Skip's Wild Life: The Adventures of a Wildlife Filmmaker & Photographer. » blog

Tribeza Article

Skip — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:32:31 +0000

Austin’s awesome art and culture magazine Tribeza has featured me in their June outdoor issue! Thanks to all the folks at Tribeza for the flattering piece. I will try not to let it go to my head.

Check it out here http://www.tribeza.com/magazine_content/skip-hobbie.

Emmy Nominated!

Skip — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:38:16 +0000

Quick bit of exciting news! The National Geographic Explorer program “Climbing Redwood Giants” has been nominated for two Emmy Awards, including myself and the other cinematographers in the category Best Cinematography – Nature. Can’t say how ecstatic I am to be nominated for such a prestigious award. This definitely was a life goal, but I never expected it so early in my career.

I owe this true honor to my mentor, good friend, and fellow cinematographer Andy Shillabeer. On a few different projects, spread across a few different continents the past few years, I’ve worked as Andy’s camera assistant when I was fortunate enough to be invited along. A world class director of photography and expert in specialty camera rigs and natural history filmmaking, Andy has been instrumental in my development as a cinematographer. He even recommended me to John Rubin Productions as the man for the job for the expedition cinematography following Mike Fay’s Redwoods Transect.

Beyond all that, his work on this film comprised the majority of the program, and is the true showcase of stunning camerawork. I am definitely riding his coattails on this Emmy Award Nomination. The reason this show such a great piece of cinematography wasn’t my run and gun footage, from the trail, but the amazing shots of the trees and canopy scientists climbing filmed with the aerial cable dolly, built and operated by Andy. For these portions of filming I was again lucky enough to work as Andy’s AC, and got to work with a fantastic crew of riggers (and scientists), Jim Spickler, Giacomo Renzullo, & Steve Sillet.

Here is an excerpt of the portion of the show I shot on the trail with Mike Fay during his Redwood Transect.

Here is some of the more exceptional cinematography, shot by friend and DP Andy Shillabeer.

Ethiopia: Water to Thrive

Skip — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:15:52 +0000

In May I was contacted through a longtime family friend about a non-profit with whom she volunteers, that looking for a videographer to help document their work on a June trip to Ethiopia. With no paid work on the calendar, I was excited to donate my time and equipment to aid their cause. The group, Water to Thrive, funds and oversees construction of clean water projects in rural communities throughout Ethiopia. For me this was a very special opportunity. Not only was it a A marvelous chance to get to see a new country, it was also a chance to shoot something outside the norm of my natural history work, while helping tell the story about a really important issue.

The lack of clean water presents a myriad of health problems in these communities, with a staggering number of children lost to water born illnesses. On top of that, even the dirty water the people are forced to seek out can often be a long and hard walk for the women and children fetching it. Giving people ready access to clean water is the first and most fundamental step towards improving their health and the lives of the entire community.

Sorry – Please forgive my tardiness in getting this blog back up to speed. This post will be completed later.

Leaping Lizards! And Flying Snakes

Skip — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:59:56 +0000

I recently spent a month on the island of Langkawi, Malaysia, a hotbed for the gliding mammals and reptiles famous to southeast Asia, and that is precisely what we were there to film for National Geographic Television. In a stark contrast to my last few major projects, I’d be out of a sweaty tent and instead staying in a truly 5-star hotel. Thanks to Tourism Malaysia and The Andaman Hotel, we were extremely comfy, but filming gliding animals in the rainforest canopy would still be a big task.

Sorry – Please forgive my tardiness in getting this blog back up to speed. This post will be completed later.

Website Overhaul

Skip — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:13:17 +0000

A tiny mantis visited my laptop while working in camp in Borneo.

I’m in the process of making major changes to my website, starting with the all new look and feel. Hopefully things are all in working order, but forgive me if anything looks incomplete. My goal is not only to make this site a great showcase of my own film and photography work, but to also keep a professional blog about life as someone working in this industry.

I’ll also slowly be trying to update the information accompanying all the photos in my portfolio, and maybe sharing some anecdotes from the field as I go. Hope you enjoy! (photo of mantis taken in Borneo. Everyday in camp we’d be visited by all kinds of cool insects, and this little guy walked right across my MacBook Pro while I was sorting images from that day.)

Manifest Destiny – A Westward Roadtrip

Skip — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:32:20 +0000

After 2 years of full time employment at an B-Side Entertainment, an independent film distributor, whilst also moonlighting on wildlife documentaries, this fall I returned to working strictly as a freelancer. When you add those 2 years in the office on top of recent projects for National Geographic Television in the rainforests of Borneo and Peru, I was ready for some time off. One of the luxuries of freelancing on the camera side of the industry is that when you are at home between projects, your time is all your own. However, too much time at home can drive someone like me a little crazy. I love my hometown of Austin, Texas, but I thrive on travel and adventure, so it is difficult sometimes to be satisfied with life as a homebody. Easy solution, a good old-fashioned American road trip.

My roommates and I were already scheming about traveling between Christmas and New Years, so when some other mutual friends suggested a road trip out west, it was a no brainer. We first headed straight out to Los Angeles to stay with a friend, and then spent the next week working our way back home with stops in Joshua Tree National Park, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, White Sands National Monument, and Carlsbad Caverns. It was vacation, so I managed to keep the camera in the bag some of the time, but at other times I couldn’t help but get a little click happy.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip and some timelapses I shot just for fun.

Joshua Tree Sunset from Skip Hobbie on Vimeo.

Joshua Tree Campfire Timelapse from Skip Hobbie on Vimeo.

A River Trip in the Amazon

Skip — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:01:42 +0000

In October I headed back to the rainforest for National Geographic Television, this time to the Amazon in southeastern Peru. While this was my second time to amazonian Peru, this trip would be vastly different from my 2007 trip to Iquitos in the north east of the country where we filmed National Geographic’s: Deadly Dozen Amazon.

Walter Mancilla bails water from our canoe

While my intimate knowledge of the ‘Deadly Dozen’ did provide our crew with endless musings about what we might encounter in the forest, the only real worries we faced came from the remoteness of our location. The subjects we were seeking would require us to go far off the beaten path, headed far up river from modern civilization. Flying into Puerto Maldanado, after a night’s rest we started a 2 day trip up river to reach our first destination at a research station in Manu National Park at the little oxbow lake called Cocha Cashu. Led by expert naturalist and guide Walter Mancilla, we could not have been in better hands as we headed up the Madre de Dios and Manu Rivers. I can only describe Cocha Cashu as magical. This beautiful lake and the pristine forest that surrounds it are just breathtaking and brimming with wildlife. Paradise for someone such as myself. A research station for over 25 years, Cashu has played host to biologists from all over the world studying different subjects. Lacking in the comforts you might find at an eco-tourist lodge, the research station’s quaint beauty more than made up for having to rough it a little. Spotlighting caiman eyes while you bathe at the water’s edge is way cooler than any shower ever could be anyway. Prior to the program airing later this year I can’t give too many details of our adventure, but I am full of stories of Manu if you ever get a chance to ask me about it. Until then, enjoy a few of my favorite photos from the trip.

Danum Valley: Borneo’s Garden of Eden

Skip — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:07:51 +0000

Anyone who can call themselves a nature lover, adventurer, or traveler has lists in their head of the places they’d love to visit and experience in their lifetime. This applies to me as much as every other dreamer out there. The three places that have always most captivated my imagination are the Galapagos, Madagascar, and Borneo. Anyone familiar with biology will know these islands.

For 5 weeks this summer I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream while living and working in the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Home to some of the most spectacular rainforest and primates in the world, the Danum Valley is one of the most pristine areas in Malaysian Borneo. On assignment for National Geographic Television, on a daily basis we were lucky enough to film, photograph, and observe some of the most incredible wildlife I may ever see. Flying frogs, gibbons, orangutans, and spitting cobras are only some of the amazing creatures we would encounter on a daily basis.

On top of being privileged to spend some time in such an amazing biologically diverse place, I also had the great pleasure of working with an incredible crew. On most of the work I’ve done thus far in my career, its been just myself assisting a camera person and maybe a producer. The difficult nature and variety of subjects we were covering in Borneo meant a much bigger crew, tackling different aspects of the story in different areas of the forest all at once. Amongst our roster were award winning cinematographers Justine Evans, Neil Rettig and Andy Shillabeer. Helping with rigging for canopy work and assisting in the field were expert climbers and biologists Graeme MacMahon, Jim Spickler, Giacomo Renzullo, Max, and Bryson Viorin. Producing from Geo were Katie Bauer, John Benam and Jesse Quinn. Coordinating our logistics in Borneo was photographer, fixer and expert naturalist Cede Prudente.

Here are just a few of the unforgettable images from my trip.

The Redwood’s Canopy

Skip — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:14:08 +0000

Since my July adventure with Mike Fay in the redwoods, I had been longing to be out amongst those giant trees again.

Biologist and expert tree-rigger Jim Spickler eases the camera back out of the canopy

There is just something magical about those ancient forests that had a lock on my ever wandering mind. So you can imagine my excitement when John Rubin Productions once again phoned me to work on the redwoods show they are producing for National Geographic Explorer. This time around I’d be assisting my good friend Andy Shillabeer on a shoot focused on the work of some dedicated canopy researchers.

Given that the Coastal Redwood is the tallest tree on the planet, you can imagine that working in the canopy isn’t exactly easy. The lowest branches of a redwood might not appear until they are over a hundred feet in the air, so how do they study them? They climb.

Steve Sillett climbs to the top of a newly discovered redwood giant in order to measure its full height.

Steve Sillett and his fellow researchers might be the most physically fit botanists in the world, and it has paid off. Their love for climbing and science has opened up a whole new understanding of an ecosystem that had for a long time literally remained out of reach of science. The immense size of redwoods coupled with the fact that they can live for millenia, means all types of organic matter are deposited high up on the branches, and eventually there is enough soil that plants and all kinds of other organisms spend their entire lives up in the canopy, just as though it was a piece of the forest floor. Anyway, I could geek out talking about this stuff forever, but I’ll leave some of that for the show. Afterall, the only thing more exciting for someone like me, is the question of how do you film this? Luckily, they were way ahead of me on this. Andy had done the redwoods portion of the Planet Earth series, putting to use a system known as a cable dolly that enables you to balance a camera while sending it flying along ropes, producing breathtaking cinematic moves. Since then he’s built his own cable dolly with some improvements on the system the BBC has been using. Putting the new system to work for the first time meant a lot of long, hard days as we ironed out the kinks. As you can imagine, getting all that gear out into some really rugged parts of the forest was not easy, but the results were absolutely breathtaking. Being able to move the camera hundreds of feet vertically, diagonally or horizontally gave our shots the feel of a helicopter flying right through the forest. Andy would control the pan & tilt of the camera wirelessly, while I controlled the focus, zoom and iris. Then by stablizing the system, we were able to get locked off shots, even conduct interviews 300 feet in the air. Like I said, breathtaking. The only downside… having to wait to see the show in all of is high def glory until it airs in October 2009. If your interested in learning more about the cable dolly system, check out their site www.spider-cine.com. If you are more psyched about the trees than camera rigs, pick up the NY Times bestseller, The Wild Trees by Richard Preston. Its an incredible modern day exploration story, that chronicles the work of Sillett and others in their quest to discover and measure the tallest tree on earth. -skip

Trekking Through Timber

Skip — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:05:21 +0000

For an upcoming National Geographic Explorer program, one element of the story involved following famed researcher, conservationist and explorer Mike Fay, as he and a fellow researcher trekked across the Redwoods. Their transect of the entire range of the redwoods would take over a year, covering thousands of miles of rugged terrain on foot, all the while living out in the forest. To adequately capture the true nature of Fay’s experience, the producers of the program needed someone with some camera talent and outdoor savviness that could operate independently, carrying all their gear and provisions in order to spend some ‘real’ time with Fay on the trail. Basically, they needed someone young, dumb and poor enough to actually be excited about spending 10 days bushwhacking through some of the more rugged bits of the Redwood forests of Northern California. They called me.

Old growth Redwood Forest

My excitement about being asked to shoot, coupled with the thrill that any nature lover would get about being paid to spend time trekking off trail in the redwoods, very quickly outweighed any rational thoughts about how difficult this would be. I would be carrying about 65 lbs of gear on my back, and a camera in my hand while trying not only to keep up with Fay and his partner Lindsay, whom had been hiking for 10 straight months at this point as they explored the redwoods. I also had only about 16 hours turn around between returning to Texas from the mayfly shoot in Wisconsin before I was to jump on a plane to Arcata, California. My packing and preparations were rushed, and I don’t think I realized how hard this would be until the first time I lifted my loaded pack. I hadn’t done this sort of serious backpacking in years. My thoughts raced. Was I going to be able to keep up with my subjects, or would I crumble under the weight of my own pack? As the producer drove me up to the rendevous point with Fay, my fears quietly stewed in the back of my mind the whole drive up the coast. However, when I finally embarked on the trail, there was a spring back in my step. This would be an amazing adventure. The pace Fay set was not at all gruelling. The goal of their project is to make an overall assesment about the health and future of the Redwoods. This meant taking a lot of notes and photos as they surveyed the hills and streams of everything from pristine old growth to clearcut timerblands. The frequent stops not only enabled me to keep up, but provided lots of opportunities for the camera and I to soak up Fay’s wisdom about the forest. There couldn’t be better way to learn about that ecosystem and forestry practices than to spend time out in the wild with a pair of researchers who have been living and breathing the subject for 10 months. It was a dream come true for someone as curious about the world as myself. That isn’t to say it was easy. It was probably one of the most mentally and physically demanding tasks of my lifetime. On the first day I got seperated during a ‘quick’ hike up a ridge without our packs. They had GPS. I didn’t. I’m experienced enough as a hiker that I was never really concerned for my own personal safety, but I definitely had a lot of panicked thoughts about how if I couldn’t find them, and had to find my own way out of the forest, the shoot would be ruined. Even worse, without my cell phone (in my pack) I would have had to call my mom for help as I don’t remember many phone numbers in this age of technology. However, I did all the right things, found my way to a stream, followed it and eventually came across Lindsay, who also hadn’t seen Mike in the 3 hours since I’d been seperated. Her GPS led us back to our packs, and eventually Mike. I like to think I gained a little respenct from the two them for not having freaked out during the ordeal. The rest of the week was challenging, but rather uneventful. At times the understory of the second growth forest would become so thick that we would literally have to crawl on hands and knees (remember we were also carrying a lot of weight), sometimes for a half hour or more at a time. Was I not in constant awe and wonder about the forest around me, it probably would have been a pretty grumpy hike for me. The second to last day, after a fitful night’s sleep, I awoke feeling seriously ill. The week of pushing beyond my body’s limits had taken its toll on my immune system and I was running a high fever. Luckily that day we’d been planning on touring a new annex of Del Norte State Park with one of the parks officials, and seeing the condition I was in, he let me crash on the floor in a ranger’s station. At home a week later, I was still running a fever, but I wouldn’t have traded this experice for anything. -skip PS check out this show about another of Fay’s past projects on Hulu.com