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watch Surviving the Wild

Although I grew up in suburbia, my family always spent a great deal of time in the outdoors. I have many fond memories of camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking, and bird hunting. My father was an Air Force pilot and passed on to my brother and I the skills he learned during survival training. By the time I was ten, I could start a fire with one match, catch and clean fish, and set up a camp.

When I graduated from high school in 2003, my dad took my brother and I on a backpacking trip in the St. Joe wilderness. For fun, I decided to bring my camera and film the trip, eventually cutting together a 30 minute documentary. I fell in love with filming in the outdoors. During my short film days, a lot of them were set in the mountains, as was my first feature.

In 2009, I was watching an episode of Survivorman and wondered if I could do something similar. What impressed me about Les Stroud is that he was out there completely alone with no camera crew. I decided to do my own version on an overnight backpack trip that fall. My pup and I set out with my Canon ZR 800 and showed some basic backpacking skills. The following spring, we did it again. I cut the two episodes together and wasn't quite happy with the result, so I never uploaded them to web, but I still had a lot of fun doing them.

A year later, in the spring of 2011, my dog and I decided to do it again. I was getting more comfortable with the format and decided to talk about some of the psychological aspects of being out there alone. That summer, I went out again, this time taking a friend who described himself as your typical overweight, out of shape, armchair survivalist. The group dynamic brought a nice twist to things and it was fun to let him kind of take over and show how he would do things.

After that episode, I moved to Montana, near Whitefish. With the Rocky Mountains as my new backdrop, I was stoked to do all sorts of new episodes. However, work took over and I never got any done, with the exception of two little mini shows illustrating the new direction I was going to take the show. It wasn't until summer 2012 that I was able to get out again. With a bigger location, I wanted the show to be bigger and start showing some new skills, adding things like wild edibles and how to clean a fish. The location was stunning as well

I just recently managed to get all five parts finished and uploaded to my YouTube channel, "El Director Vision". It's fun for me to go back and watch how the show has progressed, and I'm looking forward to doing more real soon. Currently, I'm planning out a sixth episode where I'll shed the role of a backpacker and take on the role of a lost hiker. The plan is to get dropped at a trail head, hike into the wilderness, get of the trail (as hikers like to do) and then spend two nights facing the wilderness with whatever a person on a day hike might have. On day three, I'll self rescue by making my way over the mountains to the town where I live.

Here's the fifth episode (it's kid of the flagship of the series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66_x0XGZjA4

And this is a behind the scenes look at episode six where I'll actually be surviving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD65kdwhTTw

If you want to see the other epsiodes, here's the playlist
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy6UYeBp3YayulHbCQp0EqYBln008x80V
 
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If your dad was an AF pilot then he probably went through SERE training. We called it "POW Survival Training" during Vietnam (everyone who flew had to attend), and the POW 'camp' was at a satellite camp outside of Fairchild AFB. And from my escape & evasion training, I learned that I CAN eat roaches, rodents, worms, and whatever else in order to survive, very much like Les Stroud. And very much like what you're doing. The three most important things we were taught... keep your knife sharp, keep your feet dry, and keep your bowels open. Overlook any one of those and you can die. I enjoyed watching these two videos, I'll catch the others as soon as I can grab more time.
 
Yes, my dad went through the SERE program :)
Here's another episode I shot in August. I hope to finally do the winter one soon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXmyEAC0mpY
 
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