We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story? Director Ben Wallis: The story of this film was inspired by the film “Born In China” – a cinematic release made for Disneynature. As soon as we decided upon the mission to film snow leopards in China, we knew we had the makings of a potentially great film about how the team attempted that. Snow leopards have been hardly filmed, the remote and very high location in China had never been visited before by an international crew and it would take planning and collaboration at the level never really attempted before to make this work. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. BW: The challenges were many! Just getting to the location involved many days travelling, mostly to get used to the extreme altitude but also because we were the first international crew to reach the location. Everything we needed to survive had to be taken in with us – there were no short trips to the shops! The team had to deal with extreme altitude and isolation, were only connected to the outside world via satphone and had to organise each day with military precision and radio comms to keep everyone safe. Getting through daily outbreaks of extreme weather, long hikes and driving through remote landscapes in search of a predator rarely filmed, became a daily ritual.
How do you approach storytelling?
BW: I think the art of a good story has a few key elements. Drama, immersion, simplicity, relatability. Our film had all these. The drama of finding and filming the story of an animal that hadn’t been told before. The immersion of a team in a really remote, tough, high location not visited by an international crew before. A “simple” story arc in which every moment drove the narrative on and a relatability between the audience and our key human characters. What impact do you hope this film will have? BW: I hope this film (like “Born In China”) will open a wildlife interest in China and therefore a focus on the endangered animals that live there and the landscapes that are crucial to their survival. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? BW: The silence of the location was a really special element to this shoot. Scary to get used to but amazing to experience. The trip would not have worked without the support of the locals that live there. The vastness of the location led to us experiencing what appeared to be a really rich ecology – from marmots to wild ass, wolves to pallas cats and blue sheep to snow leopards. It was a great joy to work with cameraman Shane Moore. It was a huge team effort but without his professionalism, dedication, and field craft skills we wouldn’t have achieved what we did - getting close to a very elusive animal in such tough and demanding terrain. Anything else you would like people to know? BW: Filming snow leopards – let alone new snow leopard behaviour – has been a focus of natural history producers for years. The aim was achieved because of the backing of Disney, an international filming collaboration like none other and a hugely talented team in the field for more than 250 days. What next? BW: A 5 part series on China for Nat Geo Wild.
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We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
Producer and Director John Maggio: We knew from the start that we wanted to get as close as possible to the conditions that greeted Roosevelt and Rondon in 1913 and 1914. But, in order to bring the story to life we needed a big crew of extras and a rather big film crew. We learned pretty quickly that the remoteness of the River of Doubt (today Rio Roosevelt) on the far western edge of the Brazilian Amazon was going to pose real logistical problems for us and our desire to realize the experience as vividly as we wanted. But, we also knew we wanted to film in the Brazilian Amazon so we chose a tributary of the Rio Negro, the Ariau River that was geographically similar to the River of Doubt – a serpentine and swollen black river that snaked its way through the flooded forest, but was close enough to Manaus that we could ferry all of our equipment. We had a twenty-person crew that included a second unit drone team lead by cinematographer Bryan Harvey and a first unit helmed by Tim Cragg. We partnered with a Brazilian fixer who helped organize the transport of lights, generators, camera equipment, food supplies and personnel up the Rio Negro to the Ariau. We spent nearly three weeks in Brazil during the Zika outbreak and were subjected to one hundred degree temperatures and crippling humidity deluged by torrential rainstorms daily. Keeping our camera and sound equipment dry and lenses from fogging up were a constant problem. During the day our equipment floated just inches above the swollen muddy river. We often had to suspend shooting because of dangerous caimen (large powerful crocodilians) in the water or when giant pink dolphins surfaced unexpectedly. We subsisted on local fish caught from the river augmented by rice and beans. The conditions were brutal. In order to find the powerful rapids of the River of Doubt we also spent ten days in Jarabocoa, Dominican Republic. There we shot the dramatic gorge scene with a team of a dozen extras and expert climbers to lower the bulky canoes over the fifty-foot falls. In the DR we also had twenty-person crew and second unit drone team. The conditions were equally as brutal as we had a fifty-foot crane perilously dangling over very powerful waterfalls while trying to navigate class 3 rapids with a full camera crew.
Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?
JM: We had a dozen extras, Brazilians (all native to the region, many of them descendants of indigenous people) who acted not only as extras in the film, but also our trusty guides through the rainforest and navigating the river, animal wranglers, and they hand-carved a dozen sixteen foot canoes from local trees. They provided us with traditional remedies for stomach problems, insect bites, cuts and skin infections. They could call caimans and howler monkeys, wrangle spiders and sloths and at night steered us clear of anaconda. The production itself was not unlike the Roosevelt’s fateful River of Doubt expedition as we were at the mercy of our indigenous hosts who lead us in and out of the jungle. They were incredible people and truly made this film possible. How do you approach storytelling? JM: I like stories that shine a light on intrepid people who have near fatal flaws - Alfred Kinsey, Walter Freeman(the inventor of the pre-frontal lobotomy) and Theodore Roosevelt; all of them great men whose hubris pushed the limits of reason and self-control. Roosevelt spent his youth a sickly boy who sought a mastery of nature as a way to take control of his own surroundings. He became a big game hunter, spent a year on safari in Africa, and provided museums with thousands of specimens of animals and yet he met his match on the River of Doubt in the Amazon. He had reached the outer limits of man’s mastery of the environment. He was not invincible. That desire for discovery and control on Roosevelt’s part greatly influenced my approach to this film. What impact do you hope this film will have? JM: There are so few frontiers left, let’s not forget that the Amazon is one of the last and in need of preservation and respect. We cannot control nature but we can help preserve it and hope it helps sustain us. Next for the crew of Into the Amazon:
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story? Producer Amy Anderson: At the beginning of the 20th Century there were estimated to be around 100,000 wild tigers. Today, that number is now estimated at 3900 - a shocking reduction. Poaching and habitat loss are key drivers for this drastic decline. Pavel’s story was inspired by a desire to engage people with the plight of wild tigers and to shine a spotlight on the incredible people risking their lives to protect this endangered species. With the Russian Far East being one of the last remaining frontiers for wild tigers, combined with it's stark cinematic beauty and hardy individuals, our quest to find an individual who was not only passionate and engaging, but also reflected a deeper side to our conservation ethos, led us to Pavel. Pavel is a true tiger protector. We wanted to bring his story to life. Amy Anderson, Producer - WWF UK
Describe some of the challenges faced when making this film. AA: NGO films can often been seen in a negative light. They can be considered too pessimistic or conversely, too worthy. We wanted to make an NGO film that moved away from this and was more 'relevant'. We therefore looked to ‘up our game’ both on a technical and storytelling level. We hoped this would allow us to gain greater cut through in a highly saturated media landscape. A key challenge was therefore how to do all of this on an NGO budget. On a more practical level, filming in remote locations with sub-zero temperatures (down to -30 degrees) proved challenging not only for the crew, but for the high end filming equipment – with camera motors failing and lenses freezing on a number of occasions.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
AA: In 2010, WWF pledged to double the number of wild tigers by 2022 (the next Chinese year of the tiger). Since then, tiger numbers have increased across the globe, but work still needs to be scaled up to achieve this unique conservation target. Ultimately, this requires greater awareness of the issue, alongside relying on the passion and unwavering support from tiger protectors; whether they be members of the public, politicians or Pavel himself. We hope this film will inspire others to become tiger protectors too. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? AA: Whilst filming a camera trapping scene with Pavel in the forests of Tigrovoye, we witnessed an incident with a poacher. Our cameras were rolling, when Maxim (an employee of the land owner where we were filming), suddenly bolted off into the forest. In the dull snowy silence, we heard shouts and a scuffle in the distance. Taking a few seconds to comprehend what was happening, Pavel then took off into the forest to rush to Maxim’s aid. Given that during winter months, individuals are not granted hunting permits for deer (to allow the population to survive and maintain a healthy food source for tigers), we soon realized that this man was in the forest illegally, and likely to be a poacher. Pavel and Maxim apprehended him, confiscated his rifle and bag (which he had dropped to keep out of sight before Maxim took chase), and took him to the local authorities. The very next day, we got news from another land owner that his employee had been rushed to hospital after being rammed by a man (thought to be poacher) on a snow mobile, after he had given chase. Although we were slightly shaken by the incident we witnessed in the forest, alongside the horrific news the following day, coupled with the sad encounter of the dead female tiger we filmed as part of the film, this all served as a stark reminder of the ever present poaching issue in Russia and how individuals like Pavel and Maxim really were risking their lives to protect tigers.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Director and Producer Eric Sean Liner: Neil Rettig and Laura Johnson were the catalysts for pursuing this story their willingness to put so much on the line for eagle conservation really inspired us. Our second inspiration came from the staff of the Philippine Eagle Foundation – witnessing their relentless day in, day out commitment carried us through the multi-year production.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
ESL: The greatest challenges we faced had to do with the natural history shooting–specifically finding and filming a family of wild Philippine Eagles. The fact that there are so few birds remaining in the wild meant we didn't have many locations to choose from; because the eagles lay only one egg every two years, finding a viable nest during our production window was a low odds endeavor; and because we were dealing with a critically endangered and highly sensitive species, Neil and his team had to take incredible pains not to disturb the nest and risk harming the chick. It made for some very tense moments over the course of production.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
ESL: Our goal is to ultimately shift the way people in the Philippines relate to the eagle and we’re working with in-country organizations to produce an array of media to help make that happen. With so much of the Philippine forest destroyed during the mid to late 20th century, human persecution now ranks as the greatest threat to the species. While we may not be able to bring the forests back quickly, stopping the unnecessary shooting and trapping of eagles is an area where we believe we could have an immediate positive impact. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? ESL: We waited for over two-years to film the successful hatch of a captive Philippine eagle chick. Raising Philippine eagles in captivity is a difficult process and it was really emotional to experience that moment with the staff of the Philippine Eagle Foundation. Everyone was holding his or her breath, hoping nothing would go wrong.
Anything else you would like people to know?
ESL: Bird of Prey is just one part of a broad media initiative to help contribute to Philippine eagle conservation and provide conservation groups with the communications tools they need to be more effective.
By Abbey Greene
Our furry little friends in the forest are not just cute...there are some things about foxes that not everyone knows.
Red foxes are a member of Jackson's ecosystem and in several other places around the world, including the Arctic Circle, North Africa, North America and Eurasia. Here are a few fun facts about these creatures that you may not have been aware of, until now.
1. Red foxes would be great triathletes.
Red foxes can run up to 31 mph, jump over 6 ft high fences, and they can even swim.
2. Their tail is over half its body length.
(70% of its head and body length long, to be exact.)
3. Red foxes’ forepaws have five toes, while their hind feet only have four! (And they don’t have dewclaws either.)
4. Females are actually called vixens.
Meanwhile, males are called dog foxes, and young foxes are called cubs, pups, or kits.
5. Red foxes have supersonic hearing! Well, almost.
They can hear crows in flight from up to a third of a mile away, a grouse changing roosts at 600 paces, and even a little mouse squeak from 100 metres away. Reportedly, they can even hear a watch ticking from 40 yards away! 6. Largely, red foxes are choose one mate to be with for their whole life. That's right, they are monogamous.
7. When afraid, red foxes grin.
It is a sign of submission, along with arching their backs and bringing themselves lower to the ground while laying their ears back.
8. They don’t make good pets.
Wild animals are meant to live in the wild. Simple as that. When it comes to red foxes, many kits are adopted by people who mean well, but it’s unlikely that the pups were abandoned by their mother in the first place. Always respect nature, give them space and trust in the red foxes’ instinct; they will take care of their babies. |
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