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animal adventure content is prob-
ably the thing that most surprised
us about YouTube.”
Coyote attributes much of the
channel’s success with the amount
of preparation that went into
making it a reality, “Most people
don’t realize how much work goes
into the pre-production aspect
of what we do. I think it’s one of
the reasons our YouTube channel
grew the way it did.
“We spent a solid, almost five
years of development with the
animal show concept before we
launched the YouTube channel.
That photograph of the snapping
turtle I mentioned was shown to
my producing team in the spring
of 2009. So between 2009 and
2014, there was a lot of work done
to develop the concept...
“We did practice shoots. We
created sizzle reels...Did all
sorts of stuff that never saw the
light of day, but certainly helped
us hone our skills for creatinganimal and adventure content. Sure enough, here
we are, the number one animal and adventure
brand in the world. Certainly in the digital space
and, arguably, in every space at this point.”KEEPING THE WHEELS
IN MOTION
YouTube channels of this nature are different beasts
than something made on a soundstage, or even in the
comfort of one’s own home.
Between travelling and research, I asked Coyote to
help walk me through the production process for a
typical episode:
“For every location we go to, we batch produce. That
means, we’ll go [to a location] for two-four weeks — de-
pending on how far we have to travel — and we will
target maybe 60 different animal species.
“[We’re] not going to find all of them, but we have to be
prepared to know facts about all 60 animals. We may en-
counter 15 of those throughout the course of the trip, [but]
we just have to be ready at the spur of the moment, if I can
make a catch to be able to speak intellectually, with proper
facts and excitement for that animal species.”
This prep work becomes invaluable when unexpect-
ed encounters present themselves, like the giant snail
they came across during their recent South Africa
trip. “We went intending to film things like lions andCOYOTE PETERSON
STAYING WILD
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elephants...and here we find this
giant land snail. People were fasci-
nated by that.”
Aside from the random na-
ture of animal encounters and
treacherous locations, the overall
operation is similar to other pro-
ductions, “When we’re in the field
we get as much content as we can,
then we bring it back into post-
production. We lay out a schedule
as to when content will release
while we’re already planning for
the next trip. That’s how we’ve
kept it going, and we’ve released
two to three pieces of content [per
week] on our channel consistently
for over four years now.”
Brave Wilderness isn’t a one-
man show. Coyote is quick to point
out the efforts of his crew and how
the channel’s success hinged on
that teamwork, “Mark Vins is my
business partner, director, and
one of the producers on our shows.
Mario Aldecoa is our wildlife
biologist, but we have a full time
team of twelve employees (in-
cluding myself) at this point, and
that’s probably one of the smartest
things I think we did.
“When we started the YouTube
channel it was really just myself,
Mark and Mario. I was actually
editing all the episodes. So I was
starring in the episodes and also
editing them — from bringing
the footage into the computer to
final cut. Now we’re in a position
where we’re able to hire editors.
“I’m still very heavily involved
when it comes to creating the
storyline the editors follow. I write
all the voice over scripts that driveSTUNG by a COW KILLER! is one of Coyote’s earliest
sting videos. It brought in well over 300,000 new sub-
scribers in just one day when it was released.010 Coyote Peterson.indd 51 2/19/19 3:00 PM