Check out the trailer for our newest Ocypode feature, coming soon!

Trailer — Freakin’ Mysterious: A Tale of Science …and Sea Cucumbers from Michael Crandall on Vimeo.

You may have noticed that we have been silent for a while here at Ocypode Productions. Don’t worry, we haven’t gone anywhere! We’ve just been busy training up our new sound guys. As you can see, we still have a ways to go, but they should be getting out into the field any day now. Ha but for real, the Ocypodes are back at it and we have some really cool things in the works, so keep an eye out for updates soon!

This summer the Ocypodes were fortunate to spend some time in the Florida Keys gathering field footage for an upcoming project. The fun part: filming! The less-fun-but-equally-important part: cataloguing said footage (which means reviewing it all and recording information about each shot in a spreadsheet). But fueled by a coffee-filled Saturday and assisted by the ever-helpful pound pooch Puck, we got it done! (See our team hard at work below; such concentration!) So stay tuned for updates on our upcoming project starring UF graduate student Nate Berkebile and his work on the elusive and exciting Florida sea cucumber. Also, there may be octopi and some crabs in the near future…

So clearly the Ocypodes have been slacking in our blogging…our bad there guys. But the good news is that we have not been slowing down on the filming side of things, and have started a number of new and exciting projects in recent months! Keep an eye out for updates soon regarding fun times with sea cucumbers, crabs and octopi. In the meantime, we have also been out and about with the camera compiling some basic b-roll of the awesomeness that is Florida. To hold you over as we edit/edit/edit, check out this collection of some footage shot last February on Payne’s Prairie in Gainesville. 

Winter in Florida from Michael Crandall on Vimeo.

to an internet near you! This weekend the Ocypodes just about finished our next film, featuring the work of graduate student Savanna Barry. We will be putting some finishing polish on it this week, but keep an eye out as we should be releasing it shortly!

Aaaand we’re back! Excuse our extended absence from updates, but the Ocypodes have been neck deep in avoiding editing these past months (with a bit of help from school and work and stuff). The good news is that the newest video, starring Savanna and her seagrass, will soon be coming along nicely! Soon we should have some more footage to share with you all, or at least a more interesting update. Until then, it’s back to the editing room…

A Successful Day on the Water

At long last we made it out into the field with Savanna! An early morning drive to Waccasassa, a quick, beautiful boat ride out of the river and into the gulf, and there we were–waist deep in dancing, dappled seagrass.

Savanna, Morgan, and Sky are an efficient team and they zipped through their sites in record time, leaving poor Chelsey with hardly a moment to breath as she snorkeled about in their wake, camera in hand. It was Chelsey’s first day of shooting and, after reviewing the footage this evening, I think we’ll keep her. She seems to have taken to underwater photography like the proverbial duck to water. All in all it was a most satisfactory day.

-Michael Crandall

The good news is that the carburetor didn’t need any work after all. The bad news is that we need a new powerhead, water pump, and impeller.

It begins to dawn on me that our little side-project of creating short science documentaries is not exactly a non-profit. It is, rather, a negative-profit. But oh well. Whining aside, we are finally getting out into the field with Savanna tomorrow morning (we’ll just be hitching a ride on their boat instead of chasing them down in our own). We’ll be sure to post some images this weekend.

That’s all for now. Time to go get the camera gear ready…

-Michael Crandall

After our recent purchase of a small underwater housing for our camera, we decided that it might not be such a bad idea to insure our equipment before submerging it in what is really little more than a large ziplock bag. With that accomplished, we feel marginally more confident about dunking our camera and lenses, by far our largest financial investment with the possible exception of Chelsey’s car, in salt water. We are heading to Steinhatchee tomorrow evening for a weekend of field tests with the new housing—well, in fact we are crashing the Dickson family scalloping trip, but we figure it’ll be a good opportunity to try out the housing as well as harvest a few gallons of delicious scallops—before our first underwater shoot early next week.

She’s a good little boat when the motor decides to work…

That’s right, we’re finally getting rolling on our next film, tentatively entitled Seagrass Savanna. We’ll be heading out to Homosassa with UF Fisheries grad student, Savanna Barry, to shoot her work on seagrass in the Gulf. This will be a larger project than the last film, with more work in the field and our first foray into underwater photography, and we are excited to begin. All that’s left to do now is clean out the carburetor on the outboard so that we can actually get on the water… That’s all for now, we’ll check back in after the shoot with maybe a few teaser stills. -Michael Crandall

One of the difficulties with working on a low (read: little to nothing) budget is that it can be hard to purchase all the gear needed to make fantabulous films. However, the Ocypodes have been working on accumulating ourselves some stuff, and this week we added a Pelican case to the collection! Gone are the days of hefting the lenses and crossing our fingers that nothing gets wet/smashed/dropped/sat upon! (Not that we would ever do that…) Now off to shoot us some video!