rhinos . trip one

Headed out to Uganda towards the end of January to start work on a Natural World about Rhinos. I was with Jo and Andrew. Husband and wife director and sound recordist and Arpana who was AP.
We travelled North East from Entebbe to Zewa Rhino Sanctuary. This was of course after the mandatory mess up with vehicles, permits, equipment, etc....
We met Angie and her family, who the film was about. Ugandas Rhinos were hunted to extinction under Idi Amin's regime and now Angie is trying to bring them back.
There are currently three males and three females which isn't enough for a core population, so this film is about her struggle to obtain more from Kenya and Swaziland.
The first part of our trip tool us to Murchison falls, a lovely reserve, bordering the upper Nile on one side and lake Albert and the Congo on the other.
Angie was here to learn about darting from head vet Patrick.
We headed out early and stopped to film a beautiful sunrise. with the early morning African sounds, golden light, distant horizons and a steaming coffee... i was happy to be back.
In one day we darted to Ele's, one with a damaged ear and the second with a badly snared leg. The second one was interesting as it was a youngster ad in the middle of the herd. so a dangerous situation running around on the ground with a dozen troubled ele's crashing about. The maggot ridden wound was treated and we retreated.
We were staying in Paraa lodge looking down over the river. so the mid day heat was tempered by a swim in the infinity pool, a cool drink and pleasant lunch.
The following day saw us on a boat cruising up the waterfalls that give this part f the Nile its name. a vast volume of water is forced through a tiny cleft in the cliffs creating a stunning spectacle. The river immediately widens out to about 100 metres with hippos, crocs and ele's in abundance.
It was magical to be on the water at dawn at such an Eden like place. The rhino rangers Angie had brought with her were having a wonderful time.

we headed back to Zewa and settled into our little cottage.
the next day we headed out under the guidance and protection of our rangers. Its always lovely to be on foot out in the bush. there is a freedom and a little tingle of awareness and fear at the back of the neck that makes you appreciate your breakfast.
Dawn and dusk over the next few days offered us some lovely light to document the rhinos and rangers. in the middle of the day we interviewed Angie and set up our crane for a few nice shots around the buildings.
With the rainy season fast approaching the clouds were building and i tried to grab a few timelapses.
One afternoon out with Angie, we saw smoke on the horizon. The walkie talkie burst into life. there was a bush fire on the sanctuary and it was heading towards the head quarters.
absolutely everyone rushed to help. the mechanic, office girl, cook, cooks girl friend. it was humbling to see.
palm leaves were cut and and the battle was on. it was hot sweaty work in the tinder dry, snake infested grass battering down the flames and stamping out the sparks.
After a couple of hours the zewa home team had triumphed. I had filmed the whole thing and felt huge guilt at wafting around with a camera whilst everybody sweated around me.
that night it rained finishing the job and protecting the sanctuary.
Our time was soon up. We will hopefully be returning in a few weeks to document the arrival of either Kenyan or Swaziland Rhinos

Human Planet : grasslands

Dont forget to watch Grasslands on the 17th February, 

cos I filmed lots of it!

Preview of Human Planet. Starting tomorrow.

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coming next week....

I was lucky enough to work on the deserts, grasslands and urban programmes.

There's also a wee making of about our sahara trip at the end of the deserts programme on the 20th January.

up and coming 

Theres a few of my efforts coming up soon to a Television near you.

Tuesday 14th December

Decade of Discovery - 8pm BBC2  ( This is where i got to swim with sloths)

Mon/Tue/Wed 3rd,4th, and 5th of Jan 

The Bear family and Me - Wandering the woods of North America with Gordon Buchanan and a load of Black Bears

Tuesdays from 13th Jan for eight weeks.

Human Planet - This is the big one. Three years work. Should look great.

antarctic portraits

Our Team

Ben

Nick

Tim

Me

Nigel

Lizzy

Diana

Cricket

John

antarctica prt 3

Scotts hut sits on a promontory looking 60 miles across the frozen sea to the trans antarctic mountains. The volcano Erebus smolders behind it and the barn glacier sticks its tongue out in front .
We Arrived and straight away grabbed a torch and filmed Ben clearing snow and entering the hut. It was the first time anyone had been inside that season .
His torch caught his frozen breath and played across the dinning table, bunks and shelves of food we know so well from photos. It was very very special and a moment i will never forget. I was touching ghosts.

As well as filming we had to live. So cameras down and we started pitching tents.

The pegs were manly steal spikes, the hammer was manly and of the sledge variety. But the permafrost outmachoed both. We all sat exhausted with a bent piece of metal lying next to a small graze in the ice.
Arse
It was left to the hard as steel kiwi John and his apprentice nick to fight the good fight whilst Tim, Ben and I unfolded ground sheets and discussed ' light' .
Evening found us all crammed into the wanagan ( portacabin ).
Here there was a welcome stove for heating and for melting snow for our drinking water. We were split into teams for cooking, cleaning, emptying the pee bucket and tamping the poo!
Our time in the hut was magical. Ben cleared the snow from the windows and I had brought just enough lights for us to film this most atmospheric of places.

It was split into many areas. Officers and men, kitchen, lab, dark room, library, bunks and dining area.
With over 10,000 artefact's there was always something new to see. The work the conservators had done was remarkable. Scotts socks draped over the end of bed, Wilsons paints at his desk, Pontings cuff links lay next to his printing ink. In the kitchen, tomato sauce, birds custard and bovril sat piled next to real turtle soup and balls of cheese- and yes you can smell it.

To try and bring it to life I used tracks and Steadicam. 
Ben's passion was wonderful. To hear him read diary extracts of Christmas day 100 years ago as we stood at the same table was haunting. Tim the director had tracked own the most wonderful diary entries from all the old house mates.
One evening a penguin turned up from nowhere. He handled the adoration quite well and just lay there looking slightly bemused. A week later a seal pitched up from the Icy horizon. He was a bit more bolshy and shouted a bit before heading off to only he knew where.
Life in camp fell into a pattern and we all found our place. Nick pretty much gave up sound recording and went off hitting bits of metal with John.
Ben told us where he would like his picture taken that day and Tim and I discussed light any time something needed lifting or tamping.

Whilst there we celebrated Bens birthday with cakes, candles and cards. A great night. Strange to think of Scott celebrating his birthday a hundred years ago in the hut next door.The volcano didn't erupt, the ice didn't melt and filming went very well.

We had a few forays out onto the ice. the first was to see the work of Dr Tim Haskell. His camp was on the ice beyond the trapped iceberg at the end of our promontory. We all trooped towards an unpromising poli tunnel ( the sort of thing we grow tomatoes and marijuana in in Devon). We walked inside and were first hit by the heat from the stove , then we saw a vast seal lying in the dining table sized hole in the ice. I grabbed a shot before he snorted and disappeared.
The hole had been cut to allow the teams ROV access to the magical world beneath.  As Ben chatted to the guys they released the robot sub with camera down Into the hole. As it sunk our friendly seal ascended and lay possessively in the hole. I hope it will be a nice sequence with Ben watching the seal from above and the robot sub filming the seal from below.
A really really lovely experience.

About 200 ft in front of scotts hut sat a smaller hut, out on the ice, about the size of a garden shed and aestheticaly as welcome as a nuclear power plant. It was American owned so we knew inside there were cages of monkeys, listening devices and oil drilling equipment. One day a vehicle turns up there, so we troop out to break the story. We were welcomed in to find a hole in the ice with two divers emerging. They had been counting starfish .......of course they had!

Shackleton had positioned his hut further to the east, nearer the open sea. We trundled off to see this other Legends abode.

On the way we past close to the snout of the barn glacier, the colours that it sucks up and then emits in cloudy light are unbelievable. You would use up every paint in your box before you got any where near White - apart from maybe red and yellow and orange and burnt sienna and ochre and ....
Shacketons hut was altogether different. It was lighter and more open with a lot happier feel about it. It sat up on a slope looking over a wonderful penguin colony, with cigar shaped seals dotting the ice. From the promontory above we could see  the open water on the horizon, like a Prussian blue wound gashed into the skin of Antarctica.

We finished at Scott's hut and headed back to Base.
On the last night i had walked out onto the frozen sea. There was complete silence and complete clarity. I could see forever.
i will  never forget being given this opportunity.

Back in 'civilisation' we showered, ate salad, and drank frothy coffee. we even sat on a normal loo , although Nick seemed incapable of letting go of his pee bottle and called it his 'noo noo'.

Our last foray was special. we had a helicopter for the day and we headed out to 'cape Crozier'.
This is the destination for 'the worst journey in the world' , often sited as the best travel book ever written.
Three of Scott's party before their dash to the pole headed East.
As opposed to Amundsen , whose sole purpose was 'pole bagging' , Scott's expedition was also a major scientific undertaking.
There was a believe that Emperor penguins provided a vital link in the evolutionary story and by collecting penguin eggs and studying their embryos, it could be proven. 
So in complete darkness, mid winter, Bowers, Garrard and Wilson headed East. It was a journey of indescribable hardship ( quite well described in the book).
It was so cold they had to get there bodies into sledge pulling position, before they froze like that for the day.
I wont go into it, but we landed on this desolate volcanic ridge, with the wind howling. It was the coldest we had seen. 
Ben and Nigel did their best to tell the story and Nick and i did our best to stand upright and keep our digits.
From here we headed onto the Ross ice shelf. A vast slab of ice the size of France. Under which somewhere lay the bodies of Scott's party.
We filmed a very emotive piece then had Ben walk across the snow and ice as we thundered overhead in the Helli. I got to hang out on a harness with my excitement only tempered by the loss of feeling in my face!

We flew back over the most impossible cracks and crevasses with the wind rising.
I asked the pilot to fly over a promontory to reveal the sea beyond. He tried and admitted he couldn't go higher and  was losing power ( in fact the tail rotor had stopped earlier!), when a pilot says such words you listen and go home for tea and biscuits. we went home for tea and biscuits.
We packed our kit, handed in our pee bottles, cleaned out our lockers and thanked our New Zealand hosts.
It had been remarkable.
The journey home was very very long, broken by Nicks birthday and a shopping frenzy in Christchurch. 
On arriving home the colours of the trees and grass looked ridiculous, everything was too colourful and too loud.
but i guess all hardened Polar explorers say that.