[Applause]
morning everybody
pursuing a passion as the career is
never an easy thing you hear
just search passions on TEDx you’re
gonna see a whole list of TEDx is about
how you should give everything you’ve
got to pursuing whatever your passion is
and you’re gonna see a whole list of
TEDx talks about how pursuing a passion
is a career is too risky that you
shouldn’t do it and one of my favorite
things a lot of people tell me when I
tell them I want to be a wildlife
filmmaker is are there even job
opportunities for that or are you gonna
be able to make enough money to survive
and usually I don’t I don’t know I’ve
always had a passion for wildlife
growing up I had no idea what I was
gonna do with it
I gave the typical kid responses which
was I’m gonna be a biologist or I’m
gonna be a veterinarian or I’m gonna be
a zookeeper and I don’t think it ever
really clicked until about high school I
developed an interest in film and
photography during high school and
coupled with the passion for wildlife
one night while watching Planet Earth by
the BBC which is the most mind-blowing
beautiful thing in the world especially
plain earth – I saw I just I had no idea
Heidi if it was created it didn’t make
any sense to me but it was just so
mind-blowing seeing the footage that
they were collecting that in that moment
I was like this is what I’m gonna do
like I’m gonna be a wildlife filmmaker
and I would tell people this and it was
such a foreign concept to them that they
were usually like what’s the job market
like like how are you gonna afford to
live and I think anybody would get
discouraged when they hear that when
they talk about something that they
really want to do but for some strange
reason it just motivated me to keep
going
to prove that this was something that I
could actually accomplish in 2015 with
my filmmaking partner and I we traveled
to Honduras to an island called Caius
casinos this tiny island is situated
surrounded by the second largest coral
reef in the world just off the coast of
Honduras
we have the second largest coral reef in
the world in the Caribbean and this
island that you’re seeing right here can
fit on the size of a football field and
yet there’s about 100 to 150 people
living on this island and it’s situated
right in a marine sanctuary and so these
people have to live primitively to avoid
damaging such a fragile ecosystem the
coral reefs around them so we produced
this short film we had no idea what we
were gonna do with it we just made it
and a National Geographic film
competition came off the wild to inspire
film competition and we were like we’re
gonna submit this we’re gonna submit
this film to National Geographic for
filmmakers and photographers this is
like the dream like to get your work in
front of the eyes of National Geographic
is I feel like what a lot of filmmakers
and photographers are really pushing for
so we submitted the film the time came
when they were supposed to announce the
finalists and we didn’t hear anything
and we were like we were kind of bombed
you know it sucks to put all the time
and effort into making this little short
film and to not hear anything was kind
of disappointing a few days later we get
an email it was very late after the
deadline and it said you’re finalists
welcome to the wild tunes for our film
competition and so it was awesome we
were so excited we had no idea what to
expect we were flown out to Sun Valley
Film Festival in Idaho and Sun Valley’s
is beautiful like mountain resort town
and we got to screen our short film in
front of National Geographic executives
in front of big-time actors in front of
other filmmakers there we took shots
with Bill Paxton that was awesome we
almost knocked Bruce Dern over in a bar
and I’m pretty sure this huge western
bar fight would have like ensued had we
done that Clint Eastwood was there
somewhere we didn’t get a chance to meet
him though and it was just the most
amazing experience just to be able to
show our film to all these people and it
got to the day they were gonna announce
the winners of the film competition and
we were not it we did not win the film
competition and it was horribly
discouraging and I understood all the
finalists had such good films they all
deserve to be winners and they all
deserve to be finalists but when you’re
pouring yourself into whatever your
passion is and for me that’s wildlife
filmmaking and filming the reefs off
this island it was really tough to be
that
close and then be turned away and so the
year continued and I think I fell into
like a creative funk and the next
opening for the 2016 film competition
came and I was like I’ll just negative
thoughts just came I’m like they’re not
gonna pick us again as finalists why
would they waste their time again we
weren’t what they wanted last year and
it wasn’t until a week before the
competition that everybody close to me
was like what are you doing why are you
not putting together this film and
submitting and so finally I’m like
whatever we’ll put together a film we
have a couple days and we threw together
a film that talked about all of our
travels in our experiences filming with
some of the most passionate biologists
around the world who were working with
different animal species we submitted
this film and we were finalists again
and we had no idea we didn’t expect that
in any way so we went back to the film
festival had an amazing experience there
and this year we won and our trip
so our prize was to go to Africa in film
for National Geographic from that geo
wild we got to see some of the most
amazing things we were in Kruger
National Park which is probably wild
this place you can get in Africa and we
filmed with pods of dolphins off the
coast of Mozambique and we were
surrounded by herds of elephants in
Botswana and we got the film leopard
families sharing a kill in South Africa
and film lions at night roaring and
calling and it was just the most amazing
experience and when our leg of the trip
with National Geographic was over we
rented a safari truck and we lived out
of it for four weeks driving around
Africa and we collected some of just the
most amazing things we could see so we
put together we had to put together a
short film from our experience and
presented at the next film competition
and while traveling around collecting
all this footage we really wanted to
show and inspire people with some of the
images that we got to care about the
natural world ultimately that’s our goal
with what we’re doing
originally it was just to combine the
opportunity to film animals close up and
be as close to wildlife as I could be
but I started to learn more about
conservation and what’s happening in
environments around the world and it was
just so so amazing to me that so many
people are disconnected with nature and
so our goals with our films kind of
shifted to inspire viewers to want to
care about whatever is in their backyard
there may not be a Gumbs Block in your
backyard or a buffalo but there’s some
amazing things even in Toledo’s backyard
and so we put together this short film
and yeah I want to play it for you guys
[Music]
the overwhelming vastness that is Africa
makes it one of the last great
wildernesses on earth
as wildlife filmmakers a trip to this
tainless wild is nothing short of a
dream
[Music]
we were challenged in ways that we could
never have imagined or were rewarded on
a scale beyond our own belief this is a
land of indescribable beauty and intense
interactions Africa is at the epicenter
of extremes and is in a brutal conflict
between its natural landscapes and the
modern world despite containing nearly
half of the world’s undeveloped lands
much of its wildlife is in decline
[Music]
a loss of any one of these animals
leaves a giant hole in the fiber of life
that holds us all together and our
greatest fear as storytellers is that
these stories may be all we have left
about the world be living with each
moment we lose an opportunity to save
the environment and eat and risk that it
will become just another story for our
children
as the health of our planet Falls we
must stand up and exploit our talents to
come together and give a voice to the
voiceless and to be warriors in the
fight for our planets survival
[Music]
we must open our minds and let the whole
Majesty of the world sinking whether it
be at your doorstep or far away we can
save it we can save us
[Music]
again I’ve been so fortunate in the past
five years to have been able to travel
to some amazing places and see some
amazing animals I’ve been to Africa to
film wildlife I’ve traveled around the
island of Tasmania of filming Tasmanian
devils and iconic species that 90% of
their population was wiped out due to a
contagious cancer that has never been
seen before in animals I photographed in
orange bellied parrot in Australia which
to anybody else sounds like nothing well
as of February 2017 there’s only 14 left
in the wild and I’ve filmed off the
coast of reefs
I’ve been filming on reefs that have
been in the best shape they could be in
and also have just been turned into gray
rubble and I still have a little bit of
imposter syndrome when it comes to this
that I get these opportunities to go and
film some of these things and I’m not at
all where I want to be yet in my career
but I’m still pursuing it and so with
that whoops I missed a slide
there’s Tasmanian Devil with that as I
continue to pursue my passion I wanted
to give some tips that I’ve learned in
the field filming wild animals on how to
continue to pursue whatever your passion
may be so here’s my tips from a wildlife
filmmaker for pursuing whatever your
passion may be the highs are high and
the lows are low this was a great quote
I heard from another filmmaker and they
talked about how you’re gonna be
spending days in the field you may see
no animals at all and it’s gonna suck
and there were days in Africa that we
got up at 4 a.m. and we pack up the gear
and we drive around looking for animals
in this truck and we’d see nothing but
then there would be times where we’d
pull around the corner and a family of
elephants would burst out of the bushes
have the craziest pool party you’ve ever
seen for like 45 seconds and then they’d
be gone and you had the camera rolling
the entire time and that was those
moments that reminded you why you were
doing what you were doing and there are
days where you got stuck in the middle
of a desert in your truck because you
don’t know how to offer up
my other tip is things don’t always work
out the way they might seem the next two
images I’m about to show you I feel like
characterized the pursuit of a passion
perfectly in Yellowstone I was
photographing this osprey catch fish and
it would dive down and catch a fish and
I’d miss it and I was struggling and it
ended up purchasing it sank real low
like you see here in this image and I
started firing off photos hoping to get
the wingspan and it let out the biggest
Osprey poop in the entire world and I
was just like it was hilarious I had to
just accept it and take it and it was
just it was so funny and I think that
with the pursuit of passion you never
know what’s gonna happen it could be the
best thing or it could be the worst
thing but there’s always blessings
disguised in there you just got to take
what you get it might be a big osprey
poop one day but the next day it might
be the best thing in the world you have
to be in the field to find the wildlife
I feel like when I’m here and I tell
people I wanna film wildlife I’m not a
wildlife filmmaker because I’m not out
here in the middle of the desert in an
Ohio winter when it’s 125 degrees
filming this Oryx under a tree
you have to immerse yourself in whatever
it is you’re trying to do get yourself
involved in the community of people who
are trying to do the same thing as you
as well they’re usually not competitors
but rather collaborators be positive a
lot of the animals that were filming in
the while may not be around for the next
generation and it’s that optimism in
that hope that if we inspire viewers
like you guys that we can preserve these
species days are gonna go by where
you’re gonna get hundreds of noes for
whatever your passion may be but that
one day where you get the good things is
that’s gonna be what makes it all for
the better make people care we live in a
time right now where the meaning behind
a brand is more important than what the
product is wildlife filmmakers have
become experts at turning wildlife
footage into something that you can get
involved in and emotionally connected
with if you watched 45 minutes of an
animal that’s unedited it’s usually just
sleeping and eating so tell your
customers or your followers why they
should care about what’s going on
tell them about your passion why you’re
passionate about it and get them
invested in what you’re making and my
one of my favorite quotes from one of my
trips and a funny story I always end up
in places like this and I hated the
ocean like I was terrified of it
but during a trip to Costa Rica with my
film partner who’s an avid diver he
signed me up for dive lessons with a
Costa Rican dive master who didn’t know
very he didn’t know a lot of English and
I got all suited up and he pushed me off
the boat and he started letting the air
out of my BCD I’d never taken last one
before snorkel in my life and I began
sinking underwater and he just said
don’t stop breathing and I freaked out
got back in the boat and was like I’m
done I’m never not doing that again but
I think when pursuing whatever it is
you’re interested in you got to remember
to not stop breathing there’s gonna be
times where you’re gonna get pushed in
and it’s gonna feel like you’re drowning
don’t actually drown that would suck and
and it’s gonna be tough but you got to
remember to just keep breathing and keep
pushing through because you got to
remember what it is you’re actually your
goal is what you’re aspiring to I think
we live in the best time right now for
small businesses or passion projects and
documentary film even I think that if
you omit the passion that you have for
whatever it is that you’re interested in
it’s just going to be contagious and
people are going to want to be
surrounded by whatever that is
so with that go out there and pursue
whatever your passion is with everything
you’ve got
thank you
you
morning everybody
pursuing a passion as the career is
never an easy thing you hear
just search passions on TEDx you’re
gonna see a whole list of TEDx is about
how you should give everything you’ve
got to pursuing whatever your passion is
and you’re gonna see a whole list of
TEDx talks about how pursuing a passion
is a career is too risky that you
shouldn’t do it and one of my favorite
things a lot of people tell me when I
tell them I want to be a wildlife
filmmaker is are there even job
opportunities for that or are you gonna
be able to make enough money to survive
and usually I don’t I don’t know I’ve
always had a passion for wildlife
growing up I had no idea what I was
gonna do with it
I gave the typical kid responses which
was I’m gonna be a biologist or I’m
gonna be a veterinarian or I’m gonna be
a zookeeper and I don’t think it ever
really clicked until about high school I
developed an interest in film and
photography during high school and
coupled with the passion for wildlife
one night while watching Planet Earth by
the BBC which is the most mind-blowing
beautiful thing in the world especially
plain earth – I saw I just I had no idea
Heidi if it was created it didn’t make
any sense to me but it was just so
mind-blowing seeing the footage that
they were collecting that in that moment
I was like this is what I’m gonna do
like I’m gonna be a wildlife filmmaker
and I would tell people this and it was
such a foreign concept to them that they
were usually like what’s the job market
like like how are you gonna afford to
live and I think anybody would get
discouraged when they hear that when
they talk about something that they
really want to do but for some strange
reason it just motivated me to keep
going
to prove that this was something that I
could actually accomplish in 2015 with
my filmmaking partner and I we traveled
to Honduras to an island called Caius
casinos this tiny island is situated
surrounded by the second largest coral
reef in the world just off the coast of
Honduras
we have the second largest coral reef in
the world in the Caribbean and this
island that you’re seeing right here can
fit on the size of a football field and
yet there’s about 100 to 150 people
living on this island and it’s situated
right in a marine sanctuary and so these
people have to live primitively to avoid
damaging such a fragile ecosystem the
coral reefs around them so we produced
this short film we had no idea what we
were gonna do with it we just made it
and a National Geographic film
competition came off the wild to inspire
film competition and we were like we’re
gonna submit this we’re gonna submit
this film to National Geographic for
filmmakers and photographers this is
like the dream like to get your work in
front of the eyes of National Geographic
is I feel like what a lot of filmmakers
and photographers are really pushing for
so we submitted the film the time came
when they were supposed to announce the
finalists and we didn’t hear anything
and we were like we were kind of bombed
you know it sucks to put all the time
and effort into making this little short
film and to not hear anything was kind
of disappointing a few days later we get
an email it was very late after the
deadline and it said you’re finalists
welcome to the wild tunes for our film
competition and so it was awesome we
were so excited we had no idea what to
expect we were flown out to Sun Valley
Film Festival in Idaho and Sun Valley’s
is beautiful like mountain resort town
and we got to screen our short film in
front of National Geographic executives
in front of big-time actors in front of
other filmmakers there we took shots
with Bill Paxton that was awesome we
almost knocked Bruce Dern over in a bar
and I’m pretty sure this huge western
bar fight would have like ensued had we
done that Clint Eastwood was there
somewhere we didn’t get a chance to meet
him though and it was just the most
amazing experience just to be able to
show our film to all these people and it
got to the day they were gonna announce
the winners of the film competition and
we were not it we did not win the film
competition and it was horribly
discouraging and I understood all the
finalists had such good films they all
deserve to be winners and they all
deserve to be finalists but when you’re
pouring yourself into whatever your
passion is and for me that’s wildlife
filmmaking and filming the reefs off
this island it was really tough to be
that
close and then be turned away and so the
year continued and I think I fell into
like a creative funk and the next
opening for the 2016 film competition
came and I was like I’ll just negative
thoughts just came I’m like they’re not
gonna pick us again as finalists why
would they waste their time again we
weren’t what they wanted last year and
it wasn’t until a week before the
competition that everybody close to me
was like what are you doing why are you
not putting together this film and
submitting and so finally I’m like
whatever we’ll put together a film we
have a couple days and we threw together
a film that talked about all of our
travels in our experiences filming with
some of the most passionate biologists
around the world who were working with
different animal species we submitted
this film and we were finalists again
and we had no idea we didn’t expect that
in any way so we went back to the film
festival had an amazing experience there
and this year we won and our trip
so our prize was to go to Africa in film
for National Geographic from that geo
wild we got to see some of the most
amazing things we were in Kruger
National Park which is probably wild
this place you can get in Africa and we
filmed with pods of dolphins off the
coast of Mozambique and we were
surrounded by herds of elephants in
Botswana and we got the film leopard
families sharing a kill in South Africa
and film lions at night roaring and
calling and it was just the most amazing
experience and when our leg of the trip
with National Geographic was over we
rented a safari truck and we lived out
of it for four weeks driving around
Africa and we collected some of just the
most amazing things we could see so we
put together we had to put together a
short film from our experience and
presented at the next film competition
and while traveling around collecting
all this footage we really wanted to
show and inspire people with some of the
images that we got to care about the
natural world ultimately that’s our goal
with what we’re doing
originally it was just to combine the
opportunity to film animals close up and
be as close to wildlife as I could be
but I started to learn more about
conservation and what’s happening in
environments around the world and it was
just so so amazing to me that so many
people are disconnected with nature and
so our goals with our films kind of
shifted to inspire viewers to want to
care about whatever is in their backyard
there may not be a Gumbs Block in your
backyard or a buffalo but there’s some
amazing things even in Toledo’s backyard
and so we put together this short film
and yeah I want to play it for you guys
[Music]
the overwhelming vastness that is Africa
makes it one of the last great
wildernesses on earth
as wildlife filmmakers a trip to this
tainless wild is nothing short of a
dream
[Music]
we were challenged in ways that we could
never have imagined or were rewarded on
a scale beyond our own belief this is a
land of indescribable beauty and intense
interactions Africa is at the epicenter
of extremes and is in a brutal conflict
between its natural landscapes and the
modern world despite containing nearly
half of the world’s undeveloped lands
much of its wildlife is in decline
[Music]
a loss of any one of these animals
leaves a giant hole in the fiber of life
that holds us all together and our
greatest fear as storytellers is that
these stories may be all we have left
about the world be living with each
moment we lose an opportunity to save
the environment and eat and risk that it
will become just another story for our
children
as the health of our planet Falls we
must stand up and exploit our talents to
come together and give a voice to the
voiceless and to be warriors in the
fight for our planets survival
[Music]
we must open our minds and let the whole
Majesty of the world sinking whether it
be at your doorstep or far away we can
save it we can save us
[Music]
again I’ve been so fortunate in the past
five years to have been able to travel
to some amazing places and see some
amazing animals I’ve been to Africa to
film wildlife I’ve traveled around the
island of Tasmania of filming Tasmanian
devils and iconic species that 90% of
their population was wiped out due to a
contagious cancer that has never been
seen before in animals I photographed in
orange bellied parrot in Australia which
to anybody else sounds like nothing well
as of February 2017 there’s only 14 left
in the wild and I’ve filmed off the
coast of reefs
I’ve been filming on reefs that have
been in the best shape they could be in
and also have just been turned into gray
rubble and I still have a little bit of
imposter syndrome when it comes to this
that I get these opportunities to go and
film some of these things and I’m not at
all where I want to be yet in my career
but I’m still pursuing it and so with
that whoops I missed a slide
there’s Tasmanian Devil with that as I
continue to pursue my passion I wanted
to give some tips that I’ve learned in
the field filming wild animals on how to
continue to pursue whatever your passion
may be so here’s my tips from a wildlife
filmmaker for pursuing whatever your
passion may be the highs are high and
the lows are low this was a great quote
I heard from another filmmaker and they
talked about how you’re gonna be
spending days in the field you may see
no animals at all and it’s gonna suck
and there were days in Africa that we
got up at 4 a.m. and we pack up the gear
and we drive around looking for animals
in this truck and we’d see nothing but
then there would be times where we’d
pull around the corner and a family of
elephants would burst out of the bushes
have the craziest pool party you’ve ever
seen for like 45 seconds and then they’d
be gone and you had the camera rolling
the entire time and that was those
moments that reminded you why you were
doing what you were doing and there are
days where you got stuck in the middle
of a desert in your truck because you
don’t know how to offer up
my other tip is things don’t always work
out the way they might seem the next two
images I’m about to show you I feel like
characterized the pursuit of a passion
perfectly in Yellowstone I was
photographing this osprey catch fish and
it would dive down and catch a fish and
I’d miss it and I was struggling and it
ended up purchasing it sank real low
like you see here in this image and I
started firing off photos hoping to get
the wingspan and it let out the biggest
Osprey poop in the entire world and I
was just like it was hilarious I had to
just accept it and take it and it was
just it was so funny and I think that
with the pursuit of passion you never
know what’s gonna happen it could be the
best thing or it could be the worst
thing but there’s always blessings
disguised in there you just got to take
what you get it might be a big osprey
poop one day but the next day it might
be the best thing in the world you have
to be in the field to find the wildlife
I feel like when I’m here and I tell
people I wanna film wildlife I’m not a
wildlife filmmaker because I’m not out
here in the middle of the desert in an
Ohio winter when it’s 125 degrees
filming this Oryx under a tree
you have to immerse yourself in whatever
it is you’re trying to do get yourself
involved in the community of people who
are trying to do the same thing as you
as well they’re usually not competitors
but rather collaborators be positive a
lot of the animals that were filming in
the while may not be around for the next
generation and it’s that optimism in
that hope that if we inspire viewers
like you guys that we can preserve these
species days are gonna go by where
you’re gonna get hundreds of noes for
whatever your passion may be but that
one day where you get the good things is
that’s gonna be what makes it all for
the better make people care we live in a
time right now where the meaning behind
a brand is more important than what the
product is wildlife filmmakers have
become experts at turning wildlife
footage into something that you can get
involved in and emotionally connected
with if you watched 45 minutes of an
animal that’s unedited it’s usually just
sleeping and eating so tell your
customers or your followers why they
should care about what’s going on
tell them about your passion why you’re
passionate about it and get them
invested in what you’re making and my
one of my favorite quotes from one of my
trips and a funny story I always end up
in places like this and I hated the
ocean like I was terrified of it
but during a trip to Costa Rica with my
film partner who’s an avid diver he
signed me up for dive lessons with a
Costa Rican dive master who didn’t know
very he didn’t know a lot of English and
I got all suited up and he pushed me off
the boat and he started letting the air
out of my BCD I’d never taken last one
before snorkel in my life and I began
sinking underwater and he just said
don’t stop breathing and I freaked out
got back in the boat and was like I’m
done I’m never not doing that again but
I think when pursuing whatever it is
you’re interested in you got to remember
to not stop breathing there’s gonna be
times where you’re gonna get pushed in
and it’s gonna feel like you’re drowning
don’t actually drown that would suck and
and it’s gonna be tough but you got to
remember to just keep breathing and keep
pushing through because you got to
remember what it is you’re actually your
goal is what you’re aspiring to I think
we live in the best time right now for
small businesses or passion projects and
documentary film even I think that if
you omit the passion that you have for
whatever it is that you’re interested in
it’s just going to be contagious and
people are going to want to be
surrounded by whatever that is
so with that go out there and pursue
whatever your passion is with everything
you’ve got
thank you
you
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