British Cinematographer - Focus On Wild Filming

BRITISH

CINEMATOGRAPHER

www.britishcinematographer.co.uk Focus On - Issue 05 September 2024

WILD FILMING

DEEP DIVE

UNDERWATER, MACRO, AERIAL, AND SOLO SHOOTING

INTO THE WILD

TRAINING OPTIONS AND ROUTES INTO THE INDUSTRY

EVOLVING ART INDUSTRY SHIFTS AND TECH DEVELOPMENTS

TECHNIQUE EQUIPMENT UNITING VFX AND NATURAL WORLDS PRODUCTIONS IN PROFILE

WILD WORDS OF WISDOM

BRITISH

CINEMATOGRAPHER

U N I T I N G C I N E M AT O G R A P H E R S A R O U N D T H E W O R L D

Publisher | STUART WALTERS +44 (0) 121 200 7820 | stuart.walters@ob-mc.co.uk

W

e’ve ventured to virtual worlds and delved deep into lighting and lenses; but now our Focus On series is highlighting the intrepid and passionate filmmakers capturing the natural world in all its wonder.

Take a walk on the wild side as we guide you through the evolution of natural history production, exploring developments in technological innovation and equipment as well as how the sector has become more diverse and inclusive. Whether you’re already on your wildlife filmmaking journey or about to begin the adventure, discover how some of those working in the sector started out and learnt their craft.

As capturing wildlife takes filmmakers far and wide, they may be faced with extreme environments requiring specialist skills and equipment. Whether it’s underwater, aerial, macro or solo shooting, those who have experienced a variety of wild and wonderful shooting environments reveal the approaches they adopted to capture creatures safely and creatively.

When the latest Focus On topic was announced, it was met with an overwhelming response by those working in this community who were keen to get involved. While there is only room in this guide for a selection of production profiles amidst a sea of phenomenal series and films - Queens, Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory, and Planet Earth III - we look forward to continuing to explore this fascinating area of filmmaking through British Cinematographer’s print and digital coverage to showcase the breathtaking imagery and fascinating stories these talented creatives give viewers access to.

“It’s incredibly inspiring to see so many passionate people in our industry telling amazing stories in a world where reality and docudramas dominate,” wildlife filmmaker Tania Esteban told us. “It brings me much joy that natural history still has a key place in the TV landscape.”

We look forward to seeing what Tania and her peers create next as they continue to capture the big wild world.

Publisher | SAM SKILLER +44 (0) 121 200 7820 | sam@ob-mc.co.uk Editor-in-Chief | ZOE MUTTER +44 (0) 7793 048 749 | zoe@britishcinematographer.co.uk Design | MARK LAMSDALE +44 (0) 121 200 7820 | mark.lamsdale@ob-mc.co.uk Design | MATT HOOD +44 (0) 121 200 7820 | matt.hood@ob-mc.co.uk Sales | LIZZY SUTHERST +44 (0) 7498 876 760 | lizzy@britishcinematographer.co.uk Sales | KRISHAN PARMAR +44 (0) 7539 321 345 | krishan@britishcinematographer.co.uk Head of Digital | TOM WILLIAMS tom@britishcinematographer.co.uk Assistant Editor | HELEN PARKINSON Assistant Editor | ROBERT SHEPHERD robert@britishcinematographer.co.uk Website | PAUL LACEY +44 (0) 121 200 7820 | paul@paullacey.digital Contributors: Mark London Williams, Michael Burns, Phil Rhodes, Daniel Eagan, Trevor Hogg

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We make every effort to ensure the accuracy of all of our articles, but we cannot accept liability for loss or damage arising from the information supplied. The publishers wish to emphasise that the opinions expressed are not representative of Laws Publishing Ltd but the responsibility of the individual contributors.

Until next time, Zoe Mutter, Editor-in-Chief, British Cinematographer

CONTENTS

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Advances in technology have enabled more immersive, detailed and unobtrusive documentation of animal behaviours.

Cinematographers reveal their top wildlife filming techniques, prioritising animal welfare above all else.

The ultimate filming kit, designed to conquer and thrive in the harshest and most challenging conditions nature can present.

Embarking on a career in wildlife cinematography is a dream. Here’s how to take your initial steps into the wild.

Exploring underwater filming opens a new world. Here’s the essential kit for diving into the depths.

EVOLUTION OF WILDLIFE FILMMAKING

WILDLIFE FILMMAKING TECHNIQUES

FILMMAKING EQUIPMENT

TRAINING AND SKILLS

UNDERWATER SHOOTING

Also inside... p22 Pathways to wildlife filmmaking . p30 Macro cinematography . p32 Aerial wildlife cinematography . p36-40 Production profiles Focus On: Wild Filming | 03

EVOLUTION OF WILDLIFE FILMMAKING WORDS: MARK LONDON WILLIAMS

CHANGING HABITS

A wildlife cinematographer doesn’t only capture the results of evolution in the natural world – they also experience it in the very tool boxes they take into the wild: Shifts from film to digits, terrestrial radio to satellite phones, paper maps to GPS systems, and more.

N

one of that means it’s necessarily easier to grab extensive footage of, say, snow leopards or wolverines than before, but certainly to be a wildlife DP now – ironically, in an age where wilderness is more imperiled than ever before – is to have an array of new tools at your (perhaps suncracked or frostbitten) fingertips, starting with the camera and glass in their grip.

Ester de Roij, both a veteran researcher and cinematographer, uses a range of cameras, David Baillie: “No amount of technical wizardry can make up for field work and an understanding of the natural world at the other end of the lens.”

(Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

Getting up close with baby penguins (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

04 | Focus On: Wild Filming

David Baillie has worked across the world – here he is filming penguins (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

such as ARRI Amiras, Sony Venices, RED Heliums and Geminis, and more, on projects like Frozen Planet and Welcome to Earth (among numerous credits). She agrees there’s “been a huge change in technology in the 11 years I’ve been in the industry” though with that, the “increased demand on the quality and look of our sequences has meant more kit on shoots, and more pressure on where we film and what we film.”

Previously, the go-to on long-lens sequences for capturing wildlife in situ, and relatively undisturbed, was Canon’s HJ18, “which with an extender had a much longer reach and was much lighter to carry.” But for most of her years literally in the field, the default has been Canon’s CN20 – with its 20x zoom, which turns out to be “much bigger, bulkier – and sharper.

But you need to get a bit closer to your subject to get the same shot sizes.” As for overhead and terrain-establishing scenes, “drones are thrown at every shoot and are still primarily used for scenics, although I guess it’s relatively cheaper and easier than using a helicopter.”

Recent advancements in camera movement technology are addressing limitations of traditional long-lens setups.

AGITO’s ability to support large camera payloads (up to 150kg) means you can use long lenses dynamically, much like a tripod on wheels. Rob Drewett, cinematographer and cofounder of Motion Impossible explains, “While you could strap a 6-axis gimbal onto a 4x4 to bring immersive tracking to your shots, it has limitations. It’s noisy, you can’t reposition quickly, and it affects wildlife behaviour.

AGITO’s agility, speed and capacity for various camera setups provides a better solution for dynamic long-lens work.” Additionally, being remote controlled, AGITO can access places humans can’t or shouldn’t go, allowing for flexible shots without disturbing the wildlife. “When filming wild dogs for Predators, we could quickly capture the action [pack hunting] with a wide range of camera angles. Any other tool would have meant missing the opportunity.”

David Baillie oversees Wildcat Films, a production company whose motto is “challenging stories for challenging places”. To document some of those challenges, he calls the CN20 www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Ester Roij has worked as a researcher and cinematographer in natural history for 11 years (Credit: Courtesy of Ester de Roij)

Ester Roij: “[The] increased demand on the quality and look of our sequences has meant more kit on shoots, and more pressure on where we film and what we film.”

(Credit: Courtesy of Ester de Roij)

“almost more revolutionary in the genre than the expanding range of digital sensors” and also allows that since he “began natural history filming with WW2 16mm cameras fixed with Meccano to school microscopes in the ‘60s, I can safely say I’ve seen quite a change in the tool box!” But he adds that when filming “natural history, the tool box is only as good as where you can take it. And no amount Wildlife camerawoman Katie of technical wizardry can make up for Wardle has worked on the Bristol field work and an understanding of wildlife scene for many years (Credit: Courtesy of Katie Wardle) the natural world at the other end of the lens.” Those intuitive knacks, he says are usually “something you are process he describes as flying “to the capital’s probably born with or at least stem from a airport, (then) you are picked up by the bus, you childhood steeped in exploring the natural go to the port, you take a boat to the island, and world”. (And which we explore elsewhere in that’s it. After one month, you go back home.” this issue in our “Pathways” article.)

Remote stays which sometimes indemnify But in addition to new gear, Baillie thinks filmmakers if the host country is undergoing there’s room for new approaches, too: “I’ve any roiling politics back at the capital. worked and still work across many genres, He reminded us that in addition to the including current affairs, commercials and cameras one holds or stalks with, wildlife drama. As a result I often find the insular nature cinematography often requires automated remote of natural history production immensely cameras too – the better to capture that elusive frustrating. Sometimes I feel [those] producers charismatic megafauna, with no humans around. should be made to spend a week observing an Nörenberg also uses a gamut of episodic drama shoot or a commercial just to cameras. Alongside his own affinity for ARRIs, open their eyes to other ways of making movies. he, too, will wield a RED when working for the For so long, natural history has effectively been BBC. But for remote work, he’s “really a fan of filmed the same way – in 16:9, usually on a the Sony FX6. It’s just so easy to control it [...] compressed RED sensor, with the ubiquitous and it’s very good on batteries.” And if you have CN20. Wildlife does often require long lens to replace it because “a bear decides to eat it work, but I believe that there is also a role for it’s not as expensive.” the storytelling techniques we use in drama.”

But it’s not only a matter of packing in He notes than an “ARRI sensor can be cameras, snackable or otherwise, to far-flung graded for dramatic effect,” though the RED locations. “You (still) need food, water (and) cameras used by the BBC – which, along with clothes,” to sustain you for weeks at a time. It Netflix and National Geographic, accounts for also helps to know all the basics of first aid, and the bulk of current wildlife documentary “if there is no cellphone connection, we have a production (with Apple TV+ throwing its own satellite (phone) for safety.” hat in the ring) – have advantages “such as a One might also think that when shooting preroll and higher resolution that allow for digitally, in addition to no longer having to carry reframing in post.” But Baillie laments that extra film canisters in your seaplane or Land “unlike drama, the DP has no input to the grade, Rover, that with a satellite phone link, one could if there even is a grade,” and wonders whether feed data back to the “mother ship” – whether the BBC, in “clinging to its attachment to 16:9 in Bristol, Hollywood, or anywhere else – in [...] misses out on the storytelling opportunity more or less real time. for using a widescreen format such as 2.4:1.”

But Nörenberg notes, “there’s so much data, it’s impossible to load.” Everything is REMOTE STAYS “backed up on SSDs and hard drives.” And those – like the cameras themselves – require Widescreen-filling vistas are one of the power. Might that be solar now, to minimise specialities of Ivo Nörenberg, the Norwegianimpacts on the very Earth the documentaries based cinematographer whose credits include are imploring us to save?

White Wolves: Ghosts of the Arctic, A Perfect Planet, Alas. Nörenberg says that “the problem is and the can’t-argue-with-the-title Amerikas beste the solar panel systems, (the ones that) have Idee: 150 Jahre Nationalparks in den USA. enough power, they are so heavy, you mostly We caught up with him after he’d just can’t transport them.” They are not, he says, returned home from another far-flung locale, a

“environmentally friendly”, owing to being “huge and heavy. Gasoline is still the most efficient way to transport energy. Unfortunately.”

And if we can’t even wean ourselves from gasoline, what are our prospects for dealing with other fast-arriving aspects of the future, like AI? Katie Wardle, who describes herself on social media as not only a wildlife camerawoman, but a “long lenser” – and whose credits include National Geographic’s Welcome to Earth, and underwater work on A Year on Planet Earth – says “I think there’s nervousness surrounding the way technology has progressed when it comes to AI, etc.,” but she also doesn’t think “we have much to worry about. [...] The beauty of wildlife stills and film is that it’s authentically true to the moment; the awe of the images comes from the fact it seems unreal to have been captured.

To get an image of a very rare animal, in nice light, in perfect composition doing a behaviour never seen before. I don’t think you can recreate that digitally because the reason it’s special is because of the moment and skill of the person.” In addition to that rather wondrous non-human in front of the lens.

But she also allows that there’s been an increase in “VFX in wildlife series and it’s hit and miss with the audience. In some instances it’s really exciting (and) we can get more creative on location with transitions and storytelling techniques.” Other times, though, it “feels less authentic. The new dinosaur series are huge feats and it’s exciting to see stories of creatures that are historic or mythical [...] But I think it fills a different space in entertainment to normal observational documentaries.”

More importantly, Wardle stresses that “we are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis along with every other major social and environmental crisis happening. I think our shows have a responsibility to document what ‘ephemeral nature’ we have left and I think the audience needs it as a reminder that there’s so much beauty left [worth] fighting for on this planet.

No digital copy can translate the same peace and wonder that the real, tangible natural world can.”

A DELICATE BALANCE

Brian Henderson is the founder of Wildmotion, a group that “represent(s) the entire ecosystem of filmmaking in the natural world”, as their website states, seeking to partner with wildlife filmmakers everywhere, getting them the tools and support they need. He’s also the executive producer of the Hollywood Climate Summit Film and Television Marketplace, and thinks there may be a kind of Goldilocks zone for >> Focus On: Wild Filming | 05

EVOLUTION OF WILDLIFE FILMMAKING WORDS: MARK LONDON WILLIAMS

wildlife filmmaking. On the one hand, “if they get too serious, they turn people off – but if they’re too shallow, they’re not doing anything. Most nature films try to lure you into watching with beauty,” he says. Then come “the zingers”.

Among those zingers, one involves “humpback whales in an Indian Ocean where so much of their food supply has been depleted that they are reduced to floating on their backs – rather than burning energy in pursuit of calories – hoping fish will jump in.”

He also cites an Antarctica that’s getting more rain than snow, as the planet warms.

When that rain freezes, it also freezes young penguins whose bodies aren’t adapted for ice.

But “no one will watch dead baby penguins.”

Henderson also agrees there may be a role for VFX, especially as more species follow those aforementioned dinosaurs to extinction: “Now technology is readily available – to tell stories of things we can’t

see anymore, because animals have died off.

Stories about things we’ve lost so we don’t lose more.” That’s also why he thinks it’s important to “continue to shoot in the highest resolution,” and a reason for “shooting in 8K now; future proofing is going to be a thing.”

Thereby keeping the imagery alive, at least; a survey of how things really were (and potentially, how they might be again), available for viewers who are “maybe two generations behind us – young people who don’t have to be convinced of this issue. Their stories won’t have to convince audiences that they have to care.”

Though Simon de Glanville, an Emmy nominee for Super/Natural and Forces of Nature, with numerous other credits and film festival wins, wonders if it might be possible Simon de Glanville: “I do worry sometimes that in to make the images our quest to always make images as beautiful and look too pretty: “I do pristine as possible, we can unwittingly generate worry sometimes that a sense of complacency in the audience.” in our quest to always (Credit: Courtesy of Simon de Glanville) make images as beautiful and pristine as possible, we can unwittingly generate a sense of complacency in the audience [...]

So often, in pursuit of

Emmy-nominated DP Simon de Glanville filming pigeons (Credit: Courtesy of Simon de Glanville)

these pristine images, we are framing out the human activity that is actually present in so many of these places and I worry that we are doing the audience, and the planet, a disservice by perpetuating the reassuring sense that this untouched natural world still exists.”

Alaska-born Erin Ranney, whose work includes PBS’ Nature, and NatGeo’s Queens series, about matriarchal societies in the wild, actually wrote to us from a remote island (though on the topic of evolution, it was unclear whether it was the Galapagos), via what was described as “a highly expensive WiFi hookup,” and observes that in her “time filming so far, I’ve experienced droughts, hottest seasons in recent history, mass die-offs of wildlife multiple times and animals struggling to adapt to new patterns and systems. It can be really scary to see the consequences of our actions.”

So the evolution isn’t simply one of technology, such as being able to capture night scenes more vividly, or plant a camera in ever remote locations, but one of intent, too: Perhaps reminding viewers – now and future – of those words of B. Traven, the mysterious author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, who may have disappeared into the mountains himself: “This is the real world, muchachos.

And we are all in it.” n

Queens cinematographer and mentee Erin Ranney filming a bear in Alaska (Credit: National Geographic for Disney/Alicia Russo)

Simon de Glanville filming snakes (Credit: Courtesy of Simon de Glanville)

06 | Focus On: Wild Filming

Feel the Difference.

Photo courtesy of Rolf Steinmann

ocon.com Focus On: Wild Filming | 07

SPONSORED CONTENT SACHTLER / OCONNOR WORDS: ADRIAN PENNINGTON

Ben Sadd: “We wanted to capture some amazing, intimate animal behaviours.” (Credit: Ben Cherry)

NO TEA PARTY “

T

he traditional long lens set up has worked well in the past but it is also cumbersome and slow,” explains cinematographer Ben Saad. “We wanted to capture some amazing, intimate animal behaviours.”

Sadd is known for the cinematic look he brings to his work, across documentary, advertising and adventure films, as well as his eagerness to get stuck in.

Taking cues from 2017’s Rise of the Warrior Apes (directed by Reed with scenes photographed by Sadd), largely composed of archive footage filmed over 23 years by scientists on handheld cameras, the pair decided to research kit that would enable a more nimble and close quarters approach for new Netflix docuseries Chimp Empire.

“The aim was to be as intimate with the animals as possible while meeting Netflix deliverables. This led us to develop a new kit list based around camera, lens and tripod which we took out every day.”

Like Warrior Apes, Chimp Empire is a KEO Films and Underdog Films production which returns to the forests of Ngogo, Uganda and follows the largest group of chimpanzees ever discovered. The four part series explores the chimp’s complex society and how their ambition and that of neighbouring rivals threatens to destabilise their empire. It is narrated by Academy Award Winner Mahershala Ali. The documentary was shot largely on the EOS C300 Mark III, a camera light enough to be carried whilst still fulfilling Netflix 4K delivery specifications.

As lead cinematographer Sadd was on five out of the six shoots, spending about seven months there in total over a year and a half, in rotation with other camera teams. Each DP shot alongside a local Ugandan field assistant with expert knowledge of the chimps’ behaviour. They also became tripod and camera assistants both walking up to 20km a day with a 17kg backpack.

Each of the camera operators used a package based on the C300 but tailored to the individual strengths of the operator, whether handheld, gimbal, long lens or a combination of them all.

Sadd explains, “A lot of wildlife filmmaking is done on RED, which have great cameras but required you to take several extra

08 | Focus On: Wild Filming

The traditional approach to filming chimpanzees and many other species in their natural habitat is to use a large camera and a very long lens necessitating a large and heavy tripod, but Oscar-winning director James Reed (My Octopus Teacher) and cinematographer Ben Sadd (Jago: A Life Underwater; Frozen Planet II) wanted to do it differently. batteries with you for the day. The C300’s power consumption is much leaner so we needed just three batteries and that instantly dropped kilos of weight that you don’t have to take into the forest with you.”

The main lens was a Canon CN10X25 25mm-250mm with a CN20 for close-up details mounted to an OConnor Ultimate 1040 fluid head. Suitable for payloads from 0 to 45 lbs, the Ultimate 1040 brings the same quality

build, precision, and ultra-smooth fluid camera movement found on the larger OConnor 2575 and 2560 heads to a smaller system that enables cinematographers to use lighter camera setups without compromise.

He combined the Ultimate 1040 head with OConnor’s carbon fibre flowtech100 tripod. With its revolutionary quick release brakes, the tripod could be rapidly deployed and quickly adjusted for the variable terrain.

The main lens was a Canon CN10X25 25mm-250mm with a CN20 for close-up details mounted to an OConnor Ultimate 1040 fluid head (Credit: Ben Cherry)

www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Chimp Empire has been nominated for a BAFTA (Credit: Ben Cherry)

Sadd says, “Given the speed at which chimps move you’ve got to be quick to move with them - again and again. So that lighter weight set-up of the 1040 and the speed of the flowtech legs was essential to filming our chimps. “’Because you’re shooting at hip level you can’t use an EVF so we used SmallHD 502 Bright monitors. This also meant that our field / camera assistant can see what we were filming from behind and then suggest other shots, anticipating better positions to capture behaviour.”

They would follow the chimps all day.

They might be up a tree eating figs for hours but the crew would have to be ready for the moment they would all come down and bolt through the forest. “You’ve got to try and keep up with them,” he relates. “It’s all about being there for the behaviour as it happens.”

Ngogo is unique in housing two habituated groups of chimps so if there are intergroup encounters, it is possible to film them without impacting behaviour. During the 18 month shoot there was a battle between the two groups which the team was lucky enough to film. When we started filming this was the ‘holy grail’ OConnor Ultimate 1040 fluid head and in story terms, but the chimps flowtech100 tripod of Ngogo delivered beyond what we could possibly have storyboarded.”

He explains that a lot of the time in natural history filmmakers have a sequence in mind, say a mating ritual, and spend weeks on location building towards that. “It is less important who the individuals are or what the subtleties of behaviour are than just capturing that sequence.

If you see something else that’s amazing but doesn’t fit the narrative you wouldn’t prioritise it. Chimp Empire on the other hand felt like a fresher approach to

wildlife filming. We are going out to see what happens and that was going to be the story.”

One of the few downsides of the C300 for wildlife filming is that it lacks a pre-record (cache) function (it has 3 seconds when shooting on-speed). That meant they shot a lot of material. “You don’t know when the behaviour you want is going to happen.

In the first month we didn’t know what the stories were or who the main characters were going to be, nor can you quickly recognise individual chimps. By the end you learn which trees they like to use and you can identify ‘Jackson’ from ‘Miles’ or ‘Christine’ and if you have the wrong combination of characters, you don’t need to shoot it.”

Exposing for a black chimpanzee in the dark forest is extremely tricky. The crew had histograms and zebras to help get the exposure right but it wasn’t easy adjusting for dark forest floor and then intense bright areas of light.

“The dual gain sensor of the C300 has so much latitude for such a small, relatively affordable camera,” Sadd reports. “We had a LUT on the monitor but when we reviewed it back everything looked over exposed. You had this moment of panic that everything was wasted but then you’d check the LOG image in HDR and it’s all in there.”

Shooting in Canon RAW Light gave the postproduction team at Evolutions in Bristol the opportunity to pull detail from the shadows.

“After the first shoot we did some grade tests to see what was working and what wasn’t and which ISOs we could push it to,” he says.

The crew also carried a lighter weight Sachtler aktiv8 flowtech75 system capable of payloads of up to 12kg and offering a unique SpeedLevel technology that can be levelled in seconds.

While the kit for this doc was purchased by the production, Sadd himself now owns a Sachtler head and flowtech legs. “I use them for everything now, including recently on a beach filming green turtles where I could get it almost flat to the ground. It’s hard to go back to a traditional tripod after using them.”

One of the field assistants, Diana Kanweri, showed an aptitude for camera work and a lot of material she shot made it into the finished program. She has since landed an internship based in the UK. “It’s an amazing success story of empowering local operators and it also benefitted our program since we had someone there all the time when we couldn’t be present to cover behaviour.”

One of the chimps was killed while they were filming (in a fight with other chimps) so he became a key character in the edit. “The archive was suddenly invaluable.

The documentary was shot largely on EOS C300 Mark III (Credit: Ben Cherry)

Exposing for a black chimpanzee in the dark forest was challenging for the filmmakers (Credit: Ben Cherry)

We started off very broad, shooting everything, and we narrowed it down which all adds to the authenticity of the show.”

That unexpected death was a standout moment even for field veterans like Sadd. “I’ve filmed different species all round the world and this is the first time I’ve seen a human-like emotional response to something. You can see the other chimps coming over and inspecting the body as if asking ‘what has happened?’”

The team behind Chimp Empire are currently working on a project filming gorillas using the same lens and tripod. The series is also nominated for a BAFTA for Specialist Factual programme. n Ben Sadd’s other credits include Jago: A Life Underwater and Frozen Planet II (Credit: Ben Cherry)

Focus On: Wild Filming | 09

WILDLIFE FILMMAKING TECHNIQUES WORDS: MICHAEL BURNS

NATURE KNOW-HOW Providing a definitive overview of how to shoot wildlife is a near-impossible task. However, with help from a selection of brilliant and very experienced cinematographers, we can cover some of the ground rules.

I

n terms of kit, many cinematographers say the smaller the creature tends to be, the more things you need to pack to shoot it.

For shooting, the stalwart ARRI film cameras and Panasonic VariCam have been succeeded by a succession of RED cameras and the Sony FX9 as the workhorses for wildlife cinematographers.

“The RED units are very compact and very versatile,” says cinematographer and director Jonathan Jones. “You have a huge amount of flexibility with framing. In natural history, you often capture a moment that you need to reframe slightly. Or if you’ve shot it very static, you might need to push in and track, to make it a tracking shot so that it cuts with the next one.”

“The Sony FX9 is like a documentary camera,” says Mathieu Le Lay, a filmmaker based in the French Alps. “When you travel to remote locations and you want to be discreet, you don’t want to bring a crew of four. It’s got a very cinematic image, Jonathan Jones tends to get records audio nicely, and involved in sequences that require has variable ND. And I more than just capturing the animal (Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Jones) always bring an Alpha

For filmmaker Mathieu Le Lay, local knowledge is precious (Credit: Larisa Oltean)

A7SR, a small mirrorless camera. I love that combination, especially in low-light conditions.”

As in any cinematography, the subject determines the lens, but the Canon CN20 50-1000mm cine servo lens seems to be a constant choice.

“That lens has been a game changer. It’s one of the unsung heroes of wildlife filmmaking,” says wildlife DP and cameraman Paul Stewart.

“A zoom lens is your composition tool – zooming out, finding it and then zooming in to the sweet point of the composition. If something is close up, the focus motor is a very nice way to do the micro changes you require without transmitting vibration.”

TELLING THE STORY

Mathieu Le Lay includes natural elements in his compositions that convey his emotional reaction to the environments he’s shooting in.

Patience and contemplation are key: “If you take the time to just observe and listen, you’ll miss some of the things happening in your surroundings,” he says.

“If it’s a dramatic subject, say a hunting snow leopard, then you might want to have it

Behind the scenes on Our Universe in Alaska with David Baillie (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

10 | Focus On: Wild Filming

David Baillie is one of many DPs who feels that wildlife could be covered in more interesting ways (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

Jonathan Jones highlights the importance of understanding editing as a wildlife filmmaker (Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Jones)

centrally framed,” says documentary cinematographer Duncan Parker. “In a scenario where you’re setting up the character in its landscape to build a story, I go slightly off to one side. I use the landscape to guide me, preferring to have a leading line in the foreground that pushes you to the middle third.”

“From very early on In the water in I’ve always tried to have the South Georgia classic thirds framing, but (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie) considering all the time how the action is likely to develop,” says Stewart. “Can I just leave that frame static? Will the behaviour develop into it? Then if it goes the wrong way, you try again, but if it goes the right way, it almost looks like you are predicting the future with your framing.

“The main thing (and the CN20 helps) is to get the really big close-up,” he continues. “From the moment you’ve got that shot where the head or just the eyes are filling the frame, viewers are empathising with that creature. You’ve changed it from being purely observational.”

Parker suggests focus peaking to keep things sharp. “If I boost the sharpness by about 6% on the RED monitor, it helps to nail the focus. Focus assist on the SmallHD monitors is also good.

“I’ll use the monitor if I’m doing gimbal work, but in a hide with the long lens, I’ll use the viewfinder,” he adds. “For moving animals and tracking, even if the body goes out of focus, or if you’re at a shallow depth, keep those eyes sharp.”

“My favourite [focus] method is to use manual, but I’ll also use some form of mechanical focus on a very long lens,” says Stewart. “Vibration is always noticeable; it can be the tiniest bouncing movement on a static shot, but it just spoils it,” he adds. “If there’s an 80mph wind where the action’s happening, you’ve got no choice; you just learn to hide those vibrations and errors in your tilt and pan.”

“By reading the animal’s body language, you can position yourself based on knowing how the animals respond and where they’re going to go,” says wildlife DP Miguel Willis.

“There is a certain degree of needing to be ready to respond quickly.”

“Once you know an animal, a lot is to do with anticipation,” agrees Stewart. “If that tortoise takes three steps towards you and then stops every time, you’ll know to pull towards that stop even before he does.”

CREATIVE TOUCH

David Baillie, who also works in drama and commercials, is one of many who feel that wildlife could be covered in more interesting ways.

“With a lot of wildlife, you sit in the hide and need the longest lens possible. Once you’re in the hide, you can’t move, so the shots are very similar,” he says. “But with wildlife that you can get close to, I’m a great believer in working with a slider and a wide-angle lens; if you get a bit of movement on a wide you get a parallax effect, and that little extra dynamic can add drama and life to an otherwise static shot. We shot penguins in South Georgia in anamorphic on quite wide primes, and it was just fabulous.”

Jones tends to get involved in sequences that require more than just capturing the animal.

“For example, you can tell the story of how a lack of water causes elephants to struggle in certain parts of Africa. The last strips of water, the

cracking of the ground, and the heat haze are all story elements that aren’t just the animal walking through the frame.”

Understand editing, he advises. “If you don’t know how your footage cuts together, then how can you possibly know what to shoot?”

For stabilisation, Baillie has used the ARRI SRH-360 remote head on boats, “shooting [animals] on a beach or the land for a different perspective”, while Willis is a big fan of the Steadicam. “It’s a lot easier to get low and have a great degree of subtle control that you don’t always get with gimbals, moving around the animal with much more finesse and composing shots better,” he says. “I’ve also mounted my Steadicam with a gimbal on it to use like a crane shot when filming rockhopper penguins bouncing up a cliff.”

Many cinematographers shoot with ‘baby legs’ tripods that allow the camera to be around a height of 40cm - the eye level of many animals. “If you’re on a cliff face or rock face, I’ll often bring a sandbag and pull that tripod down deep to the ground as possible and create stability,” says Parker. “If conditions are windy, you need a few bar supports on the long lens.”

Jones likes to travel with a crane.

“You can drift, you can push over a cliff face, you can take your audience in and out of the stories,” he says. “I’m a big fan of keeping the camera moving; I like those stories to be dynamic [especially given the short attention spans of children like his own, he adds].

“However, if the behaviour is amazing, and the animal is doing something remarkable, then you don’t need to move the camera because just seeing it or capturing it is enough.” >>

Filming the “Painted Wolves” episode of the BBC’s Dynasties in Zimbabwe in 2018. Left to right: Bill Rudolph, sound; Paul D. Stewart, DP; Sir David Attenborough, presenter; Rupert Barrington, series producer; Mike Gunton, executive producer and BBC NHU creative director (Credit: Nick Lyon)

Focus On: Wild Filming | 11

WILDLIFE FILMMAKING TECHNIQUES WORDS: MICHAEL BURNS

Jonathan Jones likes to travel with a crane (Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Jones)

Mathieu Le Lay includes natural elements in his compositions that convey his emotional reaction to the environments he’s shooting in (Credit: Laurent Baheux)

LOOKING AFTER YOUR KIT AND YOURSELF

Filming wildlife can involve working in remote or extreme environments for many weeks without support.

According to Jones, you need to be aware of your surroundings, both weather and knowing culturally what you can and can’t do. Mutual respect for everyone on the team is also vital – you’ll spend a long time together.

“Local knowledge is precious,” says Le Lay. “Local guides know the environment David Baillie’s work has taken and the habits of the animals him to some of the world’s – where they [normally] stand, most remote locations (Credit: rest, or hunt.”

Courtesy of David Baillie) Le Lay says filming in extreme environments means remembering to keep more successfully,” says Stewart. “Equally, rainy hydrated, not just keeping the body warm LIGHTING THE WAY and cloudy days can give you phenomenal – he recommends layered pairs of gloves – Le Lay prioritises using natural light in his moods if you pull out to a wider scene. but the gear too, particularly batteries. filmmaking, often pushing the contrast in the “These days, especially with skilful “Filming in the Yukon, we had about six hours shadows and using silhouettes for aesthetic grading, people are being braver about of daylight, so solar panels couldn’t recharge effect. “I always try to play with a mix of light developing grittier sequences that show how the batteries,” he says. “You can’t shoot if the and darkness,” he the animal actually lives,” batteries are dying, it’s game over, so we had says. “I never use he adds. “It isn’t all about to keep the batteries inside our clothes, close artificial lights.” beautiful dawn light.” to the skin, even having them in the sleeping “For the “If you’re filming bag while we slept!”

Planet Earth shoots anything the sun is “When it’s below -20°C, you get a lot of we were so far away fantastic, but if for latency on the image because the LED screens from snow leopards, whatever reason it’s tend to slow down in that temperature,” says but we knew the overcast, I can backlight Parker. “We’ll build a wall of ‘handwarmer’ heat sun was going to hit the subject,” says Jones. pads around the monitor, topping them up a hill in a particular “I’ve taken a small Jokerevery three hours. We often use outdoor kit way,” says Parker.

Bug HMI lamp with me on storage at -3°C, so it doesn’t fog.

“I positioned myself pretty much every shoot.”

“In jungles, one of the things you to get some nice You’ve got to encounter is condensation and build-up of CINEMATOGRAPHER AND DIRECTOR JONATHAN JONES power those fixtures, he side light and when mould,” he adds. “We normally have a Peli the animals went notes, though LED lighting case filled with silicone balls and put heated near the rock face, you’d get the fill from the has made this easier. “Sometimes a good pads inside. If you get moisture in any reflection of the natural light on the rock.” reflector can do wonders,” Jones says, warning component, whether it’s lenses or inside a When working with lights, Parker of the dangers of it looking too artificial when camera, it goes in there overnight and the uses RoadRags, “a portable set of flags and bouncing light onto a subject. “Another thing silicone sucks out all moisture.” gobos, bounce fills, and interesting things”, to remember is there’s only one sun, especially “Cameras have got better humidity and and modifies them such as adding camo if you’re filming something shiny, or if you’ve moisture seals these days, it’s inevitable when netting over the top to get ‘under the canopy’ got multiple highlights in the eye. shooting in the tropics,” says Stewart. “Salt dappled lighting.

“The viewer should never know the spray [on islands] is a big problem – it’s a “With the latitude of the cameras now, difference, whether it’s lit artificially or combination of a corrosive substance and we’ve found that we can capture beautiful naturally. It’s also what’s right for the animals. water. You learn what combination of bags, images in the heat of midday without losing As filmmakers, we need to make sure that umbrellas, and then TLC with silica gel late any highlights and create that mood of heat animal welfare is number one.” n at night is enough to get you through.”

“AS FILMMAKERS, WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT ANIMAL WELFARE IS NUMBER ONE.”

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www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

SPONSORED CONTENT BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

With limited resources available in the field, the production team needed versatile tools to capture high-quality footage while minimising logistical complexities (Credit: Conservation Film Company)

CAPTURING THE GRIT AND GLORY

Guardians - a gripping new documentary series filmed using Blackmagic RAW - sheds light on the courageous work of anti-poaching rangers in the Zambezi Delta of Mozambique.

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roduced by Conservation Film Company for EarthxTV, sevenepisode documentary Guardians tracks the efforts of anti-poaching rangers - the unsung heroes - as they protect endangered wildlife in one of Africa’s most challenging environments.

Through stunning cinematography and intimate storytelling, each episode offers a unique glimpse into the daily struggles and the triumphs of these dedicated individuals.

“Guardians is a character-led factual series that goes beyond the headlines to show audiences the effort that goes into safeguarding wildlife in Africa through the eyes of the local people on the front line,” explains Sean Viljoen, series director (and camera operator). “We wanted to tell their story as cinematically as possible.”

During the recent civil war in the country wildlife across all species, including large mammals, declined by 90 per cent. It was then protected and wildlife recovered but as human populations have grown, there are now abundant wildlife numbers and subsistence poaching has crept back in as well as some poaching for bush meat markets.

Conservation Film Company spent seven weeks filming alongside the 19 rangers employed to protect the vast 2,000 sq km of the Coutada 11 safari concession in Mozambique. With limited resources available in the field, the production team needed versatile tools to capture high-quality footage while minimising logistical complexities.

Having been “blown away” by the image quality of Blackmagic cameras when making a feature rhino documentary a few years back, Viljoen switched to Blackmagic and now has a full Blackmagic Design workflow for nearly every project.

For Guardians they carried a broad kit list including the URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF and several Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pros (BMPCC 6K Pro), offering exceptional image quality and versatility, allowing the crew to capture cinematic footage in various shooting conditions.

Most content was handheld and crew were often jumping on the back of motorbikes with the anti-poaching rangers. “That limited the amount of kit we could bring, but there was also a number of different types of content we were trying to cover. All our cameras were rigged as lightly as possible for a run-and-gun type setup.”

For most of the dialogue content they relied on the URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF often using the BMPCC 6K Pro as the third camera, either on a longer lens like a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 or a Canon 200-400mm f4 lens. The 12K OLPF was fitted with a Fujinon XK20-120mm T3.5, and the 12K primarily used with DZO Cine Zooms.

The URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 helped for lower light situations and having it as a separate wildlife specific rig meant to minimise the time to re-rig when switching between filming wildlife and following our contributors.

Alternatively, they had the BMPCC 6K Pro rigged for a Ronin S3 Pro gimbal, with a Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 lens and for filming in confined spaced, such as inside vehicles riding alongside the anti-poaching team. Aerial shots were captured with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro. Joining Viljoen on the crew were DP Garth de Bruno Austin, camera operator Keenan Ferguson and editor Joe Krenzer who doubled duties as DIT. Krenzer set up an edit station in a tent offloading cards to two 32 Terabyte G-Raid drives via ShotPut Pro to create proxies overnight ready to edit the next day. Across the series they recorded 25 TB of data.

All post-production including editing, colour grading and mastering was done in DaVinci Resolve Studio. “Whether it’s a bigger budget production with a lot of people at our facility in Cape Town or just me travelling around with my laptop it allows us to stay on one platform,” says Viljoen Conservation Film Company arranged a special screening of episodes for the rangers and their families projected onto a local hall.

“It was important to us to share what we filmed with the community because outside of the rangers themselves, few local people even understand all of what they do to track, stakeout and apprehend poachers and why they do it.”

“We have hopefully done justice to the remarkable work these anti-poaching rangers do for audiences worldwide, inspiring action and raising awareness about wildlife conservation.” n Guardians follows anti-poaching rangers as they protect endangered wildlife in one of Africa’s most challenging environments (Credit: Conservation Film Company)

Focus On: Wild Filming | 13

SPONSORED CONTENT WOMEN IN WILDLIFE / ARRI WORDS: ADRIAN PENNINGTON

FEMALE FORCE Networking and support group Women in Wildlife (WiW) is connecting and amplifying women working within the wildlife industry.

We hear from its founder and members about the group’s vital work.

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he planet is facing climate and biodiversity loss crises that impact all of humanity and yet globally, women remain underrepresented in leading solutions to these urgent conservation challenges.

A study by The Nature Conservancy of the world’s largest conservation organisations found that men influence conservation and science decisions more than women. It said women experience sexual harassment and discrimination. Meanwhile, men reported the sector as a more equitable and favourable place for women than women themselves experienced.

A 2020 paper by US biologist Wendy Anderson outlined ways to mitigate gender bias in the sector including changes to recruitment, pay transparency, and career development policies.

Her work inspired Australian wildlife biologist Eliza Stott to do something about it.

In 2021, she launched Women in Wildlife (WiW), a networking and support group whose primary goal is to connect and amplify women working within the wildlife industry.

She explains, “The three most significant unmet needs by women in wildlife agencies have been found to include opportunities for career development, lack of a strong female network, and flexible working hours.

“We hope to create a network of strong females working within the industry, to help bridge one of the gaps which are preventing women from thriving in dream wildlife careers.”

Her own experience throughout her university career, including now completing a PhD in wildlife parasitology, along with working within the wildlife industry fed into founding Women in Wildlife.

“The fact that women don’t feel they have other women they can lean on within the industry for support is an issue I wanted to address,” says Stott.

While nurturing roles such as zookeepers, vets, and nurses tend to be female, men tend to dominate roles in the field or in decision making roles within wildlife management.

14 | Focus On: Wild Filming

Melissa Christi is a self-taught nature photographer (Credit: Sabrina Lauriston)

The sector is incredibly competitive and many entry level jobs require volunteer experience. In a lot of cases that can lead to people’s time being exploited. The zoo industry is particularly poor in this regard, she says, where there is limited flexibility around individual needs.

“The underlying issue is that the industry is so competitive and male dominated,” Stott says.

Women in Wildlife is one of many groups that have sprung up to challenge the status quo. It recently expanded to a team of 12 – all volunteers – producing

newsletters, webinars, a podcast and a schools outreach program. Over half of members are Antipodean with growth strongest in the UK, the US, Africa and Asia working in every aspect of the sector from researchers to veterinarians to cinematographers. WiW’s Instagram account has 7,800 followers and it’s about to launch an official membership program.

“We want to change the dial and highlight all the positive work women do and career pathways for women coming into the industry worldwide,” Stott says. n https://women-in-wildlife.com

Wildlife biologist Eliza Stott founded Women in Wildlife in 2021

www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Gail Jenkinson (left) has found great benefit in being part of a supportive community like Women in Wildlife

GAIL JENKINSON Being part of a community such as WiW that is supportive of, and encouraging to other women working within the wildlife genre of filmmaking has been of great benefit to cinematographer Gail Jenkinson.

Advances in kit and technology have also helped her capture animals in action – when filming in high speed - behaviours that might not be possible to see with the naked eye. When regularly using cameras and equipment in extreme environments for wildlife filming, reliability and quality are essential. “This comes from cameras such as the Alexa Mini, which I’ve used in the Arctic, on land and sea, as you can be confident they won’t let you down in the cold,” says Jenkinson. “The Amira is a wonderful camera to use on your shoulder in fast-paced scenarios, ergonomically so well designed, so you can concentrate on creating images and capturing behaviour, that straight out of the camera, already looks beautiful.” n

MELISSA CHRISTI Sophie Darlington wishes an initiative like Women in Wildlife had existed when she started out

gailjenkinson.co.uk

STEPH VARLEY Freelance photographer Steph Varley studied photojournalism at Leeds University and combined that with her interest in travel and wildlife.

“At university I didn’t realise this could be a career. I thought if you worked with wildlife you had to be a vet and if you wanted to do photography or journalism it was with newspapers. It wasn’t until I went onto social media that I was able to see there was a collaborative approach into my dream job.”

Varley is early into making a transition from photography to videography. A motivational speech by wildlife documentarian (and fellow WiW member) Roxy Rogan encouraged her to be more active online. n Effyimages.co.uk

Steph Varley is a freelance wildlife photographer, early into making a transition into videography

SOPHIE DARLINGTON

Field ecologist Melissa Christi is a self-taught nature photographer who turned her love of the outdoors into a hobby then a profession.

“After getting frustrated seeing fantastic little fungi, or some remarkable behavioural interaction that I might never see again, I realised that taking photos gave me a method of preserving those moments in time. I started with a tiny digital camera that fitted in the palm of my hand, and photographed everything I could.”

“When I started out ten years ago I didn’t see a lot of female cinematographers or photographers. That has changed for the better but one challenge is to see this follow through to higher levels of conservation which is still mostly populated by men. n

Wildlife filmmaker Sophie Darlington believes WiW plays a valuable role in supporting women starting out in the industry. “It’s an important resource that I wish had been around 30 years ago. At least now we can share our experiences as well as encourage new talent in a safe space,” she says.

As technology plays a pivotal role in shaping the stories she wants to tell, particularly in wildlife narratives where swift and confident reactions are crucial, kit choice is pivotal for Darlington. With advancements in technology, filmmakers now have a broader toolkit at our disposal for storytelling and on recent productions, her go-to choice has been the ARRI Alexa35. “With its impressive 17 stops of dynamic range, intuitive user interface, and outstanding colour science, it provides the perfect combination of flexibility and quality,” she says. “The OLED MVF-2 viewfinder ensures edge-to-edge sharpness is essential for keeping fast-moving subjects in focus, while the option to shoot up to 120fps at 4K resolution adds versatility for capturing dynamic scenes.”

Latitude, contrast, colours, and sensitivity are key when Darlington shoots in remote locations. “The dynamic range of our equipment, along with its colour science and low-light capabilities, are paramount because we often encounter unpredictable light conditions,” she says. “Whether it’s capturing a sequence in the soft dawn light or harsh midday sun, we must have the confidence that our footage will grade aesthetically and convincingly across varied scenarios. As documentary filmmakers, we lack the luxury of controlled conditions; instead, we adapt to whatever unfolds before our lens.

Therefore, having equipment that can handle these challenges with flexibility and reliability is essential to successfully capturing the story.” n

melc.photography

sophiedarlington.com

https://Adhvaya.org

Praneetha Monipi has recently launched her own conservation non-profit, Adhvaya: Beyond Barriers

PRANEETHA MONIPI With almost two decades of experience working as an independent conservationist and animal welfare worker, Praneetha Monipi recently launched conservation non-profit, Adhvaya: Beyond Barriers.

“I want to change the perception that conservation only happens in forests and remote places when it can happen in urban areas or wherever you are,” she says. “I want to build something that is not for an elite group of research scientists and conservationists but brings people together every day.”

Monipi, who has a Masters in conservation from Oxford Brookes, has also encountered male bias at every stage. “The value of platforms like Women of the Wild India and WiW is to know that you are not alone in dealing with [issues like harassment]. I’ve been threatened with rape and followed when out in the field. This happens to other women.

Knowing there is a community that understands your struggles and offers coping mechanisms such as mental health strategies is one way of overcoming male imposed restrictions.” n

Focus On: Wild Filming | 15

FILMMAKING EQUIPMENT WORDS: PHIL RHODES

KITTED OUT FOR SUCCESS Film and TV projects have long combined custom-built equipment with the latest high technology, and that seems even more common in natural history work.

Katie Mayhew is often commissioned to create equipment for specific setups (Credit: David Plummer)

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he natural history field demands material that’s novel and achieves the sort of high-end gloss that’s become a baseline. Katie Mayhew describes it as “the blue chip look that everyone’s striving for, the sort of look that was created by the original Frozen Planet and Planet Earth. We have to create better and better sequences.”

Mayhew began her career, as is not uncommon in the field, without film school.

“I went to Stroud College and did an art and design foundation course for a year, but I only specialised in medium format stills photography. I started as a runner at Films at 59 in Bristol. I was among people who had a full degree and a masters, and we all started off on the same foot. I worked my way up the ranks doing camera assisting work and finally went freelance around five years ago.”

Mayhew’s engineering experience began at Silverback Films in Bristol, where she recalls “we were forever developing new ideas

Anna Dimitriadis did her first dive when she was 12, spending summers on the beach and in the sea (Credit: Alex Hamed)

in-house... having that experience of working where they have the facilities and the budget to do things gave me an insight into what I’d be able to achieve on my own.” Now independent, Mayhew is often commissioned to create equipment for specific setups. “I’ll build things to get the shot the producer wants. It’s all very DIY, slightly adapted pieces of kit ripped apart and turned into something else. One bit of kit doesn’t necessarily suit all needs, so you’re forever problem solving and bolting different bits of kit together.”

That equipment arises, Mayhew says, from a variety of places. “I work a lot with Kessler Crane, in the States, and also a Camblock system. I’ve rebuilt the Camblock to take the Kessler, so it’s now a hybrid.

I swapped all the electronics out for Kessler systems, but you can do it all with your own stepper motors and a series of Arduinos if you want to go down that route. If I’m creating something for myself from scratch I use Arduino. It’s a brilliant thing to learn, then you can create lighting control systems, moco systems, and robots.”

Career highlights include specialist rigs for the BBC’s Wild Isles, with Mayhew contributing to five of the six episodes.

“I worked on the adder sequence, butterflies, toads, spiders, bats, roe deer, tawny owls.

For the adders we had to undersling an entire slider setup and be able to remotely operate it so the adders weren’t disturbed by our presence. For wood ants, we had to adapt the sliders and moco systems so we could poke through these ant highways, from the wide world down to the nano-world of the ants.

We made jib arms that went on sliders with probe lenses.”

“At the moment,” Mayhew concludes, “I’m rebuilding my studio with a big robot for making lots of macro bits of plants. I’m forever creating and chopping up different bits and finding I’ve drilled a hole in the wrong place and have to do it again!” www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Wildlife filmmaking kit needs to survive in the harshest conditions - see Mohan Sandhu’s desert setup in Namibia (Credit: Courtesy of Mohan Sandhu)

After beginning his career at Aardman, Mohan Sandhu has found his calling making amazing motion control and rigging systems for wildlife cinematography (Credit: Courtesy of Mohan Sandhu)

MOCO MAESTRO

Mohan Sandhu’s career is just as hard to characterise. “It’s been such a random 10-year career,” he begins. “I design, build, operate and rent camera equipment for wildlife - anything that sort of slips between the cracks of regular rental house motion picture kit, from not-toomacro on small critters, to 20 or 30 times magnification stuff for moco rigs. I build a lot of underwater gear.”

Sandhu started out at Aardman, operating motion control equipment for stopmotion shoots, “but I really didn’t consider engineering as a career until I finished the feature I worked on at Aardman… there isn’t a huge demand for stop-motion motion control operators. I started tinkering and building things while waiting for responses to letters and emails, then someone came along and asked if they could use the kit I was building in my spare time.”

Not many people’s spare-time projects involve multi-axis underwater motion control rigs, but Sandhu built one for Blue Planet II after previous projects with cinematographer

built one that can do sub-micron moves.

You could film on a microscope slide. You’re controlling the rig with joysticks just like a PTZ camera, then you look away from the monitor and realise a big move is half a millimetre. The other day I was doing a little move around an ant’s eye, probably about twenty-five-times macro, and you get lost in the monitor.”

Sandhu has, as he puts it, “done some crazy things. I’ve built four different treadmills for ants and beetles. Starfish are really problematic - they end up destroying coral reefs and they have to be moved out of the way, and they’re spiky, so I made barbecue tongs out of marine grade stainless. I remember being in the Namib desert chasing baboons around with an RC car. Nobody in careers advice at school told me it was a job to chase monkeys around with an RC car. This is my job.

It’s surreal.”

Gavin Thurston. “He’s one of the big players, and we came up with a project together which took me about eight months to build. I built a carbon fibre crane, super lightweight. I thought ‘I don’t know what’s going on the end of this,’ then the first Mōvi [gimbal] came out. Off the back of that, Gavin was talking to Blue Planet II, which I, being very eager, tried to knock out of the park.”

Sandhu also found himself at Silverback, where he worked on “underwater kit and THERMAL IMAGING TECHNOLOGY remote cameras for a bird project. The inhouse second shooter wasn’t available so they At the other end of the scale, the drive for asked if I wanted to go to Papua New Guinea pictures to capture the imagination of new for two and a half months on Dancing with the audiences pushes the world’s most refined Birds for Netflix.” technology to the limits. Anna Dimitriadis is The exigencies of working with one of very few people who have used animals, though, can scupper the most careful Leonardo’s SLX-SuperHawk thermal imaging plans. “I built a bunch of different rigging camera in natural history production. systems, a remote pan and tilt head and a Launched in 2019, the camera is one of few slider but there was no way we could use that. capable of medium-wave infrared thermal None of the subjects I filmed would tolerate images (as distinct from simpler shortwave, that kind of movement. I wasn’t shooting security-camera-style infra-red pictures) much long lens, but on the CN20 the females suitable for HD production. >> would scarper when zooming the lens, just from elements moving. You couldn’t even Anna Dimitriadis is one of reposition the camera from the few filmmakers to have used the SLX-Superhawk the hide. Any slow reflection (Credit: Alex Hamed) would be an issue.”

Sandhu’s most recent work involves the very small, though without sacrificing the opportunity to lose oneself in a spectacular image. “I’ve just

Anna Dimitriadis’ recent projects include Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory and Animals up Close with Bertie Gregory, Sentient and Underworld (Credit: Sam Stewart)

Focus On: Wild Filming | 17

FILMMAKING EQUIPMENT WORDS: PHIL RHODES

Dimitriadis began early. “I think I did my first dive when I was 12. I’m half-Greek and I spent summers on the beach and in the sea. I started working in broadcast television before realising that my passion was wildlife, then I started doing everything that I could in order to reach that goal.”

Thermal imaging cameras have traditionally suffered limited resolution and image quality, but the SuperHawk is “1280 by 1024, which is pretty incredible really,” Dimitriadis enthuses. “The sort of detail you can get is incredible. It’s being used by the military, and they need to know if someone’s holding a weapon or a toy. The lens is 27400mm with 15x zoom, so you can get in there, and it’s been absolutely mindblowing.”

Dimitriadis describes the camera body as an intimidating chunk of technology. “It’s 20

kilograms so you’re quite restricted. We’ve been using side mounts on land cruisers so you have it next to you on your tripod bowl. Getting it on and off is really tough. I have heard they’ve stripped one down and put it on a GSS [stabilised head]. I don’t know who, but I’ve heard through the grapevine of the natural history industry that it’s been done.”

Viewfinding with an Atomos monitorrecorder, Dimitriadis relied on idiosyncratic exposure controls specific to the medium. “The machine calibrates to the outside temperature.

You’re then adjusting the contrast, you lock those settings, and your image doesn’t change.

Otherwise, you’d be at risk of Mohan Sandhu on location in Arizona panning with the subject, (Credit: Courtesy of Mohan Sandhu) and the temperature changes and throws your image out.”

Merely finding the subject, Dimitriadis points out, requires special measures. “It can be quite disorientating. You’re restricted to the view of the lens, and you need spotters with you who have thermal scopes. There’s a lot of ‘12 o’clock! One o’clock!’

Anna Dimitriadis: “I started working in broadcast television before realising that my passion was wildlife, then I started doing everything that I could in order to reach that goal.” (Credit: Bertie Gregory)

What one person can see with their eyes you can’t see yourself. I think we had two thermal scopes and they were really essential for keeping near animals.”

Existing in the unreal world of thermal vision, meanwhile, is an odd experience in itself. “It can make you quite disconnected from your subject because it doesn’t look real,” Dimitriadis muses. “I’ve sat metres away from a pride of lions which are on a kill. Someone flashed a torch nearby and I was drawn back.

You spend a lot of time looking through the camera as your main directional source and it can be really confusing at times.”

The upsides, though, are impossible to deny. “I was able to build a connection with a cheetah 20 metres away, sleeping. It means you’re ready as soon as the sun rises - you don’t have to go out and find a cheetah again.

If you can stick with an animal all night the chance of getting the behaviour you want is much better.”

Wildlife production inevitably contrasts that sort of high technology against the privations of field work. “Sometimes we stay on the vehicles at night and we don’t go back,” Dimitriadis recalls. “If we do go back we’re going back to a camp… if not, you just shower next to the vehicle with a bucket!” n

Katie Mayhew is an experienced wildlife DP with specialisms in macro photography (Credit: Chris Howard)

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ENQUIRE TODAY info@motion-impossible.com Focus On: Wild Filming | 19

SPONSORED CONTENT CANON WORDS: ADRIAN PENNINGTON

INTREPID ADVENTURE

Anyone growing up in the UK is familiar with Captain Scott’s race to the South Pole as a tale of tragic heroism but there is far more to the story that a new film sets out to explore.

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he Worst Journey In The World is a biopic set in Antarctica, recounting one of the incredible true tales from Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition.

It’s the passion project of cinematographer and filmmaker Alex Stone (Between the Lights) and one that has been several years in the making. Inspired by hearing Polar explorer Ben Saunders recount his attempt to recreate Scott’s 1910-13 bid to reach the South Pole, Stone started his own research.

The expedition departed Britain in 1910, arriving in Antarctica 1911; Scott reached the pole in January 1912 and died that March. The remaining crew found his tent in November and departed Antarctica (and returned to Britain) in 1913.

“Even just a cursory read on Wikipedia revealed that there was so much more to the Expedition than the Pole,” he explains “There were many other scientific and geographic achievements that his team accomplished but which have been totally overshadowed by his untimely fate.

Stone needed bad weather for greater authenticity (Credit: Graeme Watt)

“I just felt compelled to bring that story to as many people as possible and making a film was the best way I knew how.”

With the Antarctic an expensive not to mention hazardous environment to film in, the next best option was Norway, specifically the small mountain town of Finse about 180 miles northwest of Oslo.

Appropriately, it was where the 1948 Ealing classic, Scott Of The Antarctic was filmed.

If that wasn’t reason enough, it’s perhaps better known as the ice planet Hoth from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The majority of the props and costumes were sourced or manufactured including replica sledges, tents and reindeer skin sleeping bags (Credit: Graeme Watt)

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Importantly for Stone, it meant he could film entirely on location to achieve greater authenticity rather than resort to studio, green screen and VFX. “Other than snow cover, the real requirement for a convincing double for Antarctica is a complete lack of vegetation. Finse is above the tree line, a glacial valley at altitude and perfect for filming everything on location.”

KIT TO SUIT THE CONDITIONS Stone has unearthed enough material for a mini-series but chose to write, direct and shoot a part of the story as a self-funded short film.

Delayed by COVID and then the strikes, Stone has been out to location four times for scouting, camera tests and other logistical planning, the latest of which was in February this year with the Canon Flex Zooms together with his EOS C500 Mark II. “Canon have been really supportive of the project. They leant me the Flex Zooms which were really useful because you can’t change lenses outside in a blizzard and unless you’re bringing multiple camera bodies, a zoom is the only practical way to shoot in those conditions.

He says the Flex Zoom is unique because standard full frame lenses start at 24mm, whereas the Flex Zoom series offers 20 – 50mm. “That extra few millimetres on the wide end is a really useful range. They are also faster than anything else available for a zoom.”

Filming in the dark interiors of a replica hut used by Scott’s rival Roald Amundsen as well as tent interiors, Stone found the T 2.4 aperture beneficial too. www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Stone found the T 2.4 aperture beneficial (Credit: Graeme Watt)

Equipment tests helped Stone refine his kit list. “You can plan till the ends of the earth but there are so many unexpected things you discover that you never would have thought of,” he says. “For instance, I knew that grease in lenses can get very viscous and stiff in cold conditions but what never occurred to me was that the same will apply to grease in a fluid tripod head. It gets cold enough to freeze so you can’t pan. So the next time I brought a tripod with a springbased torsion system instead.”

While temperatures in Finse regularly reach-20, this can feel “positively balmy” if there’s no wind, while other days at -11 but with blizzard speed winds can feel extremely cold. However, this is just the sort of weather Stone wants for The Worst Journey.

“Most film shoots will avoid heavy rain and wind whereas there have been days where the weather was too sunny so I couldn’t film. I actually need bad weather for the majority of the film. February is arguably the worst month there, and ideal for this project. It’s before the skiing season starts so there’s far fewer people.

The way I see it is if the actors get cold, they don’t have to act cold, it just comes naturally.”

He admits to being “quite blasé” about camera preservation. “I try not to baby the kit too much because the build quality of a professional camera like the C500 is so good you can rely on it.

“When I take my cameras out into sub-zero conditions, I’m operating them way beyond the manufacturer’s spec sheet. They still perform and that’s what I look for in my gear. I even had icicles hanging off the camera on some days but it still kept going.”

REACHING NEW HEIGHTS On one trip he took a CINE-SERVO CN20 high up in the mountains. “I brought the lens all the way to Norway in its own Peli and lugged it up the mountain for the opening shot of the film.

It’s a shot I’ve had in my mind for four years and it was worth the effort to finally pull it off.”

While temperatures in Finse regularly reach -20, this can feel “positively balmy” if there’s no wind (Credit: Graeme Watt)

To keep the cost and crew footprint down as well as adhere as close as possible to actual Antarctic conditions, Stone plans to shoot entirely with natural light. “This gives it a more documentary feel. I want the audience to believe what they see.

“The most difficult thing about exposing in a virtually all white environment is how flat the image looks. When you get the footage back to the edit suite you see how flat the waveform is. You really have to pull that log image to be able to see rocks or the mountains in the distance. We can shoot raw and 12-bit with the Canon but the biggest difficulty is getting enough contrast into the image.”

Making his job even harder, is that the true events of the story took place during the 24-hour darkness of Antarctic winter.

“Scott’s men had to march 70 miles in -70 degrees in the dark and at risk of falling down crevasses. That’s just not practical to film so there has to be some creative licence to visually show it. I’m still thinking about how to do this but a day for night conversion is most likely. It’s finding that balance of not looking too fake and not being too dark.

“If I’m going to shoot during the day then my one prerequisite is no direct sun. I want it to be overcast every day because I need that flat light. If I start seeing shadows that’s going to ruin the illusion.”

Since starting the project, Stone has been in touch with some of the descendants of the explorers who were on the 1910 Expedition. The film’s composer Julian Evans is the grandson of Scott’s second in command.

“The incredible thing is that he has not only been to Antarctica to visit Captain Scott’s huts, but actually recorded the sound of wind on the very same route that the three individuals in my story took. It’s a really special connection to the film.”

That music recorded on location forms the soundtrack to the teaser film available to view on YouTube.

Most of pre-production is complete, with the majority of the props and costumes already sourced or manufactured including replica sledges, tents and reindeer skin sleeping bags.

Provided he can raise the budget, Stone anticipates principal photography commencing in February 2025. n Focus On: Wild Filming | 21

PATHWAYS TO WILDLIFE FILMMAKING WORDS: MARK LONDON WILLIAMS

The wilderness is filled with paths; deer trails, hikes across mountains or into rainforests, or anywhere else leading, as Shel Silverstein once wrote, “where the sidewalk ends”.

But if you want to wield a camera and document all those non-human spaces and their inhabitants, where does the trailhead start for your journey as a wildlife cinematographer?

THE ROAD WILDLY TRAVELLED As well as her career as a cinematographer, Justine Evans has worked as a presenter in more recent productions (Credit: Courtesy of Justine Evans)

L

ibby Penman, who shoots and presents wildlife footage, including the BBC’s Back from the Brink, recounts “growing up in the town of Kirkcaldy, in Scotland, where there isn’t even a cinema, (so) a career as a filmmaker seemed completely impossible [...] Even when I told my school I wanted to be a filmmaker, they had never had anyone who was trying to apply and go to uni for TV at this point.”

Her other passion at the time was skateboarding with her twin sister, though a broken arm led her “into filmmaking and produced YouTube videos at the skatepark because I couldn’t skate with the cast on.”

A career as a filmmaker felt impossible to Libby Penman growing up in Scotland, but she now shoots and presents wildlife shows including the BBC’s Back from the Brink (Credit: Matthew Tomlinson)

Queens DP Sophie Darlington films from a vehicle with cinematographer and mentee Erin Ranney (Credit: National Geographic for Disney/Stanley Kinyolo)

Paul Stewart prepares for filming in Cambodia for the BBC’s Monsoon (Credit: Courtesy of Paul Stewart)

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Eventually, both a portfolio of skate footage, and a dissertation on Kubrick, led to a university acceptance and “the rest is history,” though what Penman terms “the wildlife side of things” didn’t really pick up until about four years ago.

“There are no wildlife Masters degree courses in Scotland but I received the Dewars Art Scholarship in 2020 which meant I could go and study wildlife and wildlife filmmaking.”

Like Penman, Paul Stewart grew up “in a not especially wild area (which) meant I couldn’t see a lot of it for myself,” though it did lead to predilections both for biology and “collecting large insects”. But it was when he saw Sir David Attenborough’s Life on Earth that “the way was then clear, I would be a wildlife filmmaker.”

That particular path led to starting an award-winning production company in Oxford, specialising in science and natural history.

Stewart’s projects now range from writing, producing, and directing shows like BBC and Apple TV+’s Prehistoric Planet, to Planet Earth II for the BBC, and projects like Our Planet and Dancing with the Birds for Netflix – along with many more.

The path from watching Sir David to running a production house started, however, with the realisation he couldn’t afford a kit,

When Asgeir Helgestad finished high school, his dream – now realised – was to become a nature photographer and filmmaker, but the challenge was getting there (Credit: Courtesy of Asgeir Helgestad)

Asgeir Helgestad’s work as a filmmaker has involved capturing polar bear mother Frost and her children (Credit: Courtesy of Asgeir Helgestad)

so he decided he “would learn my trade on scientific expeditions. I applied to do a doctorate, figuring out that if I chose a scientist with a track record in television collaboration it might help.

So I got a grant to work at Oxford with Professor David Macdonald (Night of the Fox, Meerkats United) to do a Doctorate on badgers.”

He still calls the camera “probably Stewart also found himself working on a the best teacher I ever had, because I had to dinosaur-themed BBC series, Velvet Claw, even think carefully before filming anything,” and “before I started the D.Phil. After the Doctorate also “realised that I didn’t want to become an I got one of the BBC NHU camera bursaries, electronics engineer”. training with such camera naturalist heroes as Winning wildlife photography awards Simon King. I have seen the places and things in the early ‘90s helped bolster his nascent that I dreamt of seeing as a child (and) even confidence, though practicalities led to him discovered that Attenborough is as kind and selling his film equipment when family came interesting as I ever hoped!” along, as he also discovered that “family Lauded wildlife DP Sophie Darlington, life was not compatible with staying out for whose work is seen on NatGeo’s current Queens, months waiting for the very best photos.” and includes Netflix’s Emmy-winning Our Planet, However, the ensuing video era allowed the BAFTA-awarded The Hunt, also “went far” to him to film adverts which “also gave me the launch her own career trajectory – heading not opportunity to buy a RED camera in 2012, to Oxford, but all the way to Tanzania, to pursue which was a complete game changer. […] RED a dream of wildlife filmmaking. thought my pictures were so good that they Her “route taken was not a traditional made a portrait film on me from Yellowstone one; running a tented camp in the Serengeti.” in black-and-white. It is still the most watched Though that camp “belonged to wildlife film RED made in [that] series.” filmmaking legend, Hugo van Lawick (who) had Shifting from the North Sea to the eight Emmys under his belt for films capturing Mediterranean, director and cinematographer the world-famous primatologist, Jane Goodall.”

Paolo Sodi considers his native Italy “the Nonetheless, it still took “a year before most beautiful country in the world, and I I was allowed to step into any kind of camera have visited many in recent years, but the assistant role but I got there by observing, work of a documentary filmmaker here is being inquisitive and also tenacious. It was an extraordinary time that culminated in my first film The Justine Evans filming in an icy spot Lion’s Share being nominated for (Credit: Courtesy of Justine Evans) cinematography at Wildscreen.”

Norwegian filmmaker Asgeir Helgestad, has, like Stewart, his own production company, dedicated to “natural world storytelling”, with collaborations ranging from the NRK, to the Smithsonian Channel, France TV, and the ubiquitous BBC. “When I finished high school, there was nothing I wanted more than to become Justine Evans’ career behind a nature photographer and a the camera has taken her filmmaker,” he says. But the 64 kroner question to amazing heights! (Credit: was “how to do that?” For him though, the path Courtesy of Justine Evans) led not to the expansive Serengeti, but the much more restrained topography of printed circuits, as he “started studying electronics (and also) bought myself a 16mm film camera, a Beaulieu with an Angénieux 12–120mm lens. I had a mount for Canon optics as well. This was very expensive to use as a student.” But the first ten minutes of film he exposed “resulted in five minutes on national television. It was a good start.”

Asgeir Helgestad captures a sparrowhawk and Eurasian jay (Credit: Courtesy of Asgeir Helgestad)

not at all simple.” He finds that documentaries “in cinemas and on television are very rare” there, so Sodi proceeds with what he describes as the challenge “to bring to my country a language that mixes telling nature stories with a filmic narrative.”

“In many other places in the world it is a language that is already used and successful.”

Justine Evans, whose work includes the current Queens, PBS’ Nature, Disneynature’s In the Footsteps of Elephant, and a shared Emmy nomination for an earlier season of Survivor, among her many credits, considers that how you structure that narrative is critical: “You only have to spend a little time with elephants, for example, to feel a deep sense of humility,” noting that “the more intelligence you find there is,” one of the best ways “to capture (and show) that is in a relatable human storyline.”

Her own storyline took her to film school, in Bournemouth, and while being schooled in “drama, mainstream documentaries, ads, promos – all those genres,” the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds asked if someone there was interested in filming “the Dartford warbler – a specialist species that has adapted to that ancient land”.

That went well enough that the RSPB asked for another film on illegal bird trades, after graduation, requiring Evans to go “sort of undercover” following a particularly rare species of cockatoo, after which she “managed to (become) a camera assistant with a wildlife cameraman”, and was on her way.

As for what that pathway looks like for wildly inclined cinematographers in 2024, Darlington says “the tools, for some, are within reach. Learning to film, fly a drone, edit and grade are possible without having hugely expensive gear. And also, most importantly, there are now improved resources to help open doors for those who haven’t traditionally had access to wildlife filmmaking.” She cites Queens as an example, saying “from the outset our aim was to mentor and upskill women, and we did.” n

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TRAINING AND SKILLS WORDS: PHIL RHODES

CLIMBING THE LADDER It’s no secret that wildlife filmmaking is a competitive field, but new talent is welcomed, whether you choose the film school route or an alternative path into the industry.

Duncan Parker’s work has included camerawork on Planet Earth II, Hostile Planet and Night on Earth (Credit: Courtesy of Duncan Parker)

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F

inding work in almost any part of the film industry has never been easy, and a discipline as specific as natural history narrows the options even more. Speak to a few incumbents, and it becomes clear that there are as many ways in as there are jobs – but also that early 2024 might not the be easiest time to knock on the door.

Duncan Parker’s credits include camerawork on Planet Earth II, Hostile Planet and Night on Earth, and he traces his interest to childhood. “I was influenced when I was a kid by a wildlife photographer called Miles Baddeley who taught me the way to approach animals - where your shadow is, the wind direction, monitoring your movements so you can build up trust so you can get closer and closer. After lots and lots of emails and trying to work out who to speak to, someone gave me Doug Allan’s number and I managed to get a cup of tea and a chat.”

Here, Parker used an approach that’s often mentioned: he got behind the camera at any level he could. “I got a runner job, then

Duncan Parker (left) highlights the importance of contacts in wildlife filmmaking (Credit: Courtesy of Duncan Parker)

I made some films myself. I made two films, quite simple ones, and showcased that I was interested in natural history. I went to Wildscreen film festival and volunteered.

I had a few ideas and some cups of teas and meetings, then there was a runner job at the Natural History Unit in Bristol.”

The value of Camellia sinensis as a social lubricant in the British camera scene is, clearly, not to be underestimated. Still, Parker has taken care to offer similar opportunities to new entrants when he can. “I had a mentee, a very passionate guy I found through other channels, and he managed to apply for a scholarship to go to the [MA in Wildlife Filmmaking at UWE, Bristol]. It’s great that people are getting that opportunity to get that from all walks of life rather than just people with money.”

Something that’s great news for people in biologically exciting parts of the world (though perhaps less encouraging to UK residents) is the increasing inclination of production companies to hire locally.

“Instead of flying someone to Peru,” Parker says, “they’re finding someone who’s really enthusiastic and talented in Peru, who’s made a few films. I think it’s a really good, forwardthinking way - it’s saving the climate from flying people around but also finding people who have the expertise on that animal.”

Despite it all, though, Parker recalls common threads in the background of his colleagues, estimating that a large proportion of natural history camera professionals have qualifications in relevant areas. “Maybe 70 percent of natural history camera people have done a degree in animal behaviour or zoology.

They’ve had a background in photography but haven’t gone to film school, and they’ve built up their level on shoots to learn that craft but it’s very hard to get that.”

With that in mind, Parker sums up simply: “My advice would be to go and make something, and go to Wildscreen or www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

Sophie Darlington, pictured on new Nat Geo TV show Queens, highlights the value of a demo reel and the incredible wildlife to shoot on your doorstep (Credit: Millie Marsden/Disney)

When he was starting out, Duncan Parker got behind the camera at any level he could to help him on his way to becoming a wildlife filmmaker (Credit: Hamza Yassin Photography)

somewhere you can meet people. Go out there, make a film, however small. Make a film about the wildlife in your back yard, put it out there on channels and go and promote it yourself. Then you have something to showcase. Then you’ve taken the initiative to go out there and make a film, and you can then approach people with that film - a documentary film academy, in-person workshops, a talk where you can speak to someone afterward.”

FILMING ON YOUR DOORSTEP

Sophie Darlington entered the industry through a seven-year de-facto apprenticeship with Hugo van Lawick in the Serengeti.

“By the time I’d finished I had shot my own film on Super 16, I was working on 35mm and shooting wildlife without any pre-roll or caches. I’m not sure how we did it,” she recalls.

She dropped out of the industry for a while to raise her family. “That’s one of the things I would like to address in the future for our craft,” she notes. “Once you have kids, or you take a break, it’s really, really hard to get back in. On Queens, which is a seven-part series about female leadership, we made a conscious decision to upskill and mentor and give five women, across the series, the gear they would never get to use unless they were out on a blue chip.”

Darlington echoes Parker’s advice regarding the value of a demo reel. “A lot of people are waiting for that trip to Africa or India, an exotic location, to film wildlife - but wherever you are, the tools are accessible.

Yes, you can’t get your hands on a CN20 or an Alexa, but what you can do is film stuff and edit it and learn how to speak your own voice about natural history. I think a lot of people procrastinate and think ‘I’m not in east Africa filming elephants or I’m not able to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef,’ but actually there’s incredible wildlife on your doorstep.”

The current market, while in a clear downturn, is not something that Darlington finds entirely dissuasive. “I remember someone giving me a shout - I went to see them for coffee, they’d written to every camera person they could, and one of the people they’d spoken to said give up, don’t do it now, it’s an overcrowded market. And yes, it’s slow, but I’d say there’s always room for talent.”

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

The industry realised they had to train people somehow.” Otherwise, training might have been limited. “There’s the odd bursary scheme - the BBC Natural History Unit has a bursary, some of the big independent production companies in Bristol have bursaries, but that’s one position. It’s not a way of getting any number of people into the industry.”

The National Film and Television School now offers an MA in science and natural history work and Evans mentors a student each year through the graduation film process.

With the industry so heavily focussed on Bristol, the University of the West of England is perhaps a natural choice, offering an MA in wildlife filmmaking. With a proportion of UK media now based in Manchester, the University of Salford is another worthwhile option, and offers an MA in Wildlife Documentary Production.

All this notwithstanding, it’s difficult to discuss natural history documentary at the time of writing without mentioning the malaise which has settled over the industry.

It’s something that might provoke anyone to take refuge in a two-year course on the basis that’s potentially enough delay for things to improve, although in the interim, there are still ways to pursue a career that minimise upfront cost, as Evans concludes. “Things like volunteering at Wildscreen is not going to cost you particularly. A lot of volunteers get a huge amount out of it. There’s so many people coming together, and many are from overseas so you wouldn’t see them normally.

If you’re confident that would be definitely worth doing.” n

An issue frequently mentioned by natural history filmmakers is that education has changed since current incumbents trained.

Cinematographer Justine Evans highlights how anyone Justine Evans learnt the art of with an interest in the field filmmaking at film school in has options. She reflects that Bournemouth before shooting “there are courses available films for the RSPB (Credit: which are targeting that area.

Courtesy of Justine Evans) They’re all MAs, postgrads, and they are very specifically linked to natural history filmmaking.

Justine Evans: “You only have to spend a little time with elephants, for example, to feel a deep sense of humility.” (Credit: Courtesy of Justine Evans)

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UNDERWATER SHOOTING WORDS: PHIL RHODES

INTO THE BLUE Join the DPs taking the plunge into our oceans as they strive to capture the world beneath the waves.

Abraham Joffe ACS filming tiger sharks (Credit: Eric Cheng)

Underwater filmmaking is a complex business, as Gail Jenkinson explains (Credit: Terra Mater)

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I

t used to be that simply taking a camera to an unusual place - the top of a mountain, space, or the depths of the sea - would satisfy producers of high-end documentaries. Now, the phrase “blue chip” refers to natural history work which demands much glossier results, and it’s hard to imagine a tougher place to maintain that standard than underwater.

Like many people in this line of work, Abraham Joffe ACS was a diver before he became involved in documentaries such as Tales by Light, Big Cat Tales and Ghosts of the Arctic. “I think my first dive on the (Great) Barrier Reef was when I was ten years old. Australia is a fantastic place to learn to dive… Like any filmmaking, you get so engrossed in what you’re doing and your head is in the viewfinder, the diving and the safety aspect has to be second nature.”

In Tonga during the filming of Tales By Light S1 (Credit: Abraham Joffe ACS)

Those rising creative demands, Joffe says, demand better equipment. “There used to be underwater camerawork which was locked off on a tripod, but more often a housing carried by a diver. What’s changed over the last decade is that [we use] almost any tool that’s used in production… motion control tracks, underwater dollies, time lapse, elaborate lighting setups, and of course a huge variety of lenses. The visual look has changed hugely and it gives people all those tools to tell a story below as much as above the surface.”

Underwater documentaries can be, Joffe says, very unlike recreational diving. “You can dive on air, which covers a lot of [how] the underwater work is done, on scuba. But a rebreather is such a game-changer - so much of the Blue Planet and those top underwater series use rebreathers because there isn’t an exhale of bubbles. Bubbles underwater usually signal predator, but it’s a very technical way of diving and fraught with more risks than scuba.”

Joffe deeply respects underwater filmmakers who demonstrate exceptional skill without relying on breathing gear. He notes that in specific locations, such as when capturing

Gail Jenkinson has been working in wildlife filmmaking for 30 years (Credit: Terra Mater)

Kjetil Astrup SOC (right) with presenter Steve Backshall

Kjetil Astrup SOC on shooting blue chip jobs: “You need to know your exposure well, steadiness in extreme conditions, to open up your lens a little bit more than usual because you want shallow depth of field.”

(Credit: Thomas Bjørnstad)

humpback whales in Tonga, scuba is generally prohibited. This requires filmmakers to possess significant freediving expertise to achieve top-quality underwater footage. “With things like whales and other mammals, if you’ve got to be jumping in and out of the boat following things, having the huge system isn’t good. The best underwater crew are all freedivers.”

BREATHTAKING WORK

Gail Jenkinson’s thirty years’ experience includes work on Blue Planet II, Earth’s Wildest Waters, and experience freediving on Patrick and the Whale, which she describes as “about a man and a sperm whale and their interaction.

The regulations in Dominica say you’re not allowed to film the whales with scuba gear, so, that meant holding your breath. It was one of the first jobs I did like that and I really enjoyed it.”

Happily, as Jenkinson goes on, “you can train on land… you can increase your breath hold so that when you are in the water, after all the logistics of leaping off a boat, swimming fast at the surface, being in a position where the whale may come and be in the right place, you can calm yourself down, hold your breath, focus, frame up and press record.”

Doing that day after day for weeks or months, Jenkinson says, is “tough. People will try to bring in a day off, which we’re grateful for, but it’ll always be the day that the weather’s good… you could have weeks of lying in a cabin below deck waiting for weather. You’ve got to manage that time, then when the good weather happens you’ll go out all guns blazing.”

While light weight might therefore seem a boon, Jenkinson is cautious. “When cameras become too small they become very twitchy in the water. With the sperm whales I used a Gates Pro Action housing which is quite hefty… you’re going to fight a bit harder pushing it through the water but when you’re on a shot it’s going to give you stability, and I value that over a smaller, lighter object every time.”

work can push filmmakers away from the commonest choices. “We build up from the minimum requirements they have for post. Is it for Netflix? Do we need it in 4K? Many times we’re shooing on RED, but in Norway we’re often shooting on Sony A7S III, which still delivers 4K, but the ISO on this tiny camera goes to 12,800.”

Natalie TurnerBlackman echoes Astrup’s thoughts. “Our primary underwater cinema cameras are always RED on natural history units. We use RED Raptor at the moment. That’s the main camera on the series I’m [currently] working on.

Then for smaller rigs, we tend to use Sony cameras.

The A7S III is a workhorse.”

Turner-Blackman began as a technician working on exactly the kind of bespoke engineering that documentaries increasingly demand – “polecams, underwater timelapse sliders.

It gave me such a range of technical knowledge. From that I was really lucky to get on a production called Prehistoric Planet. It was really interesting, a different kind of natural history shooting, VFX orientated.”

Much as complex setups for natural history documentary may be recreated on stages, advanced underwater work may use tanks, as Turner-Blackman relates, “to replicate things that aren’t possible in the wild. Specific timelapses, a macro creature, or something that’s quite tricky to manage in the field. Prehistoric Planet was interesting technically in how it was shot… we had witness cameras and dual triggers all underwater. It wasn’t like your usually natural history stuff - shooting plates waiting for animals to leave shot rather than enter.”

Sometimes, though, concerns are simpler.

Turner-Blackman recalls a shoot involving gannets tempted to dive for bait. “We were in the North Sea and had chum for the gannets, to get them enticed… there were thousands of them swirling around us in the sky. It was amazing to see them plummeting down into the water. We did consider using helmets at one point - ‘if they come down onto our heads we’re going to get impaled.’ But they have pretty good aim. We’re not very interesting!” n

“I think I get more jobs because I put the cinematography into the wildlife stuff,” notes Kjetil Astrup SOC (Credit: Timon Koch)

COLD COMFORT

It’s tempting to think of natural history as a place of perpetual sunshine and tropical waters.

Kjetil Astrup SOC’s experience, however, includes Wild Scandinavia and Frozen Planet II - though his ambitions were founded in warmer climes. “I always knew I wanted to be a cameraman. I was doing my PADI open water licence, going to the Red Sea and having fun.

I saw these people on a boat filming dolphins, whale sharks, stuff like that. A year later I moved to the Red Sea and started filming in the water.”

Astrup’s career has involved both drama and documentary. “I think I get more jobs because I put the cinematography into the wildlife stuff.

Especially on blue chip documentaries, you need to know your exposure well, steadiness in extreme conditions, to open up your lens a little bit more than usual because you want shallow depth of field. In wildlife, a lot of it is very, very sharp, but in some documentaries you’d want a bit more of a cinematic feel to the visuals.”

Achieving that feel has many of the same considerations as any other production, although Astrup points out that underwater

Focus On: Wild Filming | 27

SOLO SHOOTING WORDS: DANIEL EAGAN

ALONE AND UNAFRAID

In wild shooting, nothing is more difficult or challenging than working solo. Dealing with wildlife in extreme conditions requires constant risk assessment. We asked three cinematographers what steps they put in place to ensure their safety on solo shoots.

O

riginally from Australia, Kirsten Slemint has a background in science and journalism. She is a National Film and Television School graduate, and has completed two films: HaMidbar (2023), set in the deserts of Israel; and the short Burnt Country (2024), which examines aboriginal environmental practices in Australia. It recently screened at the BFI. Working solo means that Slemint may find herself carrying 30 kilos of equipment on remote trails. “Having a local contact who was aware of my shooting schedule was essential,” she says. “I set up a 12-step protocol in case I didn’t check in. If I’m on location in a park, I will meet with the staff to make sure they’re aware of where I’m planning to go.”

As well as being a wildlife cinematographer, Kirsten Slemint is a qualified senior first aid officer experienced in rural and remote emergencies

Slemint is also a qualified senior first aid officer experienced in rural and remote emergencies. “I think the most interesting part about safety in shooting wildlife is how much knowledge you can bring that helps you preempt whatever might happen,” she says. “Be able to capture your material effectively while keeping yourself safe.”

James Ewen was working as a goldsmith before starting on feature films. There he progressed from runner to working with gaffer Julian White. He was a camera assistant with the BBC Natural History Unit in Botswana before becoming a DP. Ewen is currently based in Norway, where he has worked on films like Polar Bear (Disney+).

“We say ‘solo’, but there are certain situations where one never works solo,” he points out. “Safety is number one around polar bears, where you normally work with two expert guides. They’re your set of eyes. They’re better at reading bear behaviour than you are.”

When solo shooting, Dominic Hamilton relies on satellite phones and devices like InReach for safety

Ewen remembers an incident filming reindeer scavengers at an avalanche site in western Norway. The temperature dropped to minus 45 degrees, and the nearest support was 10 kilometres away. When the cold became unbearable, Ewen had to risk frostbite to ski to safety.

“It was a question of not having the right kit, and not having a protocol in place,” he says. “Now I try to imagine a worst-case scenario, and plan for that. We have a check-in system using WhatsApp and [Garmin] InReach.

The most important advice may be, ‘Don’t overestimate your abilities.’”

To prepare for sub-zero temperatures, Ewen wraps exposed metal on cameras and tripods with foam or tape. “My biggest discovery in the last ten years was a stylus,” he adds. “A stylus on a cord around my neck allows me to operate camera touch screens without taking off my gloves.”

Dominic Hamilton wanted to be a wildlife cinematographer since he was eight, when a family friend worked on the BBC series Big Cat Diary. He spent four years with Brad Bestelink’s Natural History Film Unit Botswana, and is currently senior camera operator on an upcoming National Geographic series.

“You’re always learning,” he says. “Every day’s a school day. Maybe you’re filming animal behaviour, and it doesn’t go your way. Maybe you’re charged by an elephant, or you get into a hotspot in dense bush. After the incident is over, you think, ‘How would I do it differently?’”

When Hamilton is in the field, help can be hours away. He relies on satellite phones and devices like InReach, and has enough safety gear to wait out conditions for several days if necessary.

“Sometimes caution can hinder creativity,” he says. “I think I weigh things a lot more now, perhaps don’t act as instinctively.

But sometimes you do need to be bold and take measured risks.” n

James Ewen highlights that there are certain situations where DPs never work solo, for example when shooting polar bears with expert guides (Credit: Even Hønsen Agerup)

28 | Focus On: Wild Filming

SPONSORED CONTENT ATOMOS

“I love being able to use a camera to serve and protect the planet, while teaching others how to help protect the wildlife and animals,” says Odom.

(Credit: Kristi Odom)

WILD NINJA

Kristi Odom travels the world as a photographer and filmmaker to highlight wildlife stories and protect them. As an Associate Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, she has helped raise nearly $1m for conservation.

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n a recent trip to Bolivia, Kristi Odom visited La Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary to raise money for Jaguars involved in illegal trafficking. She spent time with the team and captured remarkable close-up shots of the Jaguars and other wildlife. “Being a one person show, who films, produces and edits videos to raise money for conservation is something that I am really proud of,” says Odom.

When roaming some of the world’s most remote locations, a compact, yet reliable set-up is a must. As a Nikon Ambassador, the Nikon Z8 and Z9 are often Odom’s first choice of camera, supported by a wide range of lenses and accessories. Among her equipment Odom captured remarkable close-up shots of the Jaguars and other wildlife at the La Sende Verde wildlife sanctuary, Bolivia (Credit: B&H Photo Video)

is the Atomos Ninja monitor-recorder which has proved to be an essential tool in her kit bag. With its ability to record in ProRes RAW, the lightweight and portable Ninja makes it the ideal accessory for mirrorless cameras.

In Bolivia, the Ninja played a fundamental role documenting a rare encounter with a hummingbird. Positioned on top of her Nikon Z9 camera, Odom set the monitor to record, waited patiently from a distance, and observed it capture the hummingbird’s fluttering movements as it drew closer to the birdfeeder at the edge of her cabin. “I love using my Ninja; it’s great that I can just hit record and let it do all the work,” she adds. Thanks to its compact size and recording ability, the Ninja enabled Odom to successfully capture incredible shots of animals in the rainforest at close range, without disturbing them in their habitat.

Odom works with conservation nonprofits and delivers educational workshops to photographers. She teaches skills from using the right equipment to adjusting camera

Odom captured the hummingbird’s fluttering movements as it drew closer to the birdfeeder at the edge of her cabin (Credit: B&H Photo Video)

settings to emotionally connect with wildlife through their images. “It’s such a rewarding experience developing the next generation of storytellers. I love being able to use a camera to serve and protect the planet, while teaching others how to help protect the wildlife and animals,” says Odom.

The Ninja’s bright, high-definition display has been a game-changer for her workshops, allowing her to share fine details of the images to her students. “The Ninja’s a fantastic tool there are a lot of people who want something bigger to look at than the electronic viewfinder on their camera, and that’s where the Ninja proves most beneficial.”

Odom’s interest in photography came at an early age when she first discovered her grandfather’s camera - taking many photos over the years to remember him. She went on to study electrical engineering while developing her talents as a photographer for her college student newspaper. It wasn’t until later, after moving to Australia and graduating with a fine art degree, that Odom’s admiration for wildlife grew.

“From this moment I fell more in love with wildlife and developed a true dedication for the arts.” Her career has led her to receive more than 60 international photography awards with images featuring either online or in print in Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Many photographers and filmmakers carry an extensive toolkit to cover all eventualities.

However, they look for more efficient ways to work—and Odom is no exception. n NB: Kristi Odom was covering a story on illegal wildlife trafficking during her time in Bolivia.

The jaguar images were photographed inside an animal sanctuary with supervision of biologists and/or conservationists to ensure no animals were harmed or negatively affected.

Focus On: Wild Filming | 29

MACRO CINEMATOGRAPHY WORDS: MICHAEL BURNS

Richard Kirby on the patience required when framing macro shots: “It’s best to work on the close wide contextual shot first, then move on to the close-up cutaway.”

(Credit: Courtesy of Richard Kirby)

SMALL BUT MIGHTY From shrimps to spiders, capturing the natural world’s smaller inhabitants calls for specialist kit and knowledge.

Macro corals shot

by Jean-Charles Granjon in the Red Sea (Credit: Courtesy of JeanCharles Granjon) Jean-Charles Granjon’s underwater macro work in the depths of the Red Sea (Credit: Courtesy of Jean-Charles Granjon)

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acro cinematography demands meticulous control, with a mix of studio-based and on-location work. Veteran filmmaker Richard Kirby says most macro cinematographers build a simple set “and take that anywhere,” blending the back of the set and the background by incorporating local elements like branches.

Katie Mayhew, whose macro work for the BBC’s Wild Isles was all filmed in the wild, says a controlled set on location “lets you work with the right materials and the right plants, while the humidity and temperature control is correct for the species you’re filming”.

“If you’re using a longer lens, you might want to bring in some sort of out-of-focus foliage or sticks in the foreground,” says Owen Carter, who specialises in macro camera operating. “That just makes it feel a bit more immersive when you’re filming smaller animals.”

The environments through which the animals and insects move can also be adjusted to make the routes more conducive to filming – Kirby talks about laying a stick onto his set for a line of army ants to follow, while Carter says a tweak of the right leaf can get creatures to follow a path of your choosing, “so when you are programming a motion control move, it will follow that path”.

Mayhew says Canon and ARRI 100mm macro lenses are popular. Probe lenses, such as Laowa have fans too.

Owen Carter with the RED Raptor S35 with Laowa Periprobe underslung with the Kessler Cineshooter Macro Pan tilt head (Credit: Courtesy of Owen Carter)

30 | Focus On: Wild Filming

“With a probe lens, because it’s effectively on the end of a stick, you can track and pan with it, or do [macro] crane shots,” says Kirby.

However, such lenses are also prone to vibration. “When you’re filming something so tiny, any vibration on the lens, including the heartbeat going through your fingertips, will make your image move,” says Mayhew. “I tend to use remote follow focus and then all my focusing is done through a monitor.”

To shoot Red Sea corals in time-lapse, DP/producer/director Jean-Charles Granjon set up an underwater studio and rig, filming on RED cameras with the Laowa 24mm 2X Macro Probe Lens. “The wide angle gives more of an idea of the environment,” he says. “With a maximum aperture of F14, it provides quite a narrow depth of field if you are 1cm from your subject.”

“It’s a very dynamic environment where every vibration – even just breathing – can be transferred to the equipment,” he explains.

“Underwater macro cinematography is like stepping inside an Alice in Wonderland world.

Everything changes.”

“For large sets, I use ARRI SkyPanels as the key light, then spot light, using Dedo lights with focusing lenses and gobos,” says Kirby.

“These are great at creating various degrees of ‘dapple’ in a very small area. If you want quite a dark frame, a fibre optic is great for putting little pools of lights in the background. If you’re building a burrow sequence, Lume Cubes work well for getting light on the animal. You just put a diffuser on, and you get a very soft underground light, with lots of dark areas as well.”

Keeping focus at the macro scale means thinking differently. Mayhew uses extension tubes, which allow you to move the camera glass further away from the sensor, so magnifying the image. “As you do that, you do lose light, but you can focus closer to your subject than the lens would normally allow.”

Mohan Sandhu has developed kit tailored for natural history filmmaking. “I’ve got a 6-axis interface at my fingertips, my left hand is controlling X, Y, and Z, and my right hand is controlling pan, tilt and focus. I can move the camera forward and back, move the focus forward and back, or a combination of two.

“For more extreme macro I won’t be focusing, I’ll just be using the plane of focus as a target. You’ve got a tiny depth of field with a tiny subject, but you just try to end up in tune with the subject, sense its movement, and keep that peaking plane of focus exactly where you want it to be.”

Getting the subject in the frame, in focus with shallow depth of field, or getting behaviour that the script requires, takes a great deal of patience. “It’s best to work on the close wide contextual shot first, then move on to the close-up cutaway,” says Kirby.

To help, invertebrate/ animal wranglers can introduce captive-bred specimens into a macro set. “We had a wrangler position a male spider in the right spot and then bring in females to get its attention,” says Sandhu. “It’s like blocking when you work with an actor, but with a depth of field of less than a millimetre; you’ve got to be bang on to get the shot.” n www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

SPONSORED CONTENT LAOWA WORDS: ADRIAN PENNINGTON

When making Marmots on Toast the goal was to boost the production value using more dynamic imagery rather than being static behind a long lens (Credit: ©Dream Wild Films)

Cinematographer Jack Mifflin used the Laowa Ranger Compact Cine Zoom to capture European marmots in the wild.

CREATURE COMFORTS I

mages of wild marmots eating biscuits was the spur for award-winning filmmakers Yaz Ellis and Jack Mifflin to produce a short film highlighting the complicated relationship between humans and feeding wildlife.

The pair, who live in Vienna, Austria pitched the concept at Wildscreen and National Geographic’s Wild Pitch in October 2022 where it won a £6,000 prize.

Seven months later, after the marmots had awakened from hibernation, they spent two weeks in the Austrian Alps documenting these cheeky mammals.

They were able to make the film they wanted with the support of Brian Henderson at Wildmotion and Laowa.

“Our goal was to boost the production value using more dynamic imagery rather than being static behind a long lens,” Mifflin explains. “Marmots can spend half the day sat around sleeping, but then they’ll be running, playing, fighting in an instant and we needed equipment with the agility to capture that.”

Marmots on Toast was shot on RED Komodo and V-Raptor. Ellis filmed on longer lenses and Mifflin used a DJI Ronin 3 Pro with Ranger 28-75mm T2.9 Compact Cine Zoom compatible with full frame sensors to go in close.

“Almost every wide in the film was shot on the Laowa Ranger lens, often at F4 to F8 for extra depth of field to embrace the mountain

scenery,” he says. “The parfocal was really helpful when I’m running around trying to get different angles of behaviour which may only last 10 seconds. I’m not really having to worry about my focus when changing focal length.”

The extremely close focus distance of 0.49m/1’6″ allowed for captivating close-ups.

“You can capture detail in the creature’s eyes you couldn’t on a longer zoom,” he says. “The focus throw is really nice and smooth.

“This lens is also so lightweight (1.4kg/ 3.08lbs) compared to other cine zooms. I’m always conscious about how much we’re carrying. Even though we could drive some way up the mountain we still had to hike to get to the right spot and when you’re running around all day with a gimbal you really notice the weight of your kit.”

Mifflin used a Ranger 28-75mm T2.9 Compact Cine Zoom compatible with full frame sensors to go in close (Credit: ©Dream Wild Films)

Mifflin also commends the build quality of the lens. “I wasn’t worried when filming in snow or rain because the quality feels very solid. If I knock it around it doesn’t feel like it’s going to break. Unlike some other zooms which can wobble when you extend them, the Ranger felt rock steady.”

Marmots may look like cuddly creatures – and the ones on this part of the mountain are habituated - but they are surprisingly violent, a behaviour Mifflin is proud to have caught on film.

“Marmots are territorial animals and will fight and even kill each other or whole family groups. We wanted to show that vicious side not least because it’s more exciting than a marmot eating a carrot. There were moments when they’re waddling away with blood running down their legs.”

The film mixes hard hitting scenes like this with what Mifflin calls “wacky” sequences designed to appeal to the Austrian audience’s taste. “There’s a sequence where a marmot is fed a chocolate wafer by a hiker which we use to illustrate what happens to the animal. It effectively acts like a drug. The marmot goes on a hallucinatory trip and sees floating wafers. It is very different to what a UK audience expects from a wildlife documentary but it’s a fun way to convey the impact feeding the wrong food can have on these creatures. I haven’t seen that in a wildlife film so we’re really testing the waters.”

Ellis and Mifflin are currently shooting a sequence on fire salamanders for their next documentary using the unique qualities of the Laowa 24mm f/14 2X Macro Probe to capture a bug’s eye view.

“We’re hovering the lens above a salamander as it crawls through the woodland and you can see what it would see. It’s such an immersive lens and being waterproof means you can follow the salamander jumping in and swimming in its element.” n Marmots on Toast is written, filmed and post produced by Dream Wild Films.

Filmmakers Yaz Ellis (pictured) and Jack Mifflin produced a short film highlighting the complicated relationship between humans and feeding wildlife (Credit: ©Dream Wild Films)

Jack Mifflin (pictured) and Yaz Ellis were able to make the film they wanted with the support of Brian Henderson at Wild Motion and Laowa (Credit: ©Dream Wild Films)

Focus On: Wild Filming | 31

AERIAL WILDLIFE CINEMATOGRAPHY WORDS: MICHAEL BURNS

David Baillie: “One advantage a cinematographer has in a helicopter is that it’s a lot easier to find somewhere where the light is how you want it.”

(Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

TAKE TO THE SKIES

Aerial filming - whether by helicopter or drone - may be more mobile than shooting from a hide on the ground, but dynamic and useable footage of wildlife requires just as much patience and experience.

“T

here’s a lot of animal behaviour that you can only see and understand from an aerial perspective,” says Berlin-based DP Carl Finkbeiner. “Hunting techniques of orcas in northern Norway with ‘carousel feeding’, humpback whales with ‘bubble net feeding’ or orcas capturing sea lion pups from the beach in Patagonia and sharing their catch. Drone footage adds another dimension, adds scope and scale to the cinematography, and makes you aware of the beauty in nature.”

Carl Finkbeiner: “Drone footage adds another dimension, adds scope and scale to the cinematography, and makes you aware of the beauty in nature.”

(Credit: Esther Dittmann)

“Finding the wildlife in the first place can be tricky,” says cinematographer David Baillie, who filmed whales for the first Planet Earth series as part of his 40-year career. “As with all wildlife filming, when you start to understand the animal, it becomes a lot easier. Once you’ve watched a humpback dive, you roughly know how long it might be till it comes up and breaches.

“I used to love the old days of hanging out the side of helicopters with a handheld camera but although the fun quotient was 100%, the production value quotient was about 2% on a good day.

Stabilised gimbals have revolutionised the craft, and the skill these days is assembling the right combination for the job, of camera, lens, operator and above all, pilot.

“One advantage a cinematographer has in a helicopter is that it’s a lot easier to find somewhere where the light is how you want it. If the sun goes behind a cloud - easy, fly to the other side of the cloud.

David Baillie on Planet Earth season one (Credit: Courtesy of David Baillie)

A helicopter is like having an infinitely long and manoeuvrable length of track that you lay down anywhere in a matter of seconds.”

Finkbeiner has been shooting drone aerials for years and now prefers smaller drones like the DJI Mavic 3 cine to heavier drones like the hexacopter he used on BBC’s Blue Planet II. “When you fly over open ocean searching for whales or dolphins, the longer flight times are more effective in getting the shots,” he says.

“Flying close to the polar circle, you can have two or three hours of magic hour light in winter, but the GPS signals will make your drone go crazy – you must fly in ATTI mode (which disables GPS positioning). In other regions, I try to avoid when the sun is at its zenith as you will have a heavy reflection of the sun on the water’s surface. To deal with this, I turn and tilt the drone until I find the best angle.”

Finkbeiner suggests choosing your ND filter carefully before starting “so you can get overhead shots as well as horizon shots, which might be four or five stops apart. Be quick in setting exposure and do not touch it when the camera is rolling,” he adds.

Baillie notes you’ll have less control over highlights and shadows in the air: “The dynamic range of the ARRI sensors can be a lifesaver.”

He suggests you ‘milk the parallax’ to enhance visual appeal: “If you are trying to capture the sense of an animal’s habitat and know that someone on the ground is doing their stuff with a CN20 on some heavy-duty legs, then just play with a wide focal length and the foreground and side ground to accentuate the sense of movement.”

The noise of a drone can make some animals flee immediately. “It’s good to approach the animals from the front, slightly above eye level and with a very steady but slow speed, to get them to realise something is coming, and it’s not a bee swarm,” says Finkbeiner. “It’s worked well with giraffes, rhinos, elephants, and even polar bears.”

The Canon CN20 50-1000mm lens is popular for aerial cinematography, but while Bailie is a fan, he often likes to go wider. “If I’m trying to capture the emotional beauty and natural wonder of the location and habitat, I’ll always try to use a wide zoom – my favourite is the Fujinon 19-45mm Premista. With the right flight line, in the hands of the right pilot, you can tug at the audience’s heartstrings.” n

Carl Finkbeiner’s aerial cinematography experience includes BBC’s Blue Planet II (Credit: Esther Dittmann)

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SPONSORED CONTENT CVP WORDS: ADRIAN PENNINGTON

THE RIGHT PACKAGE FOR A SUCCESSFUL SHOOT

CVP even has camouflage gear to help you blend into your surroundings for those close encounters!

Whether navigating tropical jungles, searing deserts, icy mountains, or the depths of the ocean, wildlife filmmakers face a unique set of challenges. Despite the variety of environments, a common set of considerations always guides their essential kit list.

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n every shoot, technical challenges are inevitable as capturing something unique to tell the story often requires innovative solutions, such as using tiny cameras embedded in trees. While equipment is tailored to the environment and subject, starting with gear that won’t fail is crucial, especially when far from any repair options.

Power is another crucial consideration that is often overlooked. Lower power consumption means fewer batteries to hire, carry, and charge on location—an essential factor in remote areas without access to electricity. Discussing power efficiency with suppliers is highly recommended.

For major wildlife productions, including those for the BBC and streaming platforms, Paired with an extensive collection of lenses, including long telephoto and macro lenses, you can capture every aspect of wildlife with unparalleled clarity and detail

UHD delivery is almost mandatory, with 8K delivery becoming increasingly common.

UHD is the baseline, but some allowance is made for specialist cameras that may only record in HD. If the camera can only shoot in 4K, stabilising footage could be challenging, especially if cropping is necessary, which could compromise the final delivery.

The environmental impact of the production is also a key consideration.

Reducing the weight of baggage not only lowers the carbon footprint but also helps stay within budget. Additionally, lighter gear is easier to carry to remote locations.

CAPTURING WITH CLARITY CVP understands that documenting wildlife demands precision, patience, and specialised equipment to seize those fleeting, extraordinary moments in the wild. Its selection of products is curated to help you achieve stunning results, whether photographing birds in flight, elusive mammals, or intricate macro scenes in their natural habitats.

CVP’s range features cameras from brands like RED, ARRI, Nikon, Canon, and Sony, known for their superior image quality, fast autofocus systems and exceptional low-light performance

Its range features cameras from brands like RED, ARRI, Nikon, Canon, and Sony, known for their superior image quality, fast autofocus systems, and exceptional low-light performance. These cameras are designed to withstand the challenges of shooting in diverse environments, from dense forests to open savannahs. Paired with an extensive collection of lenses, including long telephoto and macro lenses, you can capture every aspect of wildlife with unparalleled clarity and detail.

In addition, CVP offers a wide variety of accessories tailored to the needs of wildlife cinematographers, including sturdy support, advanced audio recording equipment, portable lighting solutions, and weather-resistant gear to ensure you are prepared for any shooting condition. We’ve even got camouflage gear to help you blend into your surroundings for those close encounters! n Build and test your perfect camera rig before purchasing at one of CVP’s showrooms in the Midlands, London, and Brussels.

Focus On: Wild Filming | 33

WILDLIFE FILMMAKING AND CGI WORDS: TREVOR HOGG

An example of a full CG shot from the “Coasts” episode of Prehistoric Planet S1 (Credit: Courtesy of Apple)

WORLDS UNITED Find out how some productions are combining visual effects flair and natural history expertise to create the next generation of wildlife documentaries.

I

n 1999, Tim Haines, BBC Studios Science Unit, Discovery Channel, and Framestore released an ambitious sixpart nature documentary television miniseries, Walking with Dinosaurs, that mixed real locations with CGI to give audiences an idea of what it was like when the extinct creatures roamed the Earth. Fast forward to 2024 where CGI has become photorealistic and the streaming services have emerged as the dominant viewing platform.

Apple, the BBC Natural History Unit, David Attenborough, and MPC collaborated to create Prehistoric Planet, while Netflix went about producing Life on Our Planet with the help of Silverback Films, Morgan Freeman and ILM. Both Prehistoric Planet and Life on Our Planet rely upon combining the expertise of Oscar-winning visual effects companies and renowned natural history cinematographers to turn fossils into living and breathing creatures; this hybrid Paul Stewart filming on a beach in Wales for a Prehistoric Planet approach has provided an sequence involving a Pterosaur Beach opportunity to expand the visual (Credit: Courtesy of Paul Stewart) language. “The value of a natural history background in the director is important because it’s telling stories about animal behaviour,” notes Jamie McPherson used plastic dinosaurs, David Baillie, whose career includes shooting an iPhone, and a LEGO tracking device to aerials for Prehistoric Planet 2. “But because map out sequences for Life on Our Planet we have actors that we can control, let’s use (Credit: Courtesy of Sophie Lanfear)

all of the techniques of drama filming to tell this story rather than being hung up on trying to shoot it as if we’re a natural history crew.”

Framing was not entirely left up to the imagination. “The close shots [in the “Oceans” episode of Prehistoric Planet 2] were quite interesting because they couldn’t break the ice, so we had a hovercraft bring in a 3D printed head,” reveals Baillie. “I framed up, we took the hovercraft and head out, and then I did the shot. By then I had got it fixed so I knew where it would be.”

The shooting schedule was short and precise, which was something Jamie McPherson had to deal with as the visual effects director of photography for Life on Our Planet. “The main thing about filming natural history is you’ve got a month to film tigers so you’ve got all of those dawns and days, while on a visual effects shoot, you might have four or five days to make that valley in Arizona look as good as it would have done if we were filming it over a month.”

McPherson pioneered taking a Cineflex GSS from a helicopter and attaching it to a vehicle to do tracking shots for the BBC series The Hunt. “It was the first time anyone had ever been alongside wild dogs at 40 miles per hour through Zambia and I was brought onto Life on Our Planet to give the raptor sequence that same sense of movement and style. You’re going to follow the creatures and find places where you’re alongside them but not right in their faces. We used the same GSS and a Canon 50-1000mm lens to compress it. We felt that would let it sit alongside the natural history scenes in the most seamless way.”

The favoured camera was the RED Monstro to produce 8K images that the animators could reframe if needed. “The Fuji full-frame Premista zooms were great lenses for that purpose, as were the Zeiss eXtended Data Primes,” states Paul Stewart who is a writer, cinematographer and producer on Prehistoric Planet. “Honestly, there was never one big challenge, just a series of everyday, mundane ones like how do we afford the kit we need, how does the shoot go ahead if someone gets COVID-19 before we leave, and why isn’t the camera working? In the field the problem was often having animals appear we just didn’t want. While filming in Zambia for the Prehistoric Madagascar segment of the “Islands” episode in series two, we often found ourselves flanked by both lions and elephants. They were disconcerting ‘extras’, and hard things to hide in a background!” n

Behind the scenes on Life on Our Planet (Credit: Courtesy of Jamie McPherson)

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: PLANET EARTH III WORDS: ZOE MUTTER

SECOND NATURE Some of the cinematographers behind Planet Earth III reveal their techniques to capture the big wild world in all its glory.

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or wildlife cinematographer John Haskew, any filmmaking, including shooting the natural world, is “all about the story and engaging and educating the audience”. Immersing the viewer in the world of the subject, “whether a locust or an elephant” is key.

The “Humans” episode of Planet Earth III - for which Haskew filmed sequences of locusts and elephants at night and was directed by Fredi Devas - aimed to demonstrate the human impact on wildlife and their habitats including human-made climate change around the world.

Haskew wanted to move with the locusts and rangers who were trying to move the elephants on (Credit: John Haskew)

For the locust story, the filmmakers wanted to portray the marching army of locusts in northern Kenya as an extraordinary wildlife spectacle as they increased in number and strength. They also needed to show the effect of the swarms on local communities. “The locust swarms were occurring at a time when crops had just been planted, and in a region where millions of people struggled with food In the elephant story, bull elephants venture to fields of tomatoes to feed and come into conflict with local farmers trying to protect their crops. Haskew, and fellow cinematographer Neil Anderson, needed to show the perspective of this conflict from the elephant and the farmer, and the measures taken to resolve it. The elephant sequence was directed in

John Haskew filmed sequences of locusts for the “Humans” episode (Credit: BBC Studios/John Haskew)

the field by Charlotte Bostock with support from Niall Stopford.

“For both sequences, we wanted to adopt an immersive visual approach that could engage the audience in the story,” he says. “We wanted to move with the locusts and rangers who were trying to move the elephants on.”

To introduce movement and allow more immersion into the scene for the audience, different gimbal and slider setups were used, achieving different looks for the elephant and locust sequences. The light and manoeuvrable camera and gimbal rig allowed Haskew to move with the locust swarms and local communities.

As the elephant filming was exclusively at night, Haskew and Anderson needed to use cameras that were sensitive to low light. To be immersive and close to the action, wide-angle lenses were selected and low aperture lenses allowed as much light as possible into the camera.

The main challenges faced included getting close to the subjects. Locusts could move tens of miles every day, meaning keeping up with the swarms and finding appropriate settings to film was challenging. “It was equally difficult filming the elephants at night, wanting to be immersed in the action but also needing to maintain a safe distance,” he says.

Haskew (left) needed to show the effect of the swarms of locusts on local communities (Credit: John Haskew)

36 | Focus On: Wild Filming

De Glanville discovered if he anticipated the snakes’ route to the sea he could place the camera in their path (Credit: Tom Osborn)

“YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW WHEN THE KEY BEHAVIOUR OR SOMETHING UNEXPECTED WILL HAPPEN, SO YOU NEED TO BE CAPABLE OF KEEPING YOUR ATTENTION WITH THE ANIMALS.” CINEMATOGRAPHER SIMON DE GLANVILLE

COASTAL CAPTURE

Persistence is an essential quality when shooting wildlife and filmmakers working in this area are often required to spend long periods in the field.

“You need to spend as much time as you can with the animals, from sunrise to sunset, with maybe a short break in the middle of the day when the light is bad and The marine hunting animals are less active,” terrestrial garter snake advises Simon de Glanville, was one of the stars of who captured the marine the “Coasts” episode (Credit: Tom Osborn) hunting terrestrial garter snake sequence for the “Coasts” episode.

“You never really know when the key character so the audience feel like they are behaviour or something unexpected will travelling with it through the environment. But, happen, so you need to be capable of keeping as he highlights, getting the camera below the your attention with the animals.” eye line is a technical challenge when shooting Many cinematographers worked across a snake! To achieve this he used a modular the episode, with De Glanville shooting the camera that could be rigged in unconventional topside behaviour of the western garter snakes, ways as well as being built up as a full 19mm additional photography by Tom Osborn and package for long lens. underwater cinematography by Sam Lewis. While The long pre-roll options of up to 30 Nick Easton directed the episode, the garter seconds the camera offered were a great snake sequence was field directed by Estelle advantage when shooting the natural history Cheuk - a filmmaker De Glanville praises for production: “This means you can wait for a being “fastidiously organised but also very behaviour to happen before running the adaptable” - key qualities when directing wildlife. camera, allowing you to keep your rushes tight “You need to keep to the story as and avoid terabytes of wasted storage.” commissioned as much as you can, but as the For topside filming of the snakes De actors are wild animals there is always a Glanville used a 50-1000mm zoom, allowing requirement to modify the story to reflect the detailed shots from a sufficient distance to circumstances you find in the field,” says De Glanville, who believes a successful collaboration between the director and DP De Glanville wanted to get below the eyeline of the involves endlessly honing the story to character so the audience feel like they are travelling with it through the environment (Credit: Tom Osborn) accommodate the facts on the ground. “You often end up with something better than the story conceived prior to the shoot. For example, if there is a storm, you might incorporate it into the sequence.”

While “Coasts” focuses on animals living on the world’s coastlines, the sequence De Glanville shot related to a highly adaptable species of snake that has learned to hunt fish in the open ocean on Saturna, an island off the coast of Canada. “This is very unusual behaviour for terrestrial snakes,” he says. “They are unable to see under water, but have somehow become very proficient at catching marine fish.”

The filmmakers placed great emphasis on developing the lead character to immerse the viewer in the snake’s world. De Glanville wanted to get below the eyeline of the

avoid disturbing the animals.

At the other end of the spectrum, he hired a specialist macro relay scope with a 45 degree prism at the end and a range of taking objectives (5mm, 12mm, 16mm, 10mm).

“This allowed me to get the lens right at ground level, so visually it felt you are in amongst the seaweed, travelling with the snake,” he adds. “As with all probes, the nodal point is right at the receiving end of the lens array, so when you pan the camera it looks like a track and when you tilt it appears as though the camera is jibbing. This allowed us to create the feeling of travelling with the snake, while keeping the camera mobile.”

When looking for solutions to overcome the difficulty of getting close to the snakes, De Glanville discovered if he anticipated their route to the sea he could place the camera in their path. If he stayed very still they would sometimes glide past and by panning the scope with them he could track alongside.

The probe solved the problem of getting the camera low enough for the wide angle shots, but capturing low-angle telephoto shots was the real challenge as he was filming on rock so digging a hole was not possible. To overcome this he created a rig to under sling the camera. “I inverted a set of legs and using a World Cup bowl adaptor I could hang the camera underneath it,” he explains. “This allowed me to have the camera just a couple of millimetres above the ground, so I could get very low-angle 1000mm shots of the snakes.” >>

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: PLANET EARTH III WORDS: ZOE MUTTER

Most equipment was chosen according to whether it enabled the filmmakers to capture what was needed in the least disturbing manner (Credit: Fredi Devas)

Cinematographer Luke Nelson wanted to push the boundaries from a technological and cinematographic perspective when shooting the “Extremes” episode (Credit: Luke Nelson)

NATURAL INSTINCT

When shooting the “Extremes” episode directed and produced by Theo Webb cinematographer Luke Nelson guided Webb who wanted to push the boundaries from a technological and cinematographic perspective.

He shot and contributed a large portion of the episode, with cinematographers John Shier, Barrie Britton, Ryan Deboodt, Peter Cayliss, to name but a few, capturing the rest.

Nelson’s approach is “clean and uncomplicated but dynamic, adopting a classic rule of thirds that leaves room for unexpected behaviour and occasionally some Filming a snow leopard for one of the first times from centre punching”. Enjoying working with the air as it travelled across rocky mountainous terrain moving camera systems, he also often in southern Mongolia was a sizeable undertaking incorporates dynamic work from the ground (Credit: BBC Studios/ Luke Nelson) and air.

As with documentary work of this nature, it is not possible to foresee what is “Paired with the right lens, the crop achievable at the level required until on factor on some cameras can work to our location. “Rather than jumping straight into advantage in terms of getting tighter shots with mega close-ups and cinematic shots of ultra telephoto lenses,” he says. animals, we go for the building blocks first and Nelson often uses bespoke rigs created then add our touch, cinematic flare and by dedicated teams such as drones rehoused nuances of style if time and the animals into remote cameras allow,” he explains. “If through to lightweight you’re good at what jibs that can be hiked into you do and get lucky the mountains. He once enough, you might be used a rig created by the able to spend a lot of BBC that housed a time crafting the camera he could control sequence and getting and power via remote extra beautiful details ethernet cable from a that add to the story hide over 60m away. and aesthetic.”

One of his The varying specialist areas is environments and capturing sequences extreme situations from the air and he has required specific seen an increasing focus cameras and saw the on shooting perspectives filmmaker use small from this viewpoint. remote triggered “With advancements in cameras hidden in drone technology we the dens of animals CINEMATOGRAPHER LUKE NELSON really are able to see through to cameras the wild world more shooting sand intimately and like never before.” blowing in the wind and mobile phones Nelson often works in places that are shooting behind-the-scenes. Most equipment sensitive to the presence of people. When was chosen according to whether it enabled shooting “Extremes” the team needed to light them to capture what was needed in the least the inside of a cave the size of multiple football disturbing manner. The varying frame rates pitches with equipment that had to be hiked to some cameras offer at high resolution along location on a two-day trek. “The area was with modular set-up and affordability were sensitive - a cave thousands of years old also invaluable.

“WITH ADVANCEMENTS IN DRONE TECHNOLOGY WE REALLY ARE ABLE TO SEE THE WILD WORLD MORE INTIMATELY AND LIKE NEVER BEFORE.”

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cannot suddenly cope with a team of people running around trying to adjust lights in multiple places – so we had to leave all the usual combo stands, C stands and HMIs behind and think of a more manoeuvrable approach.

So we lit the cave from a drone.”

Filming a snow leopard for one of the first times from the air as it travelled across rocky mountainous terrain in southern Mongolia was another sizeable undertaking.

The animals predominantly move around and travel at night and bunker down in the shade during the day to conserve energy.

“We were in a massive mountain range trying to film an animal that’s almost impossible to see doing something it prefers to do at night, and far away from the disturbance of people,” he says.

The solution was relying on the eyes and tracking skills of a local herder and dignitary for The Snow Leopard Trust, Buren Nyam. He spotted them at a distance of almost 1km with the help of a telemetry - a radio collar fitted to the animals neck. “Buren pointed them out to me on the screen of my drone - they were still pin head size from that distance. As we stood huddled and crouched out of sight of the leopards, we watched a family running along a rocky ridge line rim lit by the last golden rays at a moment we least expected,” he says. “It’s wild to think none of us saw those leopards with our naked eye, but the local tracker could. These problems are often best resolved by people who know the environment extremely well - the real locals.” n www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

PRODUCTION PROFILE: ANIMALS UP CLOSE WITH BERTIE GREGORY WORDS: MARK LONDON WILLIAMS

WILD WORLD

For wildlife cinematographer Bertie Gregory, “the animal always comes first”. This principle is clearly evident in his BAFTA-nominated series, now streaming on Disney+.

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s Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory unfolds, you can see his relationship with his subjects is one of profound respect, even when they kill other animals to survive. This is clear from the opening episode, “Antarctic Killer Waves”, where the cinematographer and his crew find themselves tracking a small pod of orcas in the Antarctic, as the whales look to sustain themselves on an alarmingly warming planet with one of their favorite diet staples: seals.

No, that title wasn’t a typo.

It’s “killer waves,” referring to an ingenious method whales use to obtain seal meat: “wave washing,” which is done as the orcas speed around and under an ice floe where a seal is sunning itself, creating a series of waves that sloshes them right off.

Capturing the give and take between seal and whale requires its own ingenuity as well.

DO LOOK DOWN

Camera operator Anna Dimitriadis (who, along with cinematographer Tom Walker, shared Gregory’s BAFTA nomination) calls him “a drone ninja”, and the stunning shots in the series bear her out.

Gregory says “a big part of my work now on any project is with drones” [which] have recently become “very valuable tools” in filming wildlife. “Drones are a potentially disturbing tool [too],” he concedes, “but we work with scientists and experts and spend a huge amount of time figuring out how to get [them] close enough to the animals [...] without disturbing them. That’s really important for me.”

But nimble drone piloting doesn’t mean traditional filming methods were ignored.

“Bertie and I dived [and] filmed around icebergs

Gregory does a piece to camera showcasing bioluminescence in the Devil Ray Islands (Credit: National Geographic for Disney+/Dan Beecham)

One spot where they shot key footage turned out to be “400m deep - the captain actually taped over one of the zeros on the boat’s depth gauge, because he knew that we’d find that number fairly intimidating!”

Or as Gregory remarked during a sequence where the possibility loomed that the boat might become ice-bound, “death is a suboptimal outcome.”

FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL

Optimal outcomes - or certainly riveting ones - abound in the series. Perhaps the most captivating is the Antarctic episode, which ends with a sequence where frustrated orcas, stymied by retreating ice and fewer readily and sea ice to show the viewer the [whale’s] available Weddell seals, decide instead to perspective when searching for wave-washable dine on a Crabeater seal, known for putting sea ice - and hopefully one with a [seal] basking up more of a fight. on top,” Dimitriadis says, recounting one day Which is exactly what happened, as our in particular: “It was snowy and the water intrepid pod’s presumed supper manages to temperature was at approximately one degree resurface again and again after being “wave centigrade. We were using 10mm wetsuits, washed” and dragged underwater, continuing which meant that our time underwater was the fight against increasingly long odds. It’s a reduced to 30 minutes max - at which point breathtaking sequence, reminiscent of a Jack we’d ascend and retreat to a hot shower on London short story. board the main boat, before heading out again.”

So, between the drones and the dives, how much of each episode’s “story” is planned?

“We go out with an outline,” Pod of killer whales Gregory says, “but invariably, the surrounding a Weddell Seal on sea ice (Credit: wildlife doesn’t read the script, National Geographic for and things change. What we didn’t Disney+/Bertie Gregory) know was what would unfold in each of our encounters. That crabby [seal] hunt happened on our last filming day [and] completely turned the story upside down.”

But upside down in the best possible way, since it “gave us a better ending than we could have ever planned”. n

Sea lion swimming behind Galapagos shark (Credit: National Geographic for Disney+/Jeff Hester)

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: QUEENS WORDS: MARK LONDON WILLIAMS

Nat Geo, Janet Han Vissering and Wildstar Films CEO Vanessa Berlowitz. Vanessa pitched a single documentary about two female-led societies, lions and hyenas”. Han Vissering thought of going even bigger and making a series, “the first ever [...] about matriarchies and female dynasties.

Without the meeting of two women at such a high level – a rare thing in this genre! – we doubt Queens would have been commissioned.”

Not only would the show “be groundbreaking [...] but we also knew we had an opportunity for the way it was made Queens cinematographer and mentee Erin Ranney films to create a legacy. A female-led team would elephants in Africa from a bring authenticity and new voices [which specialised filming vehicle had] never been done on a premium wildlife (Credit: National Geographic series. We wanted female producers, directors, for Disney/Robbie Harman) cinematographers, editors [...] a female composer, [and] post production talent. Easier said than done”.

Darlington continues: “It meant we had to throw out the rule book on how projects like this were staffed to support female talent, many with young children that made months in the field impossible. In the world of cinematography the number of women at the level needed for a project like this can be counted on one hand.”

Over a three-year period, Darlington, with fellow series DP Justine Evans, “alongside the best men in the business, trained, mentored and supported five female filmmakers from around the world. It quite literally changed the face of the industry!” fter more than a century Darlington says that “from the outset of bringing the world to our aim was to mentor and upskill women, and readers via its distinctive, we did. As a result Tanzanian cinematographer yellow-bordered magazine Erica Rugabandana received technical training that usually stacked up as well as practice in the field (on tools like generationally in homes and libraries, RED, Canon CN20 and specialised thermal kit) National Geographic is now perhaps that enabled her to go out and make her own even better known as one of the premier stories [...] and I don’t doubt that it instilled a documentary producers on the planet, desire to pay it forward.” with topics ranging from wildlife and Sarosh adds that “doing something ecology, to human history, and more. new is always daunting but here we were This is on display both on-screen turning our backs on the type of behaviours and off, in new series Queens, which that usually make the cornerstones of natural renowned wildlife cinematographer history [docs] – the hunts, the fights, the Sophie Darlington describes as focusing big flowing manes and instead focusing on “on stories of female leadership in the nuanced behaviour of the often less nature,” adding that when she started glamorous looking females. It was a huge risk. out, “there were almost no women role Would the shows be dramatic enough? But models in the natural history arena to aspire to. we needn’t have worried. Shoot after shoot We set out to rectify this in Queens.” the queens showed us just how impressive, And she’s not simply talking about smart, resilient, and complex they were... We lionesses, elephant matriarchs, or mama bears, were lucky enough to capture an incredible but rather, who gets to make and shoot the number of firsts – a lioness using her sexuality stuff, to begin with. as currency to save her cubs, a hyena willing Co-executive producer, showrunner and to kill her sister’s cub to get the crown, an writer Chloe Sarosh says the series “came about orchid bee ‘cuckooing’ her own daughter’s nest following a meeting between a senior leader at and a brown bear who managed to keep her babies alive despite having a broken paw. This list goes on! We became Queens mentee and so in awe of our queens, it became filmmaker Erica impossible not to see the similarities Rugabandana (Credit: between their experience and that National Geographic for of being a woman. It confirmed the Disney/Millie Marsden) idea that we [wanted] the audience to see themselves, their friends and sisterhoods in these stories.

“When we first started on Queens a peer in our industry said, ‘Oh that series the girls are making.’ We knew then that not only did Queens need to be good, it had to be excellent.

It feels good to be here now and show just what the ‘girls’ made!” n

FEMALES IN THE FRAME

As well as the female dynasties at the centre of the story in Queens, talented and passionate women took on key roles behind the camera and throughout the production team to capture the groundbreaking wildlife series.

Queens series director of photography Sophie Darlington (Credit: National Geographic for Disney/Millie Marsden)

Queens is a groundbreaking series about matriarchies and female dynasties (Credit: National Geographic for Disney/Robbie Harman)

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www.britishcinematographer.co.uk

SEPT 22

2025

SEPT 26

GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING Jackson Wild accelerates and elevates impactful storytelling at the nexus of nature, science and climate through innovative and collaborative gatherings, skill-building initiatives and mentorship programs. The Jackson Wild Summit is an extraordinary convening where collaboration and innovation thrive, ideas are launched, and strategic partnerships are forged.

SPOTLIGHT: WILD MOVERS AND SHAKERS

WILD AT HEART Meet the organisations, charities, festivals and more who play their part in making the world of wildlife filmmaking a roaring success.

Discovery Channel is dedicated to creating the highest quality non-fiction content that informs and entertains its consumers about the world in all its wonder, diversity and amazement.

The network, which is distributed to 88.3 million US homes, can be seen in 224 countries and territories, offering a signature mix of compelling, high-end production values and vivid cinematography across genres including, science and technology, exploration, adventure, history and in-depth, behind-the-scenes glimpses at the people, places and organisations that shape and share our world. discovery.com

BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is the best-known producer of natural history content in the world, responsible for some of the most globally successful factual content of the past 10 years. With ground-breaking technology and innovation, NHU reveals to audiences around the world the extraordinary wonders of nature through exceptional storytelling, jaw dropping imagery and cutting-edge science. NHU’s breath-taking content includes landmarks for the BBC (Planet Earth III, Mammals) and Pre-Historic Planet for AppleTV+ original. Current titles in production include Blue Planet III (BBC), The Americas (NBCU), and Ocean Xplorers (WT), a co-production with OceanX Media and James Cameron (National Geographic Disney+). productions.bbcstudios.com

The IAWF (International Association of Wildlife Filmmakers) was formed in 1982 to foster communication and collaboration among cinematographers acquiring specialist natural history content for broadcast media.

The IAWF represents the best interests of wildlife cinematographers in whatever ways it can. The IAWF also encourages the sharing of knowledge on all aspects of wildlife filming. The IAWF was delighted to become affiliated with the Guild of Television Camera Professionals in 2016. The IAWF promotes the work of its members through its website, Instagram, other social media outlets, the GTC website and GTC publications. IAWF members proudly uphold the highest ethical standards with regard to the welfare of their subject matter and in their work. They are open to membership applications through their website. iawf.tv

Jackson Wild accelerates and elevates impactful storytelling at the nexus of nature, science and climate through collaborative gatherings, skill-building initiatives, mentorship programs and career development. Jackson Wild is an inclusive global forum, inspiring our community, celebrating excellence in storytelling that illuminates our connection to the natural world and collective responsibility to the wild.

The Jackson Wild Summit is an annual convening where collaboration and innovation thrive, and new ideas are launched. Cross-disciplinary conversations on the critical issues facing our planet set the stage for strategic partnerships that happen nowhere else, as participants work together to address conservation and environmental challenges. jacksonwild.org

National Geographic’s roots stem back to 1888, when the eponymous print magazine was founded as a scholarly journal for the recently founded National Geographic Society. National Geographic Channel services launched in the UK and Ireland in 1997, and its American counterpart in 2001.

National Geographic Documentary Films creates and distributes ‘timely, provocative and globally relevant’ work from documentary filmmakers across the world. Its roster includes the Academy Award-winning Free Solo and TIFF favourite The Rescue. nationalgeographic.com

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Nature, Environment and Wildlife Filmmakers’ (NEWF) vision is that the Stories of Africa that celebrate and advocate for the protection of her natural history are told by a connected network of visual storytellers organically led by indigenous African voices. NEWF provides professional development, mentorship and networking opportunities through their annual Fellows Summit, Congress and year-round labs that enhance storytelling through specialised training in cinematography, post-production, music composition and the largest dive certification program in Africa. Africa Refocused, a collaboration with the National Geographic Society, supports NEWF in elevating African storytellers in global media and conversations about Africa, ultimately addressing the need to refocus the stories of Africa so they are told by and from the perspective of African people. newf.co.za

The Wildlife Society of Filmmakers (WSF) supports established and up-and-coming filmmakers who work in natural history and wildlife documentary projects.

Membership in the non-profit membership organisation is open to those who work in documentary, from early career to recognised wildlife filmmakers. WSF supports these filmmakers with mentorship, connection, top-tier information, and opportunities to learn as the genre grows and careers in natural history filmmaking expand.

By its very nature, wildlife filmmaking and the lives of those engaged in it is a global endeavour and WSF will offer these activities and resources, globally. www.instagram.com/wsfilmmakers

Wildscreen is a charity that aims to connect people with nature through storytelling. It hosts the iconic biannual Wildscreen Festival (14 – 18 October 2024), the biggest global gathering of natural world storytellers. This year it also hosted Wildscreen Festival Tanzania (4-6 June 2024), in partnership with BBC Studios Natural History Unit, celebrating African creativity in wildlife filmmaking. It’s home to Wildscreen Network, a global community that brings together creatives, production companies and broadcasters in the wildlife and natural history TV and film industry to share expertise, forge connections and make the industry more diverse and accessible to all.

The Wildlife Camerawomen Community is a collective of women, trans, and gender diverse wildlife film and TV cinematographers.

The community profiles camerawomen and their work on their Instagram page and provides peer support, workshops and training opportunities on their community group page.

Running for over three years, the community has helped to uplift and inspire camera talent, facilitate skill sharing and collaboration and raise the profile of camerawomen at international events such as Jackson Wild and Wildscreen. “You can always tell who the strong women are. They’re ones building other women up instead of tearing them down.”

wildscreen.org

www.instagram.com/wildlife.camerawomen

Wildmotion works to support filmmakers telling stories about our planet and our human condition and will ensure they have the tools to craft their narratives and the reach to have them seen. Wildmotion conducts training, interviews and project showcases globally to spotlight the best stories and storytellers.

Women in Wildlife is a not-for-profit organisation aiming to connect and amplify women working within the wildlife industry. It aims to highlight women in a diverse range of roles, and in doing so, create a strong female support network for women around the world.

It engages the community through its various social media platforms, its global representative program, as well as its podcast. WIW hopes to continue amplifying women’s voices, and inspiring the upcoming generation of aspiring women in wildlife into the diverse and wonderful jobs that there are within the wildlife industry.

wildmotion.online

women-in-wildlife.com

Focus On: Wild Filming | 43

THE POWER OF RED My passion for sharing the world’s hidden wonders, combined with RED, allows me to capture and convey the profound beauty and intricate details that reveal the true story of our planet.

Ivan Agerton Cinematographer

www.RED.COM

Photo Credit: Nick Hall