8mm Forum: Wildlife Interlude

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Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 10, 2006, 10:09 PM:

This came up in general Yak recently, so I thought I'd add a plug for one of my favorites.

Derann's "Wildlife Interlude" is an excellent 200 foot cutdown of the feature "When the North Wind Blows". It is made from a Walton negative and still has the Walton closing at the end. It is scenes of Siberian Tigers and other wildlife free in the wilderness of Russia (Not Alaska as Derann's site says, although it was filmed in Alberta, which is well... neither! )

The color runs a little on the blue side, but not so much to be bothersome. The image is very sharp. The sound is excellent and has a great sampling of the very evocative orchestral score used in the feature.

It is a very unusual cutdown in so far as it goes much further than simplifying the footage down to key story points, but disposes of the storyline altogether. Other than two sentences of narration spoken near the beginning of the film, there is absolutely no human presence. This is purely a mood piece, but actually an excellent one.

One wacky thing is a thin white line all the way over on the left beyond the image which looks like it's trying to be an optical sound track. It's not bothersome and becomes easy to forget after a while. I've never seen this anywhere else.

This film is usually not stocked at Derann, but new prints can be ordered if you are willing to wait for them to be printed. I really enjoy it and I doubt It often goes more than a month between showings at our house.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 12, 2006, 12:01 PM:

An interesting thing I've noticed from several viewings of both the feature "When the North Wind Blows" and its extract "Wildlife Interlude" is that the extract contains footage not in the feature: something you don't run into very often!

Insofar as these scenes mesh so well with the geography and style of the feature I'm guessing they were originally out-takes which were removed primarily to keep the screen time of the feature reasonable. As it is, it runs almost two hours.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on August 12, 2006, 04:16 PM:

Steve, I agree whole heatedly with your comments. Its superb and makes for a really stunning short.

I have to say that I was unaware that this footage wasn't in the original feature release.

I checked my Derann copy out tonight and I have to say that it doesnt have this white edge. It may be down down to it being slit slighty over or under width. I would think that If you have a black border to your screen you can loose it on the black border itself.

Kev.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 12, 2006, 05:14 PM:

Hi Kevin,

It basically comes to that whole process that you go through between watching an extract and watching the full feature of the same film. When you watch one after knowing the other you see all the scenes in the extract and know the context they have in the feature. In the case of this extract basically none of the feature story is there so seeing the whole thing is quite a revelation!

As I said, there are a number of scenes that pop up in "Wildlife Interlude" you simply never see in the feature. For example there are no river otters in "When the North Wind Blows" and several scenes of lynxes playing in the water aren't there either. (perhaps in some other edition?)

Interesting thing: The large canine in "Interlude" cavorting with the deer is actually not a wolf, but one of the hero's sled dogs, I always assumed it was a wolf before I got the feature. (-should have suspected: wolves aren't known for "cavorting" with animals they normally eat!)

The gathering of the Wolves in the extract turns out to be because in the feature they have the hero treed, and are waiting for him to tire so they can knock him down and eat him!(...it's not exactly a night at the ballet!)

The white stripe is noticeable only if you really pay attention to it, it really doesn't bother me at all.

[ August 12, 2006, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on February 05, 2009, 05:03 AM:

Hi-

I just purchased this one from Derann last month. I have to agree with you all. This is a very good nature reel. I have never seen "North Wind..", but watching this, it doesn't feel like an extract, but more a self-contained short.

I will be poping this one on the projector after a hard day at work- a good film for "unwinding" [Wink]

.

James.

P.S.- I didn't notice the white stripe on my print.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on February 05, 2009, 09:32 AM:

I think this white stripe is unique to my print.

If I show it on a Eumig projector, the narrower aperture covers the stripe, if I show it on an Elmo, I can see it. Either way I've grown used to it and it doesn't bother me anyway.

I watched mine the other night and noticed how skillfully edited it is. In the full feature, the scene where the wolf pack notices the tiger and then scatters has the hero (Avakum, played by Henry Brandon) shown a number of times. All of those shots are removed and replaced by wildlife scenes, and it flows very nicely.

I agree, this is not exactly an extract. It's more like a different film edited out of (mostly) the same footage.

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