The Making Of Creekside
- Mike
- Jan 4, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 9, 2018

Hey Everyone!
I hope that you guys had a fantastic Christmas and New Year! I spent a lot of wonderful time on my couch watching movies and relaxing. I was able to get out on a few short hikes to do some filming for the youtube channel and I thought I would share the process with you.
How do I know where to go?
A lot of the time I don't know where to go! Luckily I have had a little bit of a head start on this because I spend a lot of time outdoors. I bought my first DSLR 7 years ago and 99% of the time I headed outside, it was on my back. I have taken thousands of photos outdoors and I have revisited many of those places to film. The idea for creekside came to me while I was out fishing, and to this day most of my footage comes from fishing outings.
What do I use to edit my videos?
I have been using both adobe premiere and final cut pro for post production for at least ten years. I really enjoy using both programs and I use them about 50/50. I have found that minimal color grading is a little easier to do in premiere, but workflow is a little quicker in final cut. Usually the deciding factor of which program to use depends on how much time and effort I decide to put into a project.
Mishaps, spills, and damage
Filming outdoors can come with consequences. I have had a lot of unlucky spills while out filming. Recently, I was trying to cross a small river in my work boots (I didn't have my waders on) and I jumped on a rock with black ice. I thought my camera was toast! The camera was around my neck and went lens first into a rock and partially in the water. The two things that saved my lens that day were my lens hood and my lens filter. I highly recommend getting a lens filter, it doesn't matter what kind of content you are shooting. Get one for every lens! Another time I kicked out my tripod leg and my camera landed in about an inch of water. I was very fortunate to not sustain any damage from that mishap. I have however lost many lens caps and broken quite a few lens filters. I have landed on my butt too many times to count, cut my hands up and arms up, and received lots of bumps and bruises. The point that I want to make is that if you plan to do any filming outside, get protective gear and keep your camera in a backpack when you are moving from point A to point B.
Filming loops
If you have had a chance to see a few of my youtube videos, you will notice that most of my videos are looped. I would love to film 45 minute videos without loops but we live in the 21st century. I can't tell you how many times I have to stop filming because of planes and helicopters flying over, or cars in the distance honking or motorcyclists driving by. I have also had problems with dogs barking somewhere down the trail from me and people laughing or talking. Even in the backcountry I encounter these distractions! Harsh changes in lighting also makes That is simply why I have chosen to loop my videos. My loops vary from 2-10 minutes in most of my videos. If you don't know what video looping is, it's seamlessly replaying the same video clip over and over again.
Travel
The majority of the places I have filmed have been within two hours of my house in Utah. Some of my best work was filmed within 20 minutes of my house! Beauty can be found everywhere! No need to travel hours or days to get to beautiful destinations. I do have videos filmed out of Utah, those videos have all been taken on family vacations. I would love to travel solely for creekside videos and hopefully that opportunity will come in the future!
Fun
Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors and he has a saying in one of his books that I absolutely love, "journey before destination." The favorite part about filming these nature videos is being outdoors and doing what I love in the places that I enjoy the most. I have pretty much lived on the river since my first trip out fly fishing in 2013. I have always been an avid hiker, snowboarder, and happy camper. Being outdoors is what led me to creating these youtube videos and it has motivated me to spend more time outside.
If you have any other questions about my thought process or different aspects of what I do, feel free to drop me a comment.
-Mike



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