In the 5 years I’ve been slinging this beaver story I have learned some very mysterious things about the way the media works. I was surprised to find, for instance, that nothing makes a news story more attractive than the fact that someone else has already reported on it. This seems counter-intuitive, but getting noticed by one outlet means that others will soon rush to your door step. You would think that the need to make a unique. creative, investigative stamp would drive journalists in separate directions, but no. Their herd instinct is very powerful, and when it rains it pours.
Likewise I have learned that beaver stories bring out vagina puns from every vagina-access-challenged male who fondly misses their middleschool days. Yesterday on the Huffington post I was politely informed that “This Dad was expecting a little ‘beaver’ of his own for father’s day’ and there were several hundred tweets enjoying the comment “Every Dad should learn from this beaver!”. Par for the course.
There are of course a sprinkling of ‘animals are beautiful’ comments from the fairer sex, and a third sinister strain from men who want to appear more grizzled and stoic- (I suspect especially if they actually are neither). Their comments invariably involve one of the three key words: trapping, hats or rodents. This is a complex triad in which point C or B are used to justify syllogism A. Well, I guess if they’re sitting around commenting on the computer they aren’t out actually trapping beavers so that’s a plus.
If you meander through the comments on the Huffingtonpost, for example, you will easily be able to classify these three response styles. There were fewer viciously cruel remarks than usual, and with the exception of the man that demanded how I knew it was a male beaver because I had never seen his penis and the man who called the soundtrack ‘cheesey’ I consider myself fairly unscathed.
The first time I filmed a beaver it was dad, and I happened to be with MY dad on the Escobar bridge. I was so exited I wanted everyone to see what I saw and came home that day and tried to learn to make a movie. It was very, very, very difficult and it was a few months before I had the patience to learn how to put my first together. My second movie was a general explanation of the Martinez beavers. It has so many jarring mistakes in it that I cringe to see it now, including a photo of a nutria. Despite its crude editing and immaturity it had by far my biggest number of views at 8,646, and that makes it unique. Until now anyway, but we’ll get to that.
If you’ve never tried to make a movie yourself, I will tell you that editing and arranging footage on an unfamliar system takes every bit of concentration you possibly have. It is like weaving a loom with a firetruck underwater. Even when the systems got more familiar it is still pretty consuming. I started out trying to edit movies with my new mac, but it was so confusing I eventually gave up and used the PC for the first few tries. The more I learned the more engrossed I got. I remember I would sit and edit and be so surprised that I had get up and use the restroom again! It seemed like only minutes had passed. Of course when I looked at the clock I would realize it had been several hours. All I wanted was to be faster. I had a full time job, phone calls to return, meetings to attend, and a website to update. Did one ever get faster at making movies? I asked filmmaker Don Bernier one day this very question. He just smiled.
Of course, I found out that being faster means being more ambitious. When I got more adept with moviemaker, I wanted to learn something more advanced. I bit the bullet and shelled out $$ for final cut and found a tutor on Craig’s list to teach me how to use it. I’m not kidding. He was about 19 and the encounter left me weirdly demoralized and strangely exhilarated if such a combination is possible. We went through a single lesson and I was able to squeak by enough to limp along and use a keyframe or two. The Beaver Christmas movie was the first time I used FC. (I have since learned that every little thing you ever wanted to learn to do on FC is explained in an easy-to-understand video on Youtube. Which, if you can get over the fact that the instructors still have algebra homework and gym class, is pretty awesome.)
All of which I offer as back story to the movie about father beaver, of which I happened to have been fairly proud. Dad was much more private than mom, cautious and wary. I never grew as fond of him, nor he (I suspect) of me. But when Mom died I knew he really, really mattered and making the movie helped me see him in a new light. In a way it was the perfect vehicle for the transition from mom’s death to life without her. I made it with final cut and with the exception of one or two jiggy transitions I couldn’t fix, I am fairly proud of it.
This is good. Because last night at 7 pm it had about 18.000 hits – 10,000 more than my most watched video ever. I was still trying to think what that felt like when the phone rang and it was the UK Daily Mail asking me about the story and permission to quote and print. Why does the Daily Mail in the UK have my home phone number, you ask? Another explanation I learned about the media, which is that everyone is owned by everyone else. Turns out they are the broadest circulated paper in the UK and owned by another group related to someone I did indeed send a press release about mom’s death two years ago. It’s all in the family!
Today they have a full page story of the exciting travails of the Martinez Beavers, including mom’s death, the orphan’s adventures and the role of Dad as single parent. Go read the whole thing. The British are sentimental about wildlife, and since they’ve been scared of reintroducing beavers, this can’t hurt. There are tons of Cheryl’s beautiful photos without her beautiful name, and I’m very sorry for that. At least they say Worth A Dam and there’s a link to our site, which I’m happy for.
And more importantly, as of this morning 36,392 people have watched Dad’s movie.
I’m trying to take it in stride. I spent yesterday writing a formal request to Allied Waste for the donated trash receptacles for the beaver festival. Today I’ll update the promotional film and see if I can get it run on the local channel again. But I might just peak at the number again in a few hours and see what it says.
I’d love Dad to crest 50,000.
“And it should be, it should be, it SHOULD be like that!
Because Horton was faithful! He sat and he sat!
He meant what he said
And he said what he meant…
And they sent him home
Happy,
One Hundred per cent!
Admittedly, the folks along the Ipswich River need some vocabulary lessons, but this is a pretty thorough look at beavers and their role in habitat creation and I will be both the first and the last to complain. The article does talk to a trapper who uses what he calls ‘box traps’ to live trap the beavers before killing them. I want to ask does this mean cumbersome Bavarian traps? Or did he meant to say ‘suitcase’ instead of box and is actually referring to Hancock traps? Or maybe he catches them like this? →
