Tue - December 21, 2004

Principal Photography Begins on Ghosts Among the Corn


Well, we finally started principal photography on GAtC Monday, December 20th. Ron Andrews a DNR biologist traveled three hours to Cedar RApids to be interviewed on mountain lions and the growing hysteria surrounding mountain lions in Iowa.
Ron and I had an opportunity to talk for about an hour before we left for the interview. He was able to give me a lot of insight on what's going on with mountain lions in Iowa.
I picked a spot that would make good cougar habitat if one was in the area to conduct the interview. Although it was only about 17 degrees Ron was a trooper and answered all my questions and refrained from shivering. :-)
After a great interview I thanked him and he was going to head off to the Indian creek Nature Center to visit director Rich Paterson.

I headed back home to upload the footage and to see what I had. Normally I review the footage at the scene but since it was so cold I decided to wait until I was home and could upload it at the same time.

Imagine my horror when after about 2 seconds into the interview the tape went black. While making an adjustment I must have hit the record button and stopped recording. My interview was out there blowing around the cold Iowa winds and not going into my computer like I had planned.

Ron had given me his card with his cell phone number on it after the interview. Luckily he was still at the Nature Center and I drove down there and re-conducted the interview. Fortunately, it had warmed up some and it was a little better this time around.



On the way back from the second interview I spotted a deer herd feeding on the hillside. Deer are cougars preferred prey. Luckily I was able to get the camera out and record some footage before they ran off.


I decided to get some background footage over where I had conducted the first interview. As I walked through the woods filming I heard something walking over a nearby ridge. Could a cougar actually be in this area? Luckily it was only a flock of wild turkeys. I only had a few seconds to film them but I still had some useable footage.


Posted at 01:44 PM    

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