Planning, Preproduction, and RESEARCH!

(Lo and I with these amazing animals at Piedras Blancas)

Well, It all started when I was young kid. I always used to take trips to SeaWorld with my family and have been enfatuated with marine life and aquatic creatures ever since. The inspiration for this film inparticular spurred through a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway (HWY 1) between San Francisco and Los Angeles. There I found a small Rookery at Piedras Blancas which later I discovered was infact home of an organization known as "The Friends of the Elephant Seals". Through researching these animals and observing their motions for hours, I became infatuated with their sheer enormous size and the aggression and territorial acts of the male dominant seals in defending his herem of females. Here are some pictures and videos from visits I took to the rookery at Piedras Blancas (I wish there was sound on these videos because they are wonderful t ohear as they "roar/belch" at one another):




Shortly after these visits and much research and reading, I began production on the film. For reference I looked at alot of nature documentaries (really wonderful ones from BBC) and searched the net for pictured encounters with these facinating animals. Below are some collages of references I found via the internet to study for poses, look, etc.:













(Just a few examples, Reference!!!!)

Research and Preproduction may have been the most important part of the film-making for me. This is an opportunity to study and learn what these animals are capable of physically and how i can best represent them on a small little piece of film (35mm). I spent ALOT of time watching these animals and observing them, and did my best to convey them using a needle on a thin layer of film emulsion :)

PS: The name of the film is Mirounga.............Why?
Well, in case you didnt know already. Mirounga is the Genus name for descirbing elephant seals. Part of my research in observing these animals first hand and through reference videos were examing both Northern Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris) and the Southern Elephant Seals (Mirounga leonina). So to avoid confusion, I just stuck with Mirounga, including both species in the title, because I appreciated both when working on this film.