In June last year Bristol Wildlife Filmmakers hosted a Meet the Wildlife Filmmakers Day for the Guild of TV Cameramen (GTC) at Folly Farm. It was an opportunity for documentary cameramen who don’t normally film wildlife to get an insight into the vagaries of working with animals and plants…
Nearly forty GTC members travelled from all over the country to Folly Farm’s beautiful 250-acre nature reserve in the Chew Valley, south of Bristol. Here they were able to bask in glorious sunshine, explore some of the delights of the reserve and share the filming experiences of cameramen John Waters and Tim Shepherd and wildlife producer Mike Salisbury, best known for his work with David Attenborough on series such as: Lost Worlds Vanished Lives, The Private Life of Plants, The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals and most recently Life in the Undergrowth.
John Waters (better known as Mr Meerkat for his work on the popular series Meerkat Manor) talked about Capturing Close Encounters with wildlife. He discussed the techniques, field craft and lateral thinking often required to get you close to your subject – including a group of apparently rioting chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Later, out in Folly Farm’s ancient woodland, John showed small groups of GTC members how to set up a filming hide and talked about the pro and cons of using hides to film animals in the wild.
Tim Shepherd won an Emmy and RTS awards for cinematography on The Private Life of Plants and The Human Body series and is renowned for his spectacular time-lapse and time-interval filming work. Tim gave a wonderful insight into how he films plants growing, flowering, seeding and even travelling – sequences that have changed our perception of the plant species that share our world. He also demonstrated how he filmed the 60-second awe-inspiring shot of plants from all seasons growing and flowering in succession, which opened the plants programme in the BBC Life series.
Mike Salisbury, OBE, is best known for his 30 years of service with the BBC’s Natural History Unit in Bristol. During this time he produced numerous wildlife programmes including five series with David Attenborough. Mike revealed the secrets behind some of his favourite sequences and detailed the meticulous planning and research (and the large element of luck!) that go into capturing stories that live on in the viewers memory long after the programmes have been broadcast.
