
At this rate .... Trevor you wont have to worry about the numbers of the target species being depleted.

I wonder though, when you cull members of a species that have the inclination to take bait, you potentially modify group behaviour as a whole to members that don't take bait but without reducing overall aggression of the group or potential of taking humans.
 
Here is a thought. I hate the idea of drum lines, but I also hate the idea of nets indiscriminately catching non target species.

You could set up the nets to give cues to alert to, or dissuade particular species from, the nets. For instance, you could put sonar devices to project down on the nets to warn dolphins. Dolphins are pretty smart and will try to work their way around it. Maybe the same can be done for turtles and dugon etc. But you could make nets to attract or repel sharks, so that a whole section of beach could be netted off and not a shark comes near the net to die.
 
Tiger Sharks are taking an absolute hammering. Unfortunate for them since they have been implicated in about 0 attacks in Western Australia and also recently identified as being a threatened species with possibly as few as 3500 individuals left. Knock a couple of hundred more off that over the next 2 years thanks to Collin Barnett and friends.
 
It is so stupid, if they are going to do it, they could easily design a system to identify the right shark and strike. Collecting just the wrong species that are not implicated seems rather 'wrong'. But, if Q&A ever comes to WA and puts the right people on the panel, it will be rather embarrassing. I mean, with all the government training (admittedly a labor government trend) you think they would have taught the fisherman who shot the Tiger shark, how to identify a Great White Shark.

Thanks
 
Where is the science, how come they are not laying it out, rather than just quoting like speculation?

Did the tow back (sic, you tow a shark backwards out to see and it will die) at Brazil, where, over what time period (sample) to gauge a lasting effect and reduce statistical chance of just a bad or good period skewing the statistical result. You could toe migrating sharks out to a current and they swim off to the next destination (maybe out of fear) or at the end of a migration. where you will have a natural low after a natural high and after 6 weeks call it a scientific success, but it would be bogus. As well, the numbers of attacks follow the number of people, if a few people versus one person at the end, that would be a 50% difference but only one person, maybe random chance, which you is why you test over extended periods to get more numbers to make certain it is not a fluke. Also, if attacks happen, people avoid the water more and you get less attacks though it is more likely person still in the water. If the program extends beyond the season/holidays people are more in the water, the reduced amount of people again causes less attacks rather than just the tow back (emotive language). The article did not quite numbers periods and reasons why they believe this is a lasting effect.

The Hawaiin incident, some numbers quoted, but that number is very small on a year by year basis, and no overall shark numbers quoted. There might not have been much of a decline in the population from the program not affecting the number of deaths over ten year, or year to year periods much, but which lengths of period did they use? You can say that the number in some year in the past is similar to today and therefore numbers have not dropped much, but it could have been a good year then compared to a bad year now being compared. It could be that attacks are rare so the number is so low as to look similar on the odd period examined. It also equates to a time period of a great rise in use of waters with sharks, after the invention of scuba diving and increase in surf/tourism culture and numbers. How come it is so lite on the detail needed to access its validity? Notice also the use of emotive title. Notice they quote bites rather than fatalities or life threatening/disabilitating serious injury.

It is easy to skew science, and so it is important to illustrate how it is right, rather than write a puff piece.

Like the groper thing, I think I heard they chew/eat coral, but what is the science that proves that a lack of sharks results in excessive groper numbers depleting beneficial fish around the coral, or coral itself? Is it related to viral bleaching/crown of thorn attacks causing or bring caused by them (do they deplete fish around healthy coral or eat healthy coral, or just dead coral? I used to read new scientist all the time, and pick apart the articles, there is so much misguided stuff in there that researchers falsely assume and disagreements. In science you have to dig deep intelligently and wide to be sure, not shallow like most hypnosis theory thinking takes you piece by piece.
 
Meanwhile

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/21344413/sa-spear-fisher-killed-by-shark/

As sad and unfortunate as these rare events are, you enter the water with 20 or so other people to go around spearing fish and accidents can happen. All due respect to those who fall victim to shark attack and their families, as that is no doubt a tragic outcome in the human realm of outcomes. To me though any response other than humble acceptance of such tragedies is misguided, shark culling is really just a manifestation of some peoples fear of their own mortality isn't it?
You'd hope the elders and leaders within our society had the wisdom to remind us of that and keep a cool head. But we don't live in a time blessed with real leaders. We're a flawed species. The past, the present, and the future are littered with the stories of man failing to reach his potential for good. I guess that is why fiction appeals to me more as a story teller. The world is just too depressing a place to be in the business of highlighting human stupidity.
As the cull here gains momentum and news breaks daily of worrying numbers of sharks above and below the target 3m size being killed senselessly I find myself feeling overinvested in this story. Theres nothing healthy about dwelling on the negative, so I guess for me its time to get on with life and try and pretend none of this ever happened. At 20 pages and around 10, 000 views this thread has had an impressive life here, thanks to all who tuned in and contributed but I think I'm probably done. Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top