Simon King answers 'So how do I get into Wildlife Film-making?'

From http://www.simonkingwildlife.com/AboutSimon/Questions.php

HOW DO I GET INTO WILDLIFE FILM-MAKING?

Probably the most frequently asked question over time… and a good one! The straight answer is there is no one route into the wildlife film-making industry. My own route was unorthodox. I first appeared on TV when I was 10 years old, in a period drama about a boy on Dartmoor who finds and raises a fox. This came about because of my already established passion for animals and my late father, John King, who was then a director with the BBC in Bristol. We went on to work together ( and apart ) for the next 25 years, making a number of series and stand alone programmes. In that time I developed as a cameraman and producer, whilst continuing on-screen appearances.

So how does this help with regards to advice? I’m not sure, but what is certain is that throughout that time, I have been true to my first passion – The Natural World and all that it represents. A genuine interest and knowledge of the subjects one hopes to work with is the single most important tool for the job. A zoology degree can open doors but is not essential ( I left school at 17 to make my first film as a cameraman ! ). Media Studies too can help develop a knowledge of the fundaments of film making, and get you meeting the right people. The ready availability of video cameras and home video editing facilities really has made a tremendous difference to the access everyone has to develop these skills. Creating a show-reel, to display your ability as a cameraperson, presenter, producer or any other discipline can speak volumes to a potential employer.

But above all – passion. Genuine, full-blooded passion for the subject will open more doors than almost any other credential. Marry that with perseverance and you’re on your way. Good luck!

WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU NEED?

I have collated a lot of equipment over the years, all of it suited to different tasks.

My main camera is an Arriflex HSR2, a Super-16mm film camera which can run up to 150fps ( slow motion ). I deploy a number of lenses, including 150 – 600 mm zoom, a 10 – 150 zoom and a number of fixed and specialist lenses.

In addition I use a Sony PD150 camera. This uses DVCAM tapes and is the camera used to film me in the field most to the time.

On some shoots I use higher specification video cameras, be they Digi-Beta, High Definition or even high spec. DVCAM, depending on the production’s remit.

Obviously there are a lot of peripherals without which you can’t get going. Tripods with fluid heads, hides, camouflage, an assortment of lights, jibs, the list goes on. Add to that all the stuff you require for more specialised shoots such as underwater, extreme cold, extreme hot and soon the gear store starts to bulge! And that’s before you start taking any still photographs.

Find out more about Simon here

Mark Carwardine: Last Chance to see... Again!

Nadège Laici for The NatureWatch

“I’ve been asked to talk about my life but this could take years so for tonight I’ll just talk to you about what I’ve done last year.” Mark Carwardine smiled widely and turned the lights off.

It must have been a chilly evening of March and I was stuck in my chair unable to look away from the screen where the most amazing wildlife spectacles were projected. Two hours before, one glance at a photo on his website of a couple of blue whales taken from the air had convinced me to give up my laundry plans.

I can now confirm it with jealousy and admiration, Mark Carwardine encounters more wildlife in a year than most people dream to encounter in a lifetime. He has been literally everywhere on the seven continents, supporting the most diverse and varied conservation projects. A zoologist and renowned photographer, Mark has also presented numerous wildlife related programmes on BBC 4. He is chairman of the judging panel for the Wildlife photographer of the year and writes monthly columns for BBC Wildlife and Wanderlust. Mark has also written more than 50 books mainly on wildlife but also on conservation and travel based themes, one of them being “Last Chance To See” co-written with Douglas Adams and published in 1990.

I approached him at the end of his talk, holding on tightly to the last issue of the “Missing Link”, the University of Bristol Natural Sciences Magazine, that I’d dared to bring. He drew a little whale in the book I brought for him to sign and accepted to give me an interview.

Mark Carwardine began travelling around the world with Douglas Adams in 1988 to look for some of our planet’s most endangered species. They made a successful radio series about it and subsequently wrote a book describing their adventures which became a best-seller.

“Originally, Douglas stuck pins in a world map as where he would really like to go… And then I stuck pins where the endangered species are and we compromised and went for a mixture… but the whole idea was to pick animals that aren’t to obvious to most people and to pick the ones that are really charismatic and really different like the Aye-Aye and the Komodo Dragon. And of course at that time most people haven’t had heard of most of these animals.”

Each chapter of the book covers one of the trips made by the pair. The first one tells us about the time they met in 1985 when Douglas Adams was sent to Madagascar with Mark to look for the almost extinct Aye-aye. The encounter finishes with Douglas Adams saying to Mark : “I’ve just got a couples of novels to write, but, er, what are you doing in 1988?”

They began their adventures journeying to Komodo to see its famous Dragon. On their way to meet the White Rhino in Zaïre, they saw the Mountain Gorillas, then on to search for the Kakapo in New-Zealand, the Yangtze river dolphin in China and on the last leg of their epic journey they found the Rodrigues fruit bat in Mauritius.

“They are really different, each one represents a different issue. So one might represent haunting and poaching and another one would be Rainforest destruction and so on so you cover different themes within each chapter and have a whole range of different animals.“ Mark had a sip of his orange juice, looking grave. “I think they listed the latest account, 16 300 endangered animals and plants you can chose from, so everything from the Giant panda, which everyone has heard of, to the No-eyed Big-eyed Wolf Spider which is in Hawaii, that nobody has heard of.”

Mark just started filming a BBC TV series at the beginning of 2008 inspired by his book “Last Chance To See”. In January, he went to the heart of the Brazilian Amazon with Steven Fry to film the Amazonian manatee. There, they joined their forces to produce a the series that they are now co-presenting.

The unusual partnership of Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine made the book simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. Mark ensured me that they will keep this spirit in the series.
“I did the travels with Douglas Adams twenty years ago and so there is a history, we can actually have a look back for the first time ever in a TV series. We have a chance to see what has happened over a long period of time, see how the animals that we went to look for are doing. Douglas died, about six years ago now and he was good friends with Stephen Fry, who I knew. Stephen seemed like the obvious person to take his place being genuinely interested in wildlife and conservation, so I contacted him and he said he’d like to. We took the opportunity with the twenty year anniversary to look back. We are looking for partly the original animals, and partly a whole load of new ones.

The aim of the series is to get people who wouldn’t normally watch a wildlife program or a wildlife series to think about conservation. The whole idea was not to have a heavy documentary style that only very keen people would watch but no one else would… because it’s too boring!

On working with Steven
Steven Fry has a much more popular appeal, a whole different take on it. The first program we have maid has loads of very funny bits and it’s very entertaining as well as having a serious thing, and I think that’s the aim of the series. It will maybe attract people not necessarily that interested because of Stephen and everyone will go away with at least some sort o idea of what conservation is all about. So the whole idea is it’s entertainment and there’s a message.
Stephen has an incredible knowledge about everything already but he hasn’t been to the majority of these places, hasn’t done roughing it very much and so that’s all a big adventure and a new experience for him. The idea is to look at things from a fresh perspective; if you’ve been involved in conservation for a long time you don’t necessarily see things from a side view, which is interesting. I went originally to all the places and I’ve been back since and know them reasonably well. I act then as a guide, introducing them to people and then in between we go of with Stephen, looking for the animals.”


The book was a real success and had such an impact on many people that I wondered what Mark was expecting from the series.


“I spoke to people who said that as a result of reading it they change their career and got involved in conservation and so on. That’s fantastic! That’s exactly what we hope might happen. Television has a much bigger impact than a book in many ways so who knows, it might just hit a pool of people to go off and do something. I think the more people who actually can be aware of some of the details of what’s happening in conservation rather than that sort of background noise of observation, then the better.”

Of course it has been proved many times in the past, wildlife TV programmes have helped to shape attitudes towards nature and conservation. So what is the best way to do it?
“It’s got to be a combination of hope and shock. If you have a completely negative television series it would be too depressing and everyone would give up. It’s like walking around and say: The end of the world is now! It’s not a good way of inspiring people. So it’s much more important to say: We’ve got really serious problems and not pretend they’re not serious, but then meet the people who are devoting their lives to doing something about it and learn what needs to be done and how it can be done and thus inspire people to do something. We have to be honest but we also have to make the point that there’s actually something that could be done, that most of these animals can be protected and saved if there is the world to do it. It’s a matter of hitting a balance between honesty and inspiration. I think that’s where individual people come in. Most of them have been there all these years and they are still devoting their lives to saving individual species. In most cases a lot of these species have been really seriously endangered that are still here because of the few individuals, not because of big conservation groups, meeting or conferences. These individuals live in the field and do everything in their power to save them. That is really inspiring, the fact that one person can make the difference, it’s cliché but it’s true.”

Because some of the species they went to see are even more threatened now than twenty years ago (The White Rhino and the Yangtze river dolphin are even believed to be extinct), I thought that finding them again would be more difficult now but Mark’s views were different.

“Twenty years ago, you couldn’t phone or email these places so we had to do it by telex which banged away one letter at that time and the message came out. It took us ages to get replies and it was much more difficult travelling around. Now you email and you get a reply that same day, you can fly to many more places we could then, there were boat trips to islands and there’s tourism and so on… so setting up the trips is a lot easier. In most cases the same people are there, working on the same animals. We were in the Amazon doing the first shoot and we met the same lady who was already studying the Amazonian manatee twenty years ago when Doug an I first met her in the same place. But the actual finding of the animals is going to vary, two of the eight species we picked for the book are now extinct… that says everything. Some of them are doing better than twenty years ago; the Aye-aye is now relatively easy to see, whereas it wasn’t when we went. The Komodo Dragon is pretty much the same and the Kakapo is doing a little better".

This reminded me of an interview made after the filming of “Planet Earth”, some of the crew members were also working on “Life on Earth” filmed twenty years beforehand. They were saying how they were both depressed and touched after coming to the same places and finding them completely changed and even sometimes destroyed by human intervention. Did he fear that happening to him?

“All the time. You rarely go back somewhere and see it has improved, nearly everywhere you go back two years later and it’s worse. There’s less wildlife and there’s more people. They’re places where you could go and be the only one in the whole reserve or national park and now there are hundreds of thousands of people and the wildlife is in general harder to see. It is quite depressing sometimes travelling around the world because you really do see a decline. A man I was talking to the other day was describing a scene in East Africa with 72 vehicles of Tourists around one pride of Lions…But tourism can help as well, there would be no Mountain Gorillas without it. It has to be well managed though so you have a situation where the money from tourism is being put back into national parks or into conservation of species and habitats but where it’s not allowed to get out of hands and destroy the wildlife. It’s a really delicate balance and you don’t get that many places who got it right.”

Mark Carwardine continued telling me about conservation and I couldn’t stop asking him questions about his marvellous adventures. I saw the twinkle in his eyes every time he was describing one of his favourites wildlife encounters.

“I think watching blue whales from the air, in an aircraft with the door off is pretty spectacular… because you get the idea of the scale of the animal slowly swimming below, that’s quite exciting.”

I remember with shame hearing myself saying: “You don’t even realise how lucky you are…” He looked right into my eyes and smiled. “No, I do!” When he had to go, we said goodbye and I walked away feeling ten feet tall.

Nadège Laici

I would like to thank Rachel Ashton and of course Mark Carwardine for their generous help. (written in small)

Future Shoots
The final line-up is still being discussed (there are currently no fewer than 16,306 endangered species to choose from) but this is the plan so far:

PROGRAMME 1: Amazonian manatee and West Indian manatee (Brazil and Florida).

PROGRAMME 2: Northern white rhino (now extinct), mountain gorilla and African lion (Uganda and Congo).

PROGRAMME 3: Aye-aye (Madagascar).

PROGRAMME 4: Kakapo (New Zealand).

PROGRAMME 5: Komodo dragon (Indonesia).

PROGRAMME 6: Yangtze river dolphin (China) and a selection of endangered whales, dolphins and porpoises (Mexico).

Please visit : http://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/ to follow Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine online in their incredible journey to some of the most remote places on earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction through exclusive video and blogs.

Presenter Interview: Saba Douglas-Hamilton

From Times Online

“Fear is what you feel at night when you have come to your senses,” says Saba Douglas-Hamilton. The young anthropologist props her chin on a slender, bronzed wrist and fixes me with intense hazel eyes. “My biggest fear is that we don’t wake up in time to this insatiable devouring of natural resources and pollution that threatens every lifeline, and we lose everything.”

The naturalist – once described as having the “effortless sex appeal of a young Anna Ford” – captivated the powers that be at the Natural History Unit when she arrived with her father, the zoologist Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, in 2001. Since then she has fronted series such as Big Cat Diary, which she says was “quite macho” before she came into it. “It was two men out in the bush. When I came in, it did soften a bit, and people realised that, actually, girls can do this too.”

She is fresh from filming a three-part BBC series The Secret Life of Elephants, about her father’s Kenyan-based charity, Save the Elephants. As a graduate she trained with Blythe Loutit, the revered rhino conservationist, in the Namibian desert. Loutit, who dedicated her life to pulling the last of the desert-adapted rhinos from the brink of extinction, was “a real eco-warrior who lived on absolutely nothing”.

Her take on the emotions and awareness that large mammals display attracts vast audiences. Elephants, for example, have traits such as empathy and a sense of mortality, and plan for the future in a way that “makes them a lot more like us than we think”. At present, she says, of all the money given to animal charities, most goes to domestic pets. She hopes, by helping people to engage with wild animals, to redress the balance. “The rhino, for example, may look like a throwback from a prehistoric era, but it thinks and feels and does things for intelligent reasons.”

Douglas-Hamilton bases herself on the outskirts of Nairobi in her “biodegradable house” – a ramshackle hut that she built with her husband, Frank Pope, a writer and marine archeologist. “It’s easy to forget how lifestyle affects the environment – eating Chilean sea bass or buying ivory. Don’t buy ivory! It equals dead elephants, most often killed illegally. If you like sushi or tinned tuna, be aware of what species you are eating, where they come from and how they are fished. I feel very strongly that we need to bring a stronger conservation ethic back into making films, how we’re selling stories, how we’re awakening people’s consciences.”

She grew up in the Kenyan wilderness with her younger sister, Dudu. Her father introduced her to their extended family of 400 elephants at just six weeks old – so understanding animals is second nature. “I find human beings far more scary than animals because they are much more unpredictable,” she says. She likens film crews to “parasites. We go out there, find the best stories, suck out all the information, take beautiful images and then leave. The scientists who are there day in, day out, collecting data and finding those stories are the real heroes. Like rangers taking bullets from poachers, they are in the front line. My job is to link these worlds. What I love is to bring the wilderness into people’s sitting rooms and then, hopefully, they’ll feel a passion for what’s going on”.

Presenter Interview: Miranda Krestovnikoff

From Times Online

“It has been mentioned I have to glam up a bit,” laughs Miranda Krestovnikoff, a biologist by training and a presenter of Coast, her sea-tanned face beaming from across her kitchen table. “But I’m very much a jeans-and-wellies sort of person: you’d look slightly stupid if you were wading around in the undergrowth wearing a large pair of earrings.” Krestovnikoff, seven months pregnant with her second child, is on a mission to make us appreciate our native treasures. “I’m passionate about British countryside and the British coastline. To have an amazing experience, people think you’ve got to go somewhere wild and remote – they forget the diversity of wildlife we have in this country.”

Krestovnikoff was one of scores of young, eager and privately educated Bristol University biology graduates banging on the door of the BBC’s Bristol-based Natural History Unit.

“It was a slow start,” she admits, “but I got my break looking after frogs and toads for a cameraman who introduced me to people at the BBC. I started as a science researcher for wildlife programmes, and then became the resident zoologist and presenter for Fox Television’s World Gone Wild in 1998.” She has extensive knowledge of marine and other wildlife, a gung-ho attitude and an ability to encourage even the most tongue-tied field researchers to talk.

She credits her husband, Nick, as much of the reason that she can have a child and hold down the demanding schedules. “We’re a team, and having that sort of relationship is really critical in a job that’s so transient. One minute you’re working and the next your contract has come to an end.” And the future? “I’d like to do more green-based things on television. It’s not just conserving species, but getting the message out about our environment and the world we live in. It is such a fragile place, we are massive consumers and just don’t think about our actions enough. Somehow it’s going to have to change.”

Wildlife broadcasting, too, needs to evolve. “If you’ve got the right expertise, qualifications and you fit the bill, then I don’t think it’s any harder for women to get into wildlife presenting. But to stay and make a big name for yourself is difficult. As a woman, you might make it for a few years, but somebody younger or more glamorous than you is going to come in. Whereas with men, it’s the voice of authority. I’m prepared for the worst.”

For now, she is embracing what she has. “Every day that I work, I’m learning something. If I’m in the middle of Pembrokeshire on a boat looking at puffins, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.” Not that she doesn’t sometimes question herself. “The weather in this country is so extreme, and there are frequent moments, when diving and filming with a big heavy mask on, when it’s hard to breathe. When I’m roped to a boat in murky, freezing-cold water, trying to work against the current, I do think, ‘What am I doing? I’m mad.’ ”

Presenter Interview: Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek

From Times Online
It takes more than a pretty face to follow in the footsteps of Sir David Attenborough. Wildlife television presenting was once a man’s world. A documentary on baboon behaviour or ocelot extinction would call for a bearded naturalist like David Bellamy, or the cheery anthropomorphism of Johnny Morris. But now this territory is facing a climate change all of its own, as it is invaded by a new breed of presenter: feisty, intelligent, eco-aware – and female. Though a publicist for Sir David Attenborough assures me that he is “obviously not replaceable”, his grip on the title of king of the jungle may not be as firm as it once was.

Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek flings open the door to her Bristol-based home, auburn hair tumbling over her green safari shirt. I have caught up with Uhlenbroek the day before she flies to Uganda to film a chimpanzee series for Channel Five. Great apes are this zoologist’s speciality. She lived in a hut for four years on the edge of Lake Tanganyika, following chimps through the forest and recording their long-distance calls for her PhD, alongside the revered primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall.

Uhlenbroek’s big television break came in the late 1990s. “I’d spent months analysing chimp vocalisations in a soundproof studio back in Bristol,” she explains – work that revealed that chimp communication involves not just one type of call, as was previously thought, but several different long-distance calls. “The BBC heard there was a girl up the road who had been working out in Gombe, and asked if I wanted to go back to present a series called Dawn to Dusk, and that they’d pay me!” Presenting came naturally to the young primatologist. “I was talking about chimps that I knew incredibly well. I was just turning to the camera as if it was a friend. I felt like a conduit.” Her ability to decipher primate behaviour, her blue-chip zoological credentials and look of “an eco-friendly Lara Croft” meant she was soon fronting BBC2’s Chimpanzee Diary. Since then, her eager, breathy tones have become a TV fixture. We have seen her swing through the jungle canopy, scale mengaris trees in Borneo and inspect pink-toed tarantulas in the Amazon.

Male journalists have noted Uhlenbroek’s “athletic, almost innocent sexiness” and her “tight sleeveless tops”; one wished “these frivolous young females dancing about” would stop making wildlife programmes. She appears unperturbed. “I’m a scientist. I’m coming in from a point of some expertise. Otherwise audiences think, ‘Why is she telling us this; how does she know?’ ” She doesn’t have a game plan. “I’m very much here and now and take things as they come. Television is a very fickle industry.”

Presenter Interview: Nick Baker

From BBC New Talent website

Nick is a broadcaster, author, naturalist, zoologist and has presented 'The Really Wild Show' for around ten years. He gets involved in field work, supporting conservation projects and is trying to build a zoo. Along with some of his many creatures Nick was also involved in the selection process for 'Serious Jungle'. Here he talks about his own love of wildlife, explains how he became a nature reporter and gives some advice to young explorers, like those who will go to the Andes, before they face the camera for the first time.

Q. Did you keep lots of pets when you were young?
I kept them in a cage with one of my mum's old stockings stretched over the top of it. We went away on holiday and the stockings laddered.
Listen to the full answer

Q. Now that you are 'grown-up', a well known naturalist and broadcaster, do you still keep pets?
I've got 3 tanks of frogs ... a turtle in the kitchen ... a spare bedroom full of snakes ... plus about 80 tarantulas, various scorpions ... (and much more).
Listen to the full answer

Q. How did you become a wildlife presenter?
I was chasing butterflies around down here in Devon ... and at the same time I was setting up a club for kids called the 'Bug Club'.
Listen to the full answer

Q. What advice can you give the young adventurers before they face the cameras in Serious Andes as reporters?
When you look at a camera you've got to forget about the fact that it could be broadcast to millions of people ... have a one-sided conversation with a pepperpot!
Listen to the full answer

Academic PhDs wanted by the BBC Natural History Unit - Deadline Imminent

It’s the sort of opportunity I know some of you would give your eye teeth for - the BBC are looking for PhD biologists with potential as onscreen contributors for their radio, TV and web content. It’s not a guarantee of work, and it’s not linked to a specific project in production or development, but their aim is “to explore a pool of potential on screen talent”.

You must have a PhD (and preferably several years of research experience - post-docs very welcome) in a biological science which has a firm link to natural history - they suggest zoology, ecology or animal behaviour.

I’ve only just been told about it but the deadline’s the 8th December, so take a deep breath and get started on your application. This must consist of :

A CV including details of your academic qualifications, field experience and any previous media work. A strong postgraduate academic background is essential.
A DVD taster/showreel of yourself. (You do have one of these in your drawer, don’t you? Get filming now!)

A single side of A4 describing why you want to be a presenter, what natural history stories or concepts you’d be passionate about presenting, and why.

The DVD should be a max of 5 minutes long and can feature “anything you like that you think shows your onscreen communications skills. We’re not going to be judging these on production standard, we’ll be looking at your performance.” [Yeah, yeah - others may think that postgrads are high brow intellectuals, but we know what you're thinking...]



In return, successful applicants will be invited to a further selection day. They also say they will make every effort to respond to all applicants, even if they’re unsuccessful. However, they are “only interested in hearing from individuals who meet the criteria specified and cannot assist with applications from people looking for opportunities for presenting in other genres.”

If this is the one you’ve been waiting for, send your application to

Sally Cryer, BBC Natural History Unit, Whiteladies Road, Bristol, BS8 2LR

Noticed by Manchester University Careers Service

Wildlife Presenter Wanted for New Series

Craterlion Productions are looking for a passionate, camera-friendly individual who has dedicated their lives to preserving, learning and educating, for wildlife and habitat. They are looking to attach the right host to this concept; you will be the face of the series so we need someone who has the charm, personality, and confidence to carry a series.

Requirements:

-age between the range of 23-45
-male or female, any race
-background in wildlife/biology, etc.
-send us a VIDEO (link or uploaded) reel of who you are and why you would be the perfect host for this series
-without any video footage you WILL be ignored
-ability to travel/current passport

Please mail links to wildlife@craterlionproductions.com

Presenter Interview: Charlotte Uhlenbroek

By Alison George New Scientist

She's been chased by elephants and dragged by chimpanzees. Described as an eco-friendly Lara Croft and the successor to David Attenborough, zoologist and wildlife presenter Charlotte Uhlenbroek is still roaming the world. She stopped long enough to tell Alison George about her life

Have you always lived a nomadic existence?
Yes. I was born in London, then soon went back to Ghana where my parents were living. When I was 5 we moved to Nepal, where I stayed until I was 14, then went to school in England. In the meantime, my family moved to Tanzania, so I would go there on holidays.

Were those years formative in terms of your wanting to work with animals?
In Nepal, during the holidays, we'd go trekking in the Himalayas. Although you don't see a great number of mammals there, it is fantastic for birds, and you get a sense of being in beautiful, wild spaces. My love of the natural world came from those early years.

It must have been a shock to go from Nepal to an English boarding school.
At first I felt like a caged animal. I was used to wandering around barefoot with a whole lot of stray dogs to look after, and then suddenly I was at an all-girl's boarding school where I wasn't even allowed to leave the school gates. It was quite a shock to the system.

You went on to study zoology and psychology. What came next?
I was working as a researcher at the BBC Natural History Unit when I heard that primatologist Jane Goodall was looking for a field assistant. I jumped at the chance, and went to Burundi to help establish a research and conservation project looking at chimpanzees living in fragments of forest right up against human habitation where no one expected they could live. Then I went to Goodall's main site at Gombe National Park in Tanzania to study chimp communication. I lived in a tiny hut near Lake Tanganyika and spent two years roaming the forests with the chimps, recording their vocalisations.

What did you discover about chimp communication?
I was concentrating on the males' long distance calls, and I found that there are at least three acoustically distinct types of calls used in different contexts. The alpha males call much more than the low-ranking males - it is advantageous for a dominant male to keep the males together to protect his group from neighbouring chimps, as he benefits most in terms of access to females and resources. The alpha male often calls in others when he finds a good food supply, whereas lower ranking males are likely to stay quiet so they don't get usurped and lose out on food.

You must have got to know the chimps well.
They become almost like close friends, except of course you don't interact with them so they will continue with their natural behaviour. The chimps at Gombe have been studied for so long that they just ignore you, though occasionally one of the little ones will come over and try to pull something out of your pack. I still keep in touch with Gombe to find out what's happening to the adolescents I once knew.

What's your most memorable encounter in the wild?
I've had endless days with the chimps where I've been blown away, but I've also swum with humpback whales, which was amazing, and been chased by an elephant, which was pretty scary!

Why did an elephant chase you?
I was in the Central African Republic on foot in a bai, or forest clearing, where a lot of animals come for the mineral salts as well as to drink. A female elephant and her calf came out of the forest very close to where I was sitting and talking to camera for the BBC series Jungle. I stayed still, hoping she would carry on past me when she suddenly picked up my scent from about 12 metres away and charged. I don't blame her - there is a lot of elephant poaching in that area so they really fear humans and she was protecting her calf.

For a brief moment I thought I would stand my ground - but made a split-second decision that she would probably flatten me if I didn't get out of her way fast. I managed to get to the shelter of a tree where an elephant researcher and local tracker were and we hid while the elephant crashed about in the undergrowth. She finally decided to go in search of her calf which had run off. That's the only the time I've been filming or researching wild animals and really thought, "This could be it".

It was the one time I really thought, 'this could be it'

Have there been other close calls?
In the field, you have lots of uncomfortable encounters with snakes, or elephants around the camp. I've been kicked by mountain gorillas and dragged down a hill by chimps.

That all sounds pretty dangerous!
I knew they weren't out to kill me. Male chimpanzees put on a display to assert themselves within the community, and this often involves charging through the undergrowth, tearing off branches and sometimes hurling rocks. That time, they incorporated me in the display. Drag a branch, chuck it to one side, charge past Charlotte, grab her ankle, charge down the hillside - they're very strong, so there's not much you can do about it. I knew it was a show of bravado. I came back with a few cuts and bruises, but not badly hurt. The most dangerous situations in the wild are either when you are a potential meal for a predator, or when an animal feels very scared. It was the same with the gorillas - the males were just showing off. It is an adrenalin moment when a large gorilla comes over and flattens you, but I didn't think they were going to kill me.

Now you're going back for more?
Yes, I'm working on a UK television series about primates for Channel 5. I went to Uganda last month to film chimps. Next it will be baboons, gorillas and orang-utans. I want to take the audience right into their society by following some principal characters and revealing what extraordinarily complex relationships they have.

David Attenborough has tipped you to be his successor. How do you feel about that?
It is a huge compliment but quite daunting. David Attenborough is a hero of mine, but I don't think anybody can step into his shoes. He's a one-off.

Your life sounds very glamorous. Is there any downside to your nomadic existence?
Yes, there is, though I feel churlish saying that because of the amazing experiences I've had. But I think as humans we also need the quiet, ordinary aspects of life, we need to be with family and friends - and sometimes that can go by the wayside.

Does that ever make you want to settle down to a desk job?
No, I'll carry on doing what I do, sometimes at my desk writing, sometimes travelling. I don't really look too far ahead.

Calling Budding Natural History Presenters

The NatureWatch showcase is a place for budding natural history presenters to get noticed. If you have a showreel or film that you would like to share with the world then please get in touch. Whatever your style or subject we would love to hear from you. Either send us your video, upload to our page on facebook or send us the embed code and we'll do the rest.



- The NatureWatch Team



See our friends at Ecogeeks for some inspiration

David Attenborough's ten rules for would-be presenters

Nice to see that I and my "Life in Cold Blood" co-researcher Nikki get a mention here...

Number 5: Go the extra mile in research
When you’re planning a programme explaining amphibian lifecycles, for example, you say to your bright, highly qualified researcher: “I know this, this and this about newts and tadpoles, and that means by definition they are fairly well-known. But there must be some guy somewhere who’s doing research on something absolutely mind-blowing which makes that point. Find it!” They will come up with half a dozen and I pick the best. That’s how we discovered the female Venezuelan caymans that raise several other females’ young in a crèche, the legless female amphibian who feeds her young on her own skin, then regrows it, and how we got the last-ever film of Panamanian golden frogs in the wild.
Read the full article in the Times
- Paul Williams

'Young, attractive' wildlife show presenters slated for ignorance

From the Independant

One of the grizzled old beasts of the television wildlife world has condemned programmes that made stars of presenters rather than animals.

Terry Nutkins, the former presenter of The Really Wild Show and Brilliant Creatures, said yesterday that television companies were alienating viewers by attaching more importance to presenters' looks than their knowledge.

He was speaking the week before the BBC Natural History Unit's newest signing, Saba Douglas-Hamilton, 31, appears in Going Ape, the first of three wildlife documentaries. She follows the actress Tamzin Outhwaite, who plays Mel in EastEnders, and Charlotte Uhlenbroek, whose appearances have earned her the tabloid sobriquet "telly wildlife stunner".

Ms Douglas-Hamilton and Ms Uhlenbroek have strong academic and family backgrounds in studying wildlife, while Ms Outhwaite professed to a lifelong desire to swim with dolphins before appearing in Tamzin Outhwaite goes Wild with Dolphins last month.

But Mr Nutkins, 49, said they were being used for their looks. "[Programme makers]will do anything for ratings, which has made it very competitive for us old hands," he said. "I don't mind that, but the people they are taking on board know nothing about what they are presenting.

"They think that an attractive mini-skirted young girl will bring in the ratings, but ... the viewing public are not as stupid as they think they are. People come up to me in the street and say wildlife programmes are not as good as they used to be. The presenters don't know their subject so well and are just reading from a script.

"I have nothing against a young, attractive female presenting a wildlife television programme, but I do have an objection to a young, attractive female if she doesn't know anything about it."

Mr Nutkins said Ms Outhwaite's programme was "all very nice" but not a natural history programme. He claimed Ms Uhlenbroek "gave the game away" when she was "given a good kick" by a gorilla and sat there "looking pathetic" while four support staff with sticks chased the animals away. "It wouldn't have bothered me a bit," he said. "I ... certainly wouldn't have had people chase it away."

He also condemned the Discovery channel's Crocodile Hunter presenter, Steve Irwin – described by the channel as part Indiana Jones, part Tarzan – for being more interested in his ego than the animals.

"When I did it the animals were the star and the presenter was second," he said. "The animals should always be the stars. Now it's a vehicle for the presenter to put themselves up as the big star."

Mr Nutkins' criticisms may surprise Ms Uhlenbroek, who is a doctor of zoology and spent years studying chimpanzees in the forests of Tanzania. They will also raise eyebrows at the BBC's Natural History Unit, which made the widely acclaimed The Blue Planet, produced by Alastair Fothergill, who devised Going Ape. Mr Fothergill has said Ms Douglas-Hamilton's experience with elephants made her a natural presenter because she understood animal behaviour and was used to rainforests.

Keith Scholey, head of the BBC's Natural History Unit, said glamour could be a factor in choosing presenters but that expertise was vital. "You want a presenter that stands out," he said. "Glamour can be one thing that stands out, but Bill Oddie is one of our favourite presenters and I hope he won't mind me saying that ... he is not in that category." He said Ms Outhwaite's programme had presented her as a celebrity who wanted to learn about dolphins, not an expert.