- Oh, pause it right there, pause it right there,
there is a great shot and what you're about to see
how we would get some of those up close to the camera
animal shots, the original selfie stick.
- What, your original selfie stick?
- No, I invented the selfie stick, as far as I'm concerned.
♪ Fire a fire on the mountain ♪
(cheerful country music)
Welcome back to Base Camp,
the show where we don't actually camp,
but instead we sit inside of this room,
where there's a fire that kind of looks like a campsite
and we dissect an old episode, right?
- That was great. - Great.
- Look, I will say the fire is warm,
I mean, it's getting pretty hot over here.
- Yeah, maybe we should just stare at the fire
for a little while.
I don't think the audience wants to do that.
So right now we're at our home away from home,
101BK, one of our favorite restaurants
here in Columbus, Ohio,
who are so graciously hosting us for this series.
We actually dive into old episodes, dissect them
and tell you guys what it took to make 'em
and how difficult it really was.
- I'm honestly just here for the coffee.
- It is good coffee, right? - It's really good
and what are you drinking?
- I'm drinking water.
- That's true.
- Coyote doesn't drink coffee,
I just get my energy natural. - Can you imagine
what you would be like if you were on caffeine?
- I would be bouncing off the walls
inside of this restaurant right now.
- Yeah, people ask like, "Does Coyote eat like
"a lot of candy, is he on a sugar high?"
No, that's just, - That's just me.
- you're full go all the time.
- It's beard power. (laughing)
Okay, so the episode that we are looking at today
is as we say, an oldie but a goodie, a true classic,
do you guys have any idea which episode we got?
- Yeah, we don't know, just so you guys know,
we don't know what videos we're gonna watch,
before these start, - Yeah.
- Coyote picks them, we just show up
for the coffee. - Can we guess?
- No, that would take forever, we have like over 300 videos.
- Yeah, that's right. - Oh.
- I don't think we have time for that,
so I'm just gonna tell you guys,
we are headed back to Montana - Oh.
- to revisit one of the most adorable mammals
we've ever featured on the Brave Wilderness channel,
Bucky the black bear.
- Bucky the bear! - Oh!
- That's right. - Oh man.
- You guys remember Bucky? - Oh yeah.
- And maybe you remember this.
(making a baby bear impression)
- I do remember that. - I don't remember that.
- You don't remember all the audio difficulty
we had filming this episode,
because Bucky had so much to say?
- I don't remember it being difficult at all.
- This was one of the most difficult episodes
we ever filmed, so let's take a look at that episode
and I think it's gonna bring back some of those memories
of what it really took to film with a baby bear.
- Alright, here we go.
- Roll the footage.
I'm Coyote Peterson, that's-- (baby bear calling)
See, there's the sound right there.
- [Mario] I hear it.
- I thought we wanted that. - There it is.
- [Mark] We didn't want the bear noises?
- [Coyote] No, not for editing purposes.
- [Mark] Oh, I thought that was good.
- [Coyote] This was a nightmare for us
editing in post production,
the bear making noises here and making noises there
and they're not lining up with anything that was going on.
- [Mark] Look how quickly those setup shots are.
- Oh yeah, pause that, pause that for a second.
It's amazing to think that today we use drones,
we get these epic environmental shots,
that really submerge you into the environment.
Back then we were like, hurry up and get to the animal,
it's like, B roll shot, B roll shot, B roll shot.
- Well, our videos used to be much shorter
- Right.
- back then, I mean, you know, like the YouTube standard
was more like a five to seven minute video,
today it's over 10, so it's great
we can actually develop the story a lot
- Right. - you know, longer
and a lot better, but it is fun to watch these old videos,
'cause they're full go, - Yeah.
- boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, all the way through.
- The voiceovers were actually
a lot more difficult to write,
back when they had to be this short,
I like being able to write
the more epic, add interest to the show.
Here we go.
- [Mark] Bozeman.
- Look at that hawk shot. - Oh.
- [Coyote] Remember when you got that, Mario?
- Oh, a pine marten. - Yeah, a little pine marten.
- There's Adam. - Grizzly bear.
- Oh, there he is. - Oh.
- [Coyote] He was always licking his paws too.
- [Mark] So cute, but he was a firecracker.
- [Coyote] He really was.
Oh, itching his ear, oh hey, buddy.
- [Mark] Bucky was a cub, but not a small bear.
- No, pause it for a second.
Bucky was like the size of a German Shepherd, guys,
he's still considered like a black bear cub,
a baby bear, but his claws and his teeth,
like if he was just like,
"Mario, I don't like the way you're looking at me."
- Yeah, he was already weaned, - Yeah.
- so he had his claws, he had his teeth,
he was ready to go. - Yeah,
so like a bite from Bucky is not a bite you want.
- No, that's the end of the episode,
I guess we could have started bite episodes here,
but you do not wanna be bitten by a black bear.
I guess this is an important spot to note,
Bucky is a bear from a wildlife sanctuary, right
and Bucky is actually a rescue,
somebody had him as a pet, so had him this size,
whether they took it from a den
or it was abandoned by the mother,
we don't know the exact details of that,
but it grew to the size, it was almost a German shepherd,
then it destroyed a couch, then it destroyed a bedroom
and the people that had it said,
"Okay, we can't take care of a wild animal."
- Yeah, and that's the problem a lot of times
you see with like people keeping exotic pets
is that they're cute and cuddly,
when they're newborns, but they quickly grow,
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- and you know, it's not something
you want in your living room.
- Yeah, right.
- They don't make it that small.
- No. - No.
Okay, let's keep going.
- [Mark] Aw.
- [Mario] I love Bucky's coat,
you know, he was actually blowing out his winter coat
at the time and he had like this cool mohawk
- Right. - down the whole back
and it just made him look so cool.
- [Coyote] He almost looked like a hyena.
- [Mario] Yeah, yeah.
- Oh, pause it right there, pause it right there.
There's a great shot and what you're about to see,
how we would get some of those
up close to the camera animal shots,
the original selfie stick.
- What, your original selfie stick?
- No, I invented the selfie stick, as far as I'm concerned,
I used to go into the environment,
take a dead branch and secure a camera to it,
- Hold on, hold on. - and then all of a sudden,
out of nowhere selfie sticks popped up.
- So are you claiming you are the original inventor
of the selfie stick?
- I am pretty sure that the original design
for the selfie stick was stolen from Breaking Trail episodes
with me putting drift cameras on the end of a stick.
- I don't know, man, that's pretty bold.
- I don't know. - pretty bold.
Maybe you were the first person to use an actual stick
as a selfie stick. - Maybe you just
couldn't afford a real selfie stick?
- I'm pretty sure they didn't make selfie sticks,
but maybe this is something we should put
in the Brave Wilderness store, the Orignal Selfie Stick,
just food for thought, I'm just saying.
Alright, let's get back into the episode.
- Alright, back to Bucky.
- [Coyote] And here comes the success
of the selfie stick shot, look at this, nose shot,
that camera was fascinating to that bear.
Actually in that instance, he looked like,
"Get that camera away from me."
- Now what is Bucky doing there,
let's stop it right there.
- He is searching for wild marshmallows.
- Right, that we put there. - Yes,
to keep Bucky in the location,
we actually worked with the handlers
to bury marshmallows, - little tiny ones.
- upwards 50 marshmallows, that we buried in the soil,
that would actually work as a natural hunting technique
for the bear, foraging technique
to help it learn to search for things,
that were buried beneath the surface.
- Yeah and that was the only way
to really keep Bucky in one area,
I mean, Bucky was so curious, running all over the place,
but I will say this, Bucky was excellent
at finding those marshmallows,
he was like a little truffle pig,
he was like, bing, bing, bing,
we had to actually (laughs)
I think, replant the marshmallows like three or four times
- Yeah, - for this video.
- He was vacuuming up those marshmallows
unlike anything I'd ever seen.
- We actually ran out, I believe, anyway.
There's my shadow.
- [Coyote] Yeah, you know,
the shadows were all over the place,
you guys are gonna notice in this episode maybe now
that I'm pointing it out is that this scene
was bouncing from spot to spot to spot,
while it was a good idea to keep the bear
in the area using marshmallows,
it also forced the bear to move all over the place,
so I was constantly like shifting sides,
you watch the continuity of this episode
is an absolutely train wreck.
- [Mark] Yeah, yeah.
- But in all fairness, I cut this episode
and then Chris, our master editor came in,
split this thing up, you can't even notice,
that this thing is all over the place.
- My shadow again, I think, we'll pause it there,
we learned a really important lesson
in videos like this in the early days,
that you know, we couldn't really control
any animal like Bucky, - No, don't do a bear.
- you can't really ask him to do certain things
or stay in a certain spot, so you really just have to adapt
- Yeah.
- and that's a technique that we use today,
that has really, you know, allowed us to make
the videos we've made, back then we were like,
we've gotta get the light perfect, no shadows,
the animal's gonna stay right there
and as we found out quickly, that's not realistic.
- And Bucky was one of the first mammals,
in all fairness we ever worked with,
- Yeah.
- and you can't hold onto a bear,
it's different when you have a turtle or a snake
and you're like, okay,
I'm pretty much in control of this scene
and the cameras don't have to do anything crazy,
- Right.
- You're not gonna hold onto a baby black bear.
- Yeah, so like filming wildlife really in essence
is not something that is in control ever,
- Right.
- you're always reacting to the wildlife.
- Yeah, I think now we are often very opportunistic
and just determine what the animal is gonna accept from us
and we kind of go with the flow,
- Hm-mm. - instead of forcing it.
- Yep. - Let's flow with this video.
- [Mario] Alright, here we go.
- It is a really cool look, - yeah.
- [Coyote] you can see some of the cinnamon coloration
in his fur too. - Kinda like a buffalo
or brindle. - Yeah.
- [Mario] Some black bears actually have a very brown--
- Right, the cinnamon phase. - Yeah
and often are confused with grizzlies.
- [Mario] You know it was great how Bucky
was using its like natural like, kinda foraging behavior,
- Hm-mm. - Hm-mm.
- [Mario] digging with its claws.
- [Mark] What was cool too
is that, you know, Bucky was not a small bear, you know,
not a newborn, but was still very much a cub
in the sense that he was getting used to how big he was,
he was growing so quickly and sort of awkward, you know,
just like watching him learn how to be a bear
was really interesting, I thought
and you know, you don't really see
a lot of videos with bears this size.
- He was one curious cub. - Yeah.
- [Mario] that's for sure.
- [Coyote] I watched my movements in this scene,
it's funny, I would start presenting and be like,
okay, I've got a line of dialogue to deliver,
I have this fact in mind and then I'd turn around
and the bear's like over there
and it's like, oh, gotta move again.
- [Mark] It seems like you were using your selfie stick
as like a barrier between Bucky and you.
- [Coyote] You know, in all fairness, a little bit
and because this is a bear that was acclimated to humans,
he was still developing in to a mature bear
and the plan was for him to be released back into the wild,
which I do believe has happened at this point,
so you'll notice I don't ever make
physical contact with the bear
and that was one of the strict rules that the handler said,
"Do not touch the bear,
"we don't want it to be that acclimated,
"we're trying to rehabituate it to being a wild animal."
- [Mario] Right, and we were all very cautious
around this animal, we were treating it like wild animal.
- Yeah and you know, black bears, that's a good point,
black bears in particular are known
to be habituated to humans and human environments
and that's what actually makes them particularly dangerous.
- Right.
- You know, often in bear country, you know,
around dumpsters or trash corals, you get nuisance bears
and that's what you don't want to happen,
so we certainly didn't want Bucky to think
that if I want food, I have to find a human.
- I sure hope that Bucky isn't jumping into dumpsters,
not looking for marshmallows popping up, be like,
"You guys got some treats for me?"
The last thing you wanna do is go through all your trash
and have a black bear pop out of the dumpster.
- No way. (laughs)
- [Coyote] Oh, there you go, I mentioned the claws
and the teeth at this point, that's fitting.
Boy, look at the shadow on my face,
this was like we were still figuring out
like the time of day to shoot with my hat,
because it cast that Zorro type shadow across my face,
which is honestly really difficult to work with
- Yeah. - for you guys
as camera operators.
- [Mark] Well, we developed the character in the hat,
before, - right.
- we'd actually filmed anything
and then we found out very quickly that
that hat was a shadow prop. - Right.
The cowboy hat does come off, guys,
when I'm not actually filming this stuff,
it's not glued to my head.
Look at him digging for marshmallows,
where are they, Bucky?
Oh, get it, buddy.
- [Mario] And this behavior that Bucky is showing,
you know, this is a form of enrichment,
so the trainers would actually take him out
to allow him to forage, - yeah.
- [Mario] getting him ready
to potentially be released into the wild.
- [Coyote] Right, it could be, you know, worms,
that are buried down there, grubs,
digging for roots and tubers and stuff like that,
so this is totally natural bear behavior.
- Yeah and you know, that's a good point,
whenever we work with a captive animal,
that's planned for release back into the wild,
we always try to make sure what we're filming
is part of its natural routine,
- Right. - we don't wanna like
have the animal do something special
or out of the ordinary just for us.
- Right, that's a good point to make,
like we didn't come into this scenario
and say, hey, can we bury marshmallows
to get this bear to stay in the location?
This was part of Bucky's everyday routine,
we just got to be a part of it.
You'll notice how much the light has changed at this point,
I mean, this episode's only about
five and a half minutes in length,
but I think it took us around
an hour and a half to film this one.
- [Mark] Yeah, look how dark it was getting.
- [Coyote] Hm-mm.
- [Mark] Oh Bucky, he still makes me smile.
- Yeah, I wonder how big he is today,
I mean, he's probably a couple of hundred pounds
at this point, this is three and a half years ago
we filmed this.
Look at that tongue. - There he is.
- Oh buddy. (laughing)
- Yeah. - He is very cute,
I can see why people wanna get close to baby bears
to take pictures, - Hm-mm.
- it's probably a good point to mention,
guys, it is super imperative that you never try
to take a selfie with a bear,
I don't care what the species is.
- Especially a baby bear. - Especially a baby bear,
you guys seen The Revenant?
That's a very real scenario that could happen,
where a mother bear will attack a human aggressively,
sometimes fatally to make sure that her cubs are safe
and all species of bears will defend their young.
- Absolutely. - Yeah, yeah,
bears in particular have that instinct,
protect their young, more so than most mammals,
so like yeah, definitely steer clear of cubs in the wild.
- Yeah.
Admire bears from a very safe distance.
That's a little clunky right there, Coyote.
- [Mark] Look at that shadow on the face.
- [Coyote] Yeah.
Oh, I wouldn't say that outro
was as good as a rainbow trout episode,
I was kind of back and forth
with what worked and what didn't work
and then it just wraps up, it still,
I watch these old episodes
and I'm expecting some sort of voiceover outro
with more epic B roll shots
and some sort of poignant moment,
- Yeah. - takeaway from what it is,
it's like end of the episode, - Right.
- here's a big disclaimer.
- Well now, YouTube guys, in screen,
- Right. - so like, you know,
times have changed dramatically,
since these days, - Yeah.
- but I mean, that was a really cool video,
- Yeah, right. - Yeah.
- like you know, Bucky was definitely
a lot of fun to hang out with
and wherever he is now, hopefully he's doing well.
- Yeah.
- I imagine he's probably out there eating berries
and actually, I guess at this point,
he's probably hibernating right now.
- Yeah, that was a good practice for us,
learning how to work with mammals,
we've worked with several mammals since
and as you said,
now we're approaching filming in a different manner,
definitely just kind of allowing
the animal to do its thing.
- Yeah, there's no question about it,
filming with mammals is the most difficult
sort of objective we have, - Yeah.
- whether we're working with a wildlife sanctuary
or we're trying to get up close to mammals in the wild,
it is a challenge each and every time.
- Yeah, often the cuter ones are more of a challenge, right?
- Yeah. - Right.
- And certainly if you can't hold it,
if you can hold something, I guess even still,
even if you can hold it, it's like,
"I'm gonna climb up here and all there,"
and then none of the continuity makes sense,
it's a whole world. - Yeah,
wild animals are not pets, they don't like to be held.
- Yeah, nothing ever likes to be held.
- No. (laughs) - Well cool,
I feel like that was a pretty good episode,
- Yeah. - taking a look back
at Bucky, the baby black bear,
hopefully you guys enjoyed this adventure.
Write in the comments section below,
tell us what episodes you want to see next,
we have a couple of other good classics queued up.
- Classics, - I think at this point--
- it makes you feel old when you call them classics.
- Well, I mean, when you're looking back 300 some videos,
you're saying this is the first 20 videos that we've made,
they're kind of classics.
- Got a lot more gray in my beard, that's for sure.
(laughing) - This is true
and I just have a bigger beard at this point,
I kind of look like a baby black bear.
Alright guys, are you ready for the outro?
- Let's do it. - You know how to do it.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
- I'm Mark Vins.
- I'm Mario Aldecoa.
- Be brave.
- Stay wild. - Stay wild.
- We'll see you on the next Base Camp adventure.
- Getting pretty good at that.
- Hey, that might have been the best one we've done yet.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- We're getting better, was that good for you guys?
- [Cameraman] Yeah!
- Cut! - Alright.
- Cut! - Let's go.
- [Coyote] I think we can all agree
that Bucky was absolutely adorable
and if you never saw this episode,
make sure to go back and watch
Baby Black Bears: The Teddy Bear of the Forest
and don't forget, subscribe, so you can join
me and the crew on our next big adventure.