We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.

What inspired this story?

Hal Hampson, Production Team Member: Predators have obviously featured in numerous natural history programmes and series over the years but, surprisingly, nobody has ever done a whole series looking specifically at the huge challenges predators face when trying to catch their prey. The aim of The Hunt was to show the reality of life as a predator – one where failure is the norm.  We wanted to put these magnificent group of animals centre stage in a blue-chip series while, at the same time, showing their challenges in the context of the habitats in which they live. One thing we certainly didn’t want to do was to add to the myth of predators being the ‘bad guys’.  Indeed, as the title suggests, The Hunt is exclusively about strategy – not killing!

Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
​
HH: Stylistically our main aim was to put the audience in the feet of our predator stars – to really feel what it is like to be, for example, a stalking tiger or leopard, or pursuit predators like African wild dogs. To do this required re-thinking traditional camera techniques. The solution was to repurpose the tried and tested gyro stabilised Cineflex system – taking it off helicopters (its traditional use) and putting it on a wide range of ground transport, from four-wheel drive trucks, to boats, ATVs and even, on one occasion, an elephant! By using the Cineflex in this way meant that we could follow a hunt for far longer than had ever been possible before. Perhaps the best example of this can be seen in the wild dog sequence, which, for the first time, shows a complete hunt from the ground.

How do you approach storytelling?
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​HH: One of our mottos is ‘every shot needs to be a Rembrandt’, but when it comes to storytelling a good wildlife programme obviously needs to do much more than that. An audience should be able to identify with the characters in the film and in doing that the best natural history shows cover a range of emotions, from surprise and suspense to humour. The current fashion is to err a little on the side of anthropomorphism and even for a blue-chip series like The Hunt this works really well – as long as all the information is scientifically credible. Natural history programmes can become slaves to camera techniques – like gratuitous slow motion – but, in telling our stories, it was very important that this wasn’t the case. Technology was crucial to the series but in The Hunt it allowed us to tell better and fresher stories, as described above. Finally, natural history sequences have a tendency to be too cryptic so that you don’t really know what’s going on until half way through them. Our storytelling aim in each sequence was always to ‘set it up and let it run’!

​What impact do you hope this film will have?

HH: Predators generally get a bad rap and this is certainly not helped by the many wildlife films that show them as ‘red in tooth and claw’. The reality is very different since most predators fail most of the time (this is fairly obvious if you think about it – if predators were always successful there would be no prey, and then no predators!). So, if people feel more empathy for predators as a result of this series then we will have done our bit for these crucially important, and much maligned, group of animals. Predators are also some of the most threatened species on the planet. Many have seen their populations plummet as a result of habitat loss, poaching and now climate change. Even our most iconic predators, like tigers and polar bears face a very uncertain future. Our final episode looks at the conservation challenges surrounding these magnificent animals. We can marvel at their power and ingenuity but we also need to be aware of their plight.
 
 
What next?

​HH: We are currently working on a major Natural History series for Netflix, called Our Planet, which transmits in 2019 and Perfect Planet - a blue, chip landmark series for the BBC, due in 2020.

We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.

What inspired this story? 

Director, Producer and Editor Katie Schuler: A journey into the life of the Pangolin, the world's most illegally trafficked mammal and the world's only scaled mammal. There are 8 species of Pangolins, four in Africa and four in Asia. Because their meat is consumed as a luxury item in China and Vietnam and their scales have supposed health benefits, it is estimated that one-million Pangolins have been snatched from the wild in the last decade. All Pangolins are considered endangered and are now listed under CITES Appendix 1, the highest level of protection world wide. We don't know much about Pangolins, their lifespan and how many are left in the wild, but based on their life cycle they are likely to soon go extinct at the rate they are being killed. I think it's tragic that there are incredible species on this planet that will go extinct before most people know they exist. In 2014, I was living in Palawan, Philippines during a one-year Luce fellowship with my husband. I met with Nino Rey Estoya, who combats illegal wildlife trafficking on the island. As he described how Pangolin is caught and smuggled off the island, I began storyboarding a film in my head. I went home that day, wrote the entire script, pitched it to Nino and we began what would be over a year of production. We began interviewing undercover informants who were posing as active poachers. One of them told us, “I had an experience where I saw the Pangolin looking into my eyes as I was slitting his throat, he seemed to be begging me to stop.” His experience was a big inspiration for the film.

​Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.

KS: Because we did almost everything out of pocket, we couldn't hire actors so we cast several different people to play each major role. We were very worried about continuity issues. Despite this, we were able to record about 90 percent of the poaching process. We were missing the very beginning, the crucial moment where a live pangolin being taken from the wild. After three failed expeditions to remote areas of the island, we were in jeopardy of not being able to finish what we started. I sent a desperate email to the Bali Zoo, one of the only places in the world at that time that had an Asian Pangolin species in captivity. Amazingly, they allowed me to use Toby, their Sunda Pangolin, to capture the remaining scenes.

How do you approach storytelling?

KS: The film is sort of an amalgamation of documentary, investigative journalism and re-enactment. In my personal work, I'm always trying to make beautiful images and show things from the perspective of the animal.

What impact do you hope this film will have?

KS: For people to emotionally connect with the Pangolin and its journey and to feel inspired to want to protect it. That people share the film with their friends and family. Conservationists, researchers, government officials....everyone needs to work together to solve this issue locally and on the demand side. If you want to get involved there are many Pangolin conservation organizations out there. I'm currently working with the IUCN Specialist Pangolin Group, pangolinconservation.org and OneMoreGeneration.org. Pangolin has been in high demand at film festivals world-wide, winning four best short awards and joining the NatGeo Short Film Showcase. It has also been an important tool for conservation, and has been used as part of One More Generation's pangolin initiative in primary schools, featured in The Nature Conservancy’s social media campaign to decrease consumption in China, and used as a central part of the U.S. Wildlife Trafficking Alliance's digital toolkit serving - reaching over 25 million travelers annually to end demand for illegal wildlife products. I have also been offered a seat on PangolinConservation.org's Board of Directors, and launched Instagram's @PangaforPangolins account, which raises awareness about pangolins using a child-friendly mascot.

Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? 

KS: I am overjoyed that people are emotionally connecting with the film and that audiences seem to pick up on the fact that we were not trying to make villains out of the poachers, smugglers and buyers. Sometimes we get opposite reactions though, from people that are furious and seem to want to avenge the Pangolin from those that create the demand. It's challenging to come up with the best strategy to combat the illegal Pangolin trade, especially when consuming these animals is ingrained into the culture.

Anything else you would like people to know?

I have a mascot for the film, Panga, who has her own instagram following. You can follow her journey around the world. See here for more details: @pangaforpangolins
 
What next?

I’ve become a sort of one-woman coordinating machine between researchers, zoos and rehabilitation centers worldwide. It’s an all hands on deck project and many days my time is split between keeping track of new solutions to the illegal trade such as DNA sourcing, dog-sniffing and GPS tracking while also keeping tabs on new scientific discoveries, and research initiatives being launched. I feel honored to be a part of a larger community of people who care deeply about the future of pangolins and am proud to be working alongside them to advance global conservation and protection of this animal. I can’t wait to sink my camera into some of these unfolding stories, help amplify these messages, and hopefully recruit new pangolin advocates. Later this year, I’ll be covering groundbreaking scientific discoveries with pangolin researcher Justin Miller in Togo. I also have work planned in early 2018 to construct photographic essays and other stories about the cultural consumption of pangolins in Southern China and its connection to traditional Chinese medicine.

​We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.​​​​

​What do you feel is most important to remember when telling nature related stories to younger audiences?

My Haggan Dream crew: We need to remember that younger audiences need the time and opportunity to fall in love with nature before we ask them to save it. It’s easy in nature films to focus on the negative, and even adults attending a wildlife film festival can walk away feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. Hitting kids over the head too early with these heavy messages does them a disservice. We want to build a generation of children who grow up with love and empathy for the natural world, and then give them the tools to know how to save it.

​How do you approach storytelling?

What one thing do we want people to remember after watching our film, ten years later, when all the details have faded? For children’s programming, we answer this question, and then we write the most unique story we can to meet our objective. Children are smart, sophisticated and full of imagination, just on different developmental levels. We try to create stories that cater to and celebrate their sophistication on different developmental levels -- stories that allow kids to develop empathy for the natural world, before they are asked to save it. We want kids to laugh and think and enjoy stories, so that they are building the foundation for becoming people who want to tackle environmental issues. We want to create programming that allows adults and children to laugh together, so that they want to watch again and again. 

​Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?

We went to Saipan for a few short weeks in 2016 to film a story about the need for protection of the mother sea turtles nesting on the island. The scientists monitoring the nesting beaches told us that only seven turtles nested that season. Tragically, one of those seven was killed by poachers while we were there, leaving only 6 nesting mother turtles that year. That reality made the film feel even more important. 

Anything else you would like people to know?

​Pacific Islanders are a strong community, and they feel a strong ownership of, and responsibility for, their coastal waters and the marine animals that live there. We wanted to honor this. We were part of a team of local partners and the community in Saipan, and we all worked together to make a film that was very much their film, their story. Honestly, we couldn’t have made this piece without them- the beauty of their island, the girl who lives there, the turtles- they shared all of that, trusting us to make a film with their story.

At the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, this was the first year Excursions were available to delegates. They could learn about the newest technology in wildlife filmmaking, get outdoors to truly experience Jackson's beauty, and more. One popular workshop allowed attendees to do both: it was all about drones. The workshop, made possible by Freefly, explored the creative side of using drones with some of the best in the business. The panel of drone experts spoke about their experiences and gave advice to creatively use this popular specialty camera.

Another workshop facilitator, Nel Boshoff, was proud of the variety of gear they had to show the attendees. "We showed a Freefly Alta 8, DJI inspire 2, DJI Mavic and DJI phantom. We demonstrated a gamut of drones all at the pinnacle of UAV tech." From the FreeFly Alta 8 with MoVI Pro, the most proven system capable of lifting all of the top cinema cameras, to the Mavic, capable of 4K video but folds up to fit in your pocket.

Be sure to check out some of Freefly's latest tech, and learn about camera compatibility and more on Freefly's blog to find what best suits you. (Our favorite blog post that helpfully explains a lot about their newest technology is called "Flying with the Epic.")