Review of Wildcast

After spending six years collaborating with National Geographic filmmaker Richard Goss on wildlife films like “Predators at War” and “Africa’s Deadly Dozen,” Kim Wolhuter, who grew up in the wilds of Southern Africa, began directing films of his own. His National Geographic dossier includes “Tjololo: Tracking the Leopard”, where Wolhuter followed the same leopard for 18 months, “Black-Jack, High Stakes”, “Imapala: Basic Instincts”, and “Stalking Leopards”.

His video blog, Wildcast is an interactive photo and video documentary of Africa’s natural wonders from one of its most ardent fans whose ultimate goal is to help maintain Africa’s wild places and its animals for “future generations through sustainable development.”  It features excess footage too beautiful to toss away, but unnecessary for his current projects. It’s worth noting that Wolhuter has made near daily updates since July 2006.

It’s hard not to watch Wolhuter’s videos when they’re posted with descriptions like “black rhino charges lions and then us.” Each one runs for several minutes, edited for time and interest, and features Wolhuter’s narration, which is always insightful. Stills are posted with each video and can be found on the filmmaker’s Flickr page, matched with lush descriptions of the video, moment by moment.

There is nothing here that is boring or dull.  Wolhuter’s footage easily parallels that of any broadcast television outlet, and he captures unsuspecting creatures in their natural environments with patience and ease.  His background gives him an eye for viewer interest; he doesn’t simly show a vulture or an elephant, but herds of each doing things that humans at home rarely gets to see.

Everything is worth watching, so go explore the archives and see for yourself. There’s almost no point in directing you to one video or another, but I’ll indulge the less inquisitive of you nonetheless: the lion attack is downright fascinating.