TV Behind the Scenes: An executive producer has a viewing with the producer

This isn't Natural History but if you work in TV you'll probably have had similar things happen to you!
 

Getting started in Wildlife TV - Have you thought about Wildscreen?

'One thing for sure is that, whatever the path, it’s up to the individual and their dogged persistence combined with undying passion that will get them through the bumpy, muddy, arduous jungle road that is the path towards becoming a wildlife photographer or filmmaker.' - Sandesh Kadur Felis Blog

Other than being dogged and persistent, another top tip is to attend the Wildscreen international film festival.

What is Wildscreen?

This biannual festival is the Mecca for Wildlife Filmmakers, internationally acknowledged as the most influential and prestigious event of its kind in the world. The aim of Wildscreen is to celebrate, applaud and encourage excellence, and responsibility, in wildlife and environmental filmmaking - films which increase the global viewing public's understanding of the natural world, and the need to conserve it.

By attending wildscreen you'll get a real flavour for the wildlife filmmaking industry and see what's hot and what's not for those who are commissioning programmes or hiring new talent. You'll hear behind the scenes stories from producers and presenters, cameramen and editors and discover what it takes to make a top natural history film. Most importantly you'll meet people who can inspire and help you on your way. And as Sandesh says it will 'help fuel the passion and jump-start your career in wildlife TV' - it certainly did that for me when I was seeking my break in the industry almost 10 years ago and It's been a top event in my calendar ever since.

If you're fresh from university then you'll probably find the festival a bit on the expensive side - about 600pounds to register as a full delegate. The budget option is to become a festival volunteer, or apply for a reduced rate as a newcomer. If you've just produced your first wildlife film then enter it for the highly prized newcomers award - a real springboard to success.



The Workshops

The workshops are really worth attending as you'll get hands on with cutting edge technology and learn from the experts - everything from highspeed filming and 3D cameras to workshops about how to be a wildlife TV researcher. This year I'll be running one entitled 'Breaking out of the Box' about how to produce content for a web audience.

The Awards

The highlight of the festival for me is always the Gala Panda Awards Ceremony. Wildscreen is a competition as well as a Festival and this is the night when the award winners will be announced. The stakes are high as the awards have established themselves as the Green Oscars, and the posh black-tie do certainly has an air of hollywood glitz about it. This year it will be hosted by Kate Silverton and Benedict Allen.

I'll be there in anticipation of one of my series winning an accolade. 'Life' is up for a whole range of awards, and 'How Earth Made Us' is in the running for the Earth Science Award, as well as best series.

It was an honour at the 2008 Panda Awards, when we won the Golden Panda for 'Life in Cold Blood'.
 

For handy tips and advice on starting a career in wildlife television get your hands on a copy of the book by Piers Warren titled: Careers in Wildlife Filmmaking.

Good luck
- Paul 

Faking it? Wildlife filmmaker Chris Palmer publishes 'Shooting in the Wild' to reveal all

The following is an edited excerpt from an article by Daniel de Vise published in the Washington Post, Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Read the full article here

Environmental Film Maker, Chris Palmer 63, has written a confessional for an entire industry. "Shooting in the Wild," published this year, exposes the unpleasant secrets of environmental filmmaking: manufactured sounds, staged fights, wild animals that aren't quite wild filmed in nature that isn't entirely natural. Nature documentaries "carry the promise of authenticity." Nature filmmakers profess to present animal life as it is lived, untouched by mankind. Yet human fingerprints are everywhere.

Nature is frequently boring. Wild animals prefer not to be seen

Palmer's book underscores the fundamental challenge of wildlife filmmaking: Nature is frequently boring. Wild animals prefer not to be seen."If you sit in the wild and watch wildlife, nothing happens for a very long time," said Maggie Burnette Stogner, an environmental filmmaker who works with Palmer on the American University faculty. "That's mostly what happens in wildlife."

Nature footage is hard-earned. A crew might spend six weeks in discomfort and tedium for a few moments of dramatic cinema. Certain shots -- animal births, or predators seizing prey -- are difficult to capture by chance. So some filmmakers set them up.

The lemmings that plunge to their deaths in the 1958 Disney documentary "White Wilderness" were hurled ingloriously to their doom by members of the crew, as a Canadian documentary revealed. Palmer writes that Marlin Perkins, host of television's "Wild Kingdom," was known to bait animals into combat and to film captive beasts deposited into the wild, and that the avian stars of the 2001 film "Winged Migration" were trained to fly around cameras.

"Sanctimonious smugness"

Erik Nelson, a prolific environmental filmmaker in Los Angeles, finds "a sort of sanctimonious smugness to his book that sets my teeth on edge." Nelson is a glancing target in Palmer's book; the author portrays Nelson's eight-part television series "The Grizzly Man Diaries" as "sensational" and lambastes the animal-attack genre that Nelson helped to create. Nelson, in turn, asserts that Palmer has seldom actually shot a nature film -- most of Palmer's credits have come in the comparatively detached role of executive producer. He terms Palmer's ethics crusade "a giant nothingburger of an issue." (Palmer says he has been "deeply involved" in all of his films.)

"If there is an ethical beacon that guides the wildlife channels, it is the quest for realism."

Programmers say they condone the use of captive animals as stand-ins for wildlife, and contrived meetings between species, as long as all involved are acting naturally and the viewer is seeing things that might actually happen in nature

Palmer disapproves. In his book, he proposes that every nature film might open with a disclaimer on the screen that says something like, "All the scenes in this film are real and not staged," or, more probably, "Some of the scenes depicted in this film were shot with tame, captive animals." Not likely, say industry colleagues. Who wants to watch a tame nature film?

Read the full article from the Washington Post here

10 Steps to create a Greenscreen Adventure

Reposted from www.ironammonite.com

At last weekends festival of nature we were really proud of our presence as the BBC Natural History Unit. The theme of our tent was to give people and insight into the technologies used to make Natural History TV, including mini-cams, thermal cameras, IR-cams and parabolic reflectors for recording sound. We couldn't take people to exotic and remote locations and so we decided that we would bring some of these locations to them. I created a greenscreen adventure to do just that. It was a very successful activity with more than 500 children (and a few adults) having a go at presenting from one of three locations; Polar Bears in the Arctic, Orangutan in the rainforest and Great White Sharks under the sea. The shark adventure was by far the most popular - giving our intrepid presenters the opportunity to swim with, and escape, this formidable predator! I've had lots of people calling and requesting information on how to create a live greenscreen and so I've put together this basic guide to get you started...

Step 1. Hire or make your greenscreen

I used two 2x1 metre strips of lime green fabric bought from a craft shop and sewed together. For best results use a single continuous piece of material as any 'joins' will create lines through your green screen image. A nice bright lime green material works best but blue has also been traditionally used in television.

Step 2. Find a location 

For best results you will need a location that is not influenced by natural light. As we were creating a greenscreen experience for the Bristol Festival of Nature 'The BBC Adventure Screen', we had to work within a white festival tent. On the first day the lighting was even and so once the chroma-key had been set (i.e. the green removed so that you can insert your custom backdrop) it did not need to be recalibrated. On the second day the sky was intermittently cloudy and the lightning conditions frequently changed. I created a chroma-key setting optimised for both light conditions so I could switch between the two as the natural light changed.

Step 3. Stretch the material

Ensure the greenscreen is pulled tight and flat, any creases could distort the greenscreen image.

Step 4. Use even lighting

As already mentioned lighting is of the most important factors to consider. For best results it's important that the greenscreen is lit evenly and is much brighter than the 'presenter'. I used two kenoflo lights, which produce a nice soft white light. I did not use hot-heads as the light produced by these tend to be concentrated at a central focal point, they also tend to become 'hot' which is not a good idea when working in tents at a public event.

Step 5. Connect Camera

You can use any camera device including the inbuilt webcam on a macbook pro. For a much better image, and to optimise the chroma-key effect, I used a Z1 camera connected to my Macbook Pro via firewire.

Step 6. Connect Sound

For sound I connected a directional microphone to the camera, and had the audio playing from external speakers connected to the cameras minijack port. These speakers where situated away from the presenter and oriented towards the audience. The video that I created to play behind the presenter as the 'video layer' had sound effects and music. To create a more immersive experience I fed this audio directly from the laptop into a second pair of speakers which were placed facing the presenter.

Step 7. Connect view screen

I connected the laptop to a plasma screen onto which the final greenscreen composite was played full-screen. The control deck of the software was visible on the laptop screen so the public could see how it all worked. Due to the limitations of the plasma screen that I was using there was a short delay in image playback. This was because I had to convert from a digital output from the mac to an analogue input into the TV. I would recommend using a digital output to digital input such as a DVI to HDMI cable.

Step 8. Create a greenscreen layer

I used BoinxTV but this is quite a pricey package, so if you just want a simple greenscreen there's plenty of free software such as: Chroma Key Live

Once the greenscreen is in place and the lighting has been set it's time to launch the chroma-key software and calibrate the image. With Chroma Key Live it's a simple case of clicking on the green within the image displayed in the software window. If all has worked well the green of the greenscreen will be replaced by a grey and white chequerboard. If the lighting is not even some of the green material may still be visible through the chequers (as in the image on the left). You can adjust hue, brightness and saturation until the greenscreen has been completely highlighted (most software will have an auto button to make this process even simpler!).

Step 9. Create a video layer

Upload a video to use as a backdrop. This will form the layer which sits beneath the greenscreen layer. This 'video layer' will be visible and should completely replace the chequers in the chroma-key layer. Using BoinxTV I was able to line up all videos as separate layers ready to be switched on depending on which 'adventure' the presenter wished to do. Most Chroma-key software only allows one background video to be loaded at a time meaning a new video has to be uploaded with each presenter.

Step 10. Added Glitz

We gave the 'presenters' clothing to suite the locations they were visiting, e.g. polar gear or a rainforest hat - children also really enjoyed using binoculars in their search for wildlife! If the presenter is wearing a green T-shirt it may appear transparent with the background, so its handy to have something that they can wear over the top... however, many children enjoy the chance to be partially invisible. We did keep an extra piece of green material so they could play with it - like Harry Potters invisibility cloak!

An added feature of BoinxTV was that I was able to create additional layers to overlay onto the composite image. The 'video layer' was the bottom layer, the presenter chroma-key layer was the middle layer and then I created a snow or rain layer as the top layer. I used an additional layer which showed their name and location e.g. 'Charlie LIVE from the Arctic'.

Hope this helps. Have fun. - Paul

Open Music Archive - Music in the Public Domain

Open Music Archive is a collaborative project to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to. A useful resource if you are looking for public domain music for your films. Public Domain means that all intellectual property rights have expired and that the work may be used by anyone for any purpose.

'How Earth Made Us' Cool Visual Trick: 'SUPER Aerial Pull out'

Reposted from www.IronAmmonite.com

My episode 'Wind' is broadcast tonight. To celebrate I thought I'd share a visual trick that we're all very proud of...

Super Aerial Pull-Out: From presenter to entire continent

7 steps to creating a COOL Visual Trick - as seen in tonights 'How Earth Made Us: WIND'

Step 1. WATCH: How Earth Made Us 'Wind' - BBC 2, 21:00
With spectacular images, surprising stories and a compelling narrative, Professor Iain Stewart tells the epic story of how the planet has shaped human history. In this episode Iain sets sail on one of the fastest racing boats ever built to explore the story of our turbulent relationship with the wind. Travelling to iconic locations including the Sahara desert, the coast of West Africa and the South Pacific, Iain discovers how people have exploited the power of the wind for thousands of years. The wind is a force which at first sight appears chaotic. But the patterns that lie within the atmosphere have shaped the destiny of continents, and lie at the heart of some of the greatest turning points in human history.

Alternatively you can watch this clip from about one minute in...



Once you've recovered from the exhiliration continue with step 2...

2. Fly somewhere really awesome with a Cineflex - a gyro-stabalised camera-mount.

3. Fly upwards as smoothly as possible above your presenter

4. Find a series of free-to-use high resolution sattelite images from Nasa which focus on your location.
You can try The Modis Rapid Response Gallery or Blue Marble you can also try the Earth Science Data Interface

5. Hire a talented graphics company such as Prime Focus to seamlessly mix the Cineflex aerials with the Sattelite images.

6. Add a drum beat to help get the heart pumping and the adrenalin rushing.

7. Take to a party and impress your friends ;-)

I think it really places our presenter in a unique geographical context.

'How Earth Made Us' Most Viewed Science Prog for 4 Years

The first two episodes have been the most watched Science programmes for over four years. An audience of over 3.5 million and AIs of 88.

Watch again on iPlayer

"Stewart has found a way to take the gritty business of rocks, strata and tectonic plates and smelt it into big, enthralling ideas" (Radio Times)

"an all-action narrative" (Sunday Times)

It's enough to make you quake. (Times)

This new addition to the genre may be the best yet (WESTERN MAIL)

The most informative series he has ever made....Travelling to many of the geological wonders of the world. (Times Scotland)

A stunning new series about our planet (Evening herald)

Watch preview Clips on YouTube

For further details, please visit the official BBC programme page

David Attenborough: Bristol and Wildlife TV - more than an accident of History.

From: Made in the UK online essays at the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk/madeintheuk

(Image from Aerial online)

THE NATURAL history unit in Bristol is a rare constant in an evolving broadcast world. Whereas other specialist centres of excellence have come and gone, the NHU has always been there, or so it seems. What happy combination of circumstances and talents made Bristol the ideal habitat for the unit, enabling it to grow into the most enduringly successful out-of- London production department in the history of the BBC?

You might argue that there has always been a strong interest in natural history in the West Country, and a long tradition there of self-educated, amateur naturalists. But the truth is that the NHU would not exist in Bristol, had it not been for the enthusiasm and passion of one man, and his belief in the public service ideals of the BBC. Desmond Hawkins was not himself a trained naturalist, nor a West Countryman. He moved as a radio producer to the BBC in Bristol after WW2 and started natural history production in Bristol with radio programmes such as The Naturalist and Birds In Britain, long before the arrival of television in the area. As a boy, I listened to those programmes, and I dare say my own passion was stoked by them.

Desmond Hawkins interviewing Sir Peter Scott

(Image from WildFilmHistory)

Global reputation In 1952 I began my career with the BBC in London, at the tv talks department in Alexandra Palace. I worked on anything from political broadcasts to archaeological quizzes. But before long I launched Zoo Quest, a series which took me all over the world and helped to determine the future course of my life. Meanwhile, in Bristol, Desmond Hawkins had decided that as soon as it was physically possible to make television programmes in the West Country, his team of natural history specialists would show these upstarts in London how it was really done. Hardly was Zoo Quest on the air in 1954 than Desmond had decided to launch his own series Look, with Peter Scott, whose bird sanctuary at Slimbridge was only 20 miles away. The fact that there was still no actual tv studio in the city, or for that matter any transmitter or tv sets in the region, did not deter him. He brought in an outside broadcast unit, ran cables and cameras into the large radio studio and piped the programme by landline up to London. So natural history tv programmes were being made in Bristol even before anyone in the region could watch them. Enthusiasm is infectious, and Desmond gathered about him a core of people whose passion for natural history equalled his own, so that by 1957 it was officially recognised as a production specialism in Bristol, and he set up the NHU proper there.

When I became controller of BBC Two in 1965, I naturally wanted to indulge my own passion for natural history. When BBC launched colour tv in Britain, I could think of no subject better suited to showing off the new technology. I commissioned from the NHU The World About Us, initially a series of 26x50 minute programmes that turned into a long-running strand, and helped to establish a global reputation for the unit. Bristol also produced Life, a magazine programme that covered natural history news stories. Productions like these, building on the foundation of its existing BBC One output, secured the future of the unit and bound natural history production ever more closely with its Bristol roots.

David Attenborough outside a cave entrance during filming of Life on Earth

(Image from WildFilmHistory)

At BBC Two, I also launched a style of documentary which would now be described as the ‘landmark’ series, taking a big subject and devoting 13 onehour programmes to it. The first of these was Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, followed by Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. An obvious contender for the same treatment had to be the history of all life on earth, but that was a subject I hankered after tackling myself. As soon as I resigned from my management job, I suggested the idea to one of the most experienced producers at the NHU, Chris Parsons, who would later himself head the unit. This was without doubt at the time the most ambitious series to be produced in Bristol. We started work on it in the mid-1970s, and the ground-breaking Life on Earth was transmitted in 1979 to huge audiences, selling around the globe so that eventually it was estimated that 500m people watched it. There is a great deal of trial and error in producing natural history programmes, and the people who make them have built up extraordinary levels of knowledge and expertise. Waiting patiently week after week in freezing temperatures for a snow leopard to creep across a mountainside, or understanding precisely when and how to film the annual hatch of turtles on a starlit beach, requires special skills. So too does the post- production of natural history series, and once a commissioning momentum was established, over the years the NHU in Bristol attracted many satellite businesses and freelancers. The city has accumulated a unique set of trades and talents.

Cultural identity At the same time the cultural life of Bristol has benefited from the existence of the NHU. The world’s first wildlife film festival, Wildscreen, was held in the city, attracting visitors from all over the world. The University of Bristol would probably tell you that its zoology department gains greatly from the fact that the best natural history television unit in the world is within walking distance, and a close and symbiotic relationship has sprung up between the two. Producers and academics drink in the same pubs and exchange ideas, and many a promising young graduate has found employment at BBC Bristol. It may have been historical accident that the NHU was founded in Bristol, rather than London, but instinct tells me that when Desmond Hawkins produced the first natural history radio programmes there in 1946, he already saw far further than the wildlife that was on his West Country doorstep. Natural history programme making has become as much a part of Bristol’s cultural identity as seafaring or the wine trade. The skills it takes to make such programmes are now woven into the fabric of the city, and long may it remain so.

Read David Attenborough’s full article and the other Made in the UK online essays at the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/madeintheuk

10 steps to becoming a Covert Google Earth Surfer

If you are a Natural History film-maker than you will no doubt find Google Earth invaluable. Unfortunately some organizations seem to have put a block on this crucial piece of software - even years after it was first released! As a result they have limited, if not reduced, the 'productivity' of their staff. Here is a guide to Covert Google Earth surfing... use this at your own peril!

1. Visit the Google Earth website and download the 'Google Earth.exe' installation file. You'll need to save this to your computers non-networked drive it might be called the 'D' Drive.

2. The first step in covert Google Earth use is to rename the downloaded file 'Google Earth.exe' to 'decoy.exe'. High-tech I.T.bots sweep through your computer for anything named "Google Earth" and then deploy their digital missiles to obliterate them from your system.
So to avoid this and to prevent a .exe from being an ex .exe - rename 'Google Earth.exe' to 'Decoy.exe'

3. Next - the point of no return - launch the installation of Google Earth by double clicking on 'Decoy.exe'

4. Go to C/ Documents and Setting/ Your Username/ Application Data/ Google/ Google Earth/ and once again change the 'Google Earth.exe' in this folder to 'Decoy2'.

If you've gotton this far without being shot by the I.T.erminators then well done.

5. Under the cover of darkness, right click on 'Decoy2.exe" and select 'send to desktop (shortcut)'.

6. Go to desktop, and while simultaneously looking over your shoulder, right click on the shortcut of "Decoy2" and select properties.

7. In the window that pops up click on "change icon" - try to withhold your excitement - any hint of this may alert the I.T. Bots.

8. Another window will pop up. browse for another icon, or paste this: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe into the browse box to give you access to a selection of carefully trained decept-icons.

9. Select an alternative icon from this platoon. My favourite decept-icon is the earth icon - very experienced in the field of covert Google Earth access.

10. You should now be ready for a life of secret Earth surfing.

The Earth is in your hands - enjoy, I hope it helps with planning your shoot.

- Matt the Mysterious

Free to use 'Planet Earth' Satellite Images from Nasa

If you want the 'Planet Earth' touch, the majesty and beauty of satellite imagery in your film then you can use Blue Marble from Nasa, an archive of free-to-use extremely high resolution images of the Earth. The very images that helped the BBC generate some of the memorable shots that made 'Planet Earth' so spectacular.

To view the full resolution you would need a monitor as big as your house (1 thousand million mpixels) so I think the quality is fit for most purposes! However, you will need a mighty machine and photoshop 8 to even stand a chance of opening it - a safer bet might be to use the lower resolution versions (still 2km and 8km pixels) - an excellent choice for wide 'locators' such as entire continents or countries.

You can check the resolution at this link (cloudless) and also here (including atmosphere/clouds).

Download the KML file to allow you to view this as a live layer of satellite imagery on Google Earth.

The 'Rapid response system' is used to view near-real time satellite imagery which is useful for navigating and downloading more localised and regional images, as well as images of natural phenomenon such as hurricanes and wildfires. You can search the Modis archives here.

Another site that is a little more technical but I have found useful is the Earth Science data interface (they are very helpful if you have particular requests)

Photron SA-2, Phantom, Shimadzu & friends: The fastest cameras in the world

I was playing around with the new high speed Photron SA2 camera (left) at the weekend (the Photron SA-1 was used on Life in Cold Blood to film Chameleon tongues, and Planet Earth to film Great Whites hunting).

The image looked even brighter and sharper than the images I have seen from the Phantom camera (the BBC's high speed flavour of the month) but I could have just been dazzled by the pomp surrounding it.

One thing to note is that there is a 2-stop difference between this and the Phantom HD - so its much more light sensitive (but then I haven't mentioned the Phantom v640 yet). I have been informed that the SA2 has a viewfinder at last and can be run off V-lok batteries but you still need a laptop and a seperate recorder - so it' s still not really as practical for field use as the Phantoms or the smaller Memrecams.

Set-up of the SA-2 as used by cameraman Gavin Thurston to film bears last year.
Image Copyright: Gavin Thurston.

The Photron SA-2 can film at 2,000 fps at Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1080 pixels) while the equivalent camera from Phantom the Phantom v640 records over 2700fps at1920x1080 HD-resolution (The Phantom HD 'only' does 1000fps at 1920 × 1080 or 2K resolution).

You might also want to check out the really compact MotionPro Y5 and the MotionScope N5 9 by Lake image systems both capable of up to 1500 frames per second at a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, Memrecam GX-1 records 2000fps at 1280x1024.

The Fastest camera in the world

Now if you don't care whether its HD or not but you want to film really, really, fast then the fastest camera in the world is the Shimadzu. At a resolution of 312 x 260 it is capable at a pant-wettingly high speed of 1,000,000 fps.

Unfortunately the Shimadzu only records in black and white and so for the very best full colour and high speed/resolution combination you have to drop right down to 300,000 fps for the Photron Fastcam SA5 (256 x 54 pixels) the Phantom V640, mentioned earlier, also records at up to 300,000fps but at a tiny resolution of 128x8.

The Red Cam ups its game

Oh yes, and while I'm on one... if your a fan of the current 'RED One' camera which goes upto120fps at 2k then the first Red EPIC camera (actually Epic is a module which is the brain of the camera) will be released in the Autumn (the S35) and is capable of up to 250fps at 2k. But the big whopper - the Full Format 'Monstro EPIC' comes out this winter which will record at 350fps at 2k - not quite a million frames a second but quite a high speed for such a mega resolution.

If you have has any experience filming with high speed cameras we would love to hear about your experiences. Thanks Matt.

Networks of Nature - stories of natural history film-making from the BBC.

Networks of nature: stories of natural history film-making from the BBC.
A great read for anyone interested in the BBC Natural History Unit and a must for all aspiring BBC NHU researchers...

In May 1953 the first natural history television programme was broadcast from Bristol by naturalist Peter Scott and radio producer Desmond Hawkins. By 1997 the BBC's Natural History Unit has established a global reputation for wildlife films, providing a keystone of the BBC's public service broadcasting charter, playing an important strategic role in television scheduling and occupying a prominent position in a competitive world film market.

The BBC's blue-chip natural history programmes regularly bring images of wildlife from all over the globe to British audiences of over 10 million.

In her PhD thesis Gail Davies traces the changing world of the BBC natural history unit. Using archive material, interviews and through close observation of the film-makers at work she explores the ever changing relationships between broadcasting values and scientific and film-making practices.

This research puts the BBCs popular representations of wildlife within the context of post-war British attitudes to nature and explores the importance of technology, animals and public conceptions as additional factors influencing the relationships between nature and culture.

University College London PhD Eprints

SoundsSnap Sound Archive

Soundsnap

From BBC Click
If you are a music producer and are looking for some interesting new sounds to use in your work, then soundsnap.com will be a goldmine for you.

We love free stuff, especially if it helps us become a little more creative, and here you can download all sorts of sounds for use in music, video and audio productions.

It even has some funky sound effects for your website or presentation.

Once you have registered and confirmed your address, you can start downloading or uploading samples straight away.

Use the buttons on the opening page to jump to the categories. There are animal noises, comic sound effects and classic musical samples such as drum loops and much more.

These sounds are royalty free to use worldwide. But make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before uploading anything to the site.

From BBC Click

Starting with North America Keith Scholey & Discovery to capture the world in HD

Discovery Channel signs deal with Wild Horizons and Keith Scholey to create the most ambitious documentary series to date starting with 'WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA'.

Using the full power of cutting-edge film technology, Discovery Channel is teaming with Wild Horizons, Ltd. and Keith Scholey, formerly head of the BBC's Natural History Unit, in a multiyear production deal to capture the world, continent by continent in high definition, as its never been seen before.

WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA (wt), begins filming in 2009, to kick off the project. This ambitious seven-part documentary takes an all-encompassing view of the North American continent from the arctic to Mexico and covers topics including mountains, forests, deserts, plains, coasts and rivers.

North America is one of the most captivating continents on the planet. Stretching from the polar ice caps to the subtropics, it contains diverse habitats and even more varied wildlife. Employing cutting-edge technology formerly reserved for blockbuster Hollywood films, Discovery and Wild Horizons will capture iconic landscapes and enable viewers to experience unforgettable locations for themselves. High-definition cameras will be hoisted to the tops of mammoth sequoias, the largest living things on earth, and lowered down into Carlsbad Cavern, one of the deepest caves on the planet. In addition, the use of high-speed cameras specially designed to move or fly with animals will enable the producers to capture animals in the most dramatic fashion, from leaping humpback whales to flying squirrels soaring through the forests at night.

"WILD PLANET: NORTH AMERICA will highlight the sweeping beauty and majesty of the continent and its rich diversity. Having Keith at the helm is guaranteed to deliver a series that will ignite our viewers' passion for the world around them." said John Ford, president and general manager of Discovery Channel.

Keith Scholey, director of Wild Horizons, Ltd. said "North America has everything; majestic scenery, spectacular wildlife and vast areas of pristine wilderness. Discovery has given us the resources to do this magnificent continent justice, showing it to the American people in the most spectacular fashion. It's a huge privilege to be making such an important series."

Interview with the directors of DisneyNature's Earth

Interview with Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield.

Amazing new underwater slow motion footage from the BBC

The BBC have done it again. This incredible footage shows big wave surfer Dylan Longbottom in a 12 foot monster barrel, these are the first shots of their kind ever recorded. Spectacular!



The BBC Natural History Unit specially modified a TyphoonHD4, apparently the most advanced HD camera ever, costing $100,00. While the exact modifications appear to be a closely-kept secret, we do know that it was outfitted with a special underwater housing designed by German high-speed camera expert Rudi Diesel, and the camera itself is able to shoot in HD at 20 times the speed of a normal high definition camera. 'Planet Earth' eat your heart out!

A brief history of Early wildlife filmmaking

Early Natural History Filmmaking by Bryony Dixon
For more visit: www.screenonline.org.uk

If there is one area of the film business where Britain has always retained an enviable reputation, that is the natural history or wildlife film. As soon as pictures could move, naturalists were desperate to capture on film the subjects of their obsession - birds, bees, flowers, animals and plants of all kinds. Pioneers such as Oliver Pike, Percy Smith, F. Martin Duncan and J.C. Bee-Mason invented the genre, invented their own equipment and methodology, developed techniques and braved the elements to capture images that still fascinate us today. All three had long and fascinating careers as filmmakers and effectively launched the genre that eventually led to such pinnacles of achievement as Planet Earth (BBC, 2006-).

The first views of animals on film in the 1890s cannot really be described as natural history or wildlife films. These were principally views of captive animals, sporting events, hunt gatherings, parades, agricultural shows, farming processes, zoo films and animal acts, where the cameraman was photographing an existing spectacle. Film technology was not sufficiently developed in the 1890s to cope with anything more than this. The length of film (less than a minute) would not allow for the patient recording of the unpredictable movements of wild animals, and there were issues too with focus and manoeuvrability. The noise of the camera was another problem when filming nervous wildlife, and similar methods had to be employed as during the transition to sound film.

The first British film featuring animals in a deliberate set up was made by William K. Dickson for his Biograph Company in London in December 1899, and featured a fight between a tarantula and a scorpion - although arguably this was an opportunistic film of an existing animal act. The first deliberate attempt to portray wildlife on film was Charles Urban's 1903 Unseen World series, drawing mainly on the talents of sequence photographer and lecturer F. Martin Duncan. The series dealt primarily with microscopic creatures delighting in such names as Volvox Globators or Rotifers, mostly delivered straight but some with a surrounding narrative (based on the 1901 W.R. Booth trick film) of a scientist having lunch and examining his cheese under a microscope to find it crawling with mites. The mites were real, and this microscope shot is all that now survives of the film.

Urban's personal mission to use film for education was an important factor in his fostering the careers of wildlife filmmakers such as Percy Smith, and in 1907 he developed the Kineto brand specifically to promote scientific and travel subjects. Oliver Pike, an unusually 'driven' nature photographer with technical flair, made his own film In Birdland (1907), which played at the Palace Theatre in London for six weeks and sold an impressive 100 prints. Pike was picked up by Pathé and contracted to make several films with considerable investment and high production values including beautifully subtle stencil colouring, for distribution all over the world. These set a high standard, and must have had considerable influence on other filmmakers.

These first natural history filmmakers seem to share several traits: a passion for wildlife and the natural world from an early age, technical inventiveness and competence as well as knowledge and, often, physical courage (Oliver Pike, for example, relates tales of filming seabirds from an overhanging cliff). Reflected in the autobiographies and writings which accompany some of the films is a view that this genre of filmmaking has a 'boy's own' quality, conflating healthy outdoor pursuits, adventure, hunting, exploration and fame. J.C. Bee-Mason's films of the Arctic and the 'Green Hell' jungles of Bolivia are indeed exploration films during which he nearly always forgets about the human explorers in favour of the wildlife he encounters. The very act of capturing the glories of nature on film is a noble endeavour and underlying this is the filmmakers' absolute conviction that the public would want to see the resulting images. They were not wrong.

Nature films had a long shelf life and were very popular. Moreover the British filmmakers over long careers developed a 'voice', a mode of expression that was intimate, personal (the films are nearly always one man talking as if to one audience member) and respectful. The hushed voices employed by contemporary naturalist broadcasters, from Sir David Attenborough to Bill Oddie, as they describe some fascinating species is a development of the same approach. The coming of sound led to a slight hiatus in this style. The sound track to Magic Myxies (1931) experimented with a light-hearted, populist and slightly jovial tone, which was quickly slapped down by the educationalists, and although the anthropomorphic tendency creeps back in occasionally, this is, in Britain at least, generally greeted with disapproval. The personal and authoritative style of nature filmmaking was here to stay, and all of the efforts of global players such as Disney could not change it.

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

Interview: DisneyNature Earth

Disneynature launch 'Earth' on Earth day.
DisneyNatures EARTH Interview
Interview by Sheila Roberts for http://www.moviesonline.ca/

The first film in the Disneynature series, “Earth,” narrated by James Earl Jones, tells the remarkable story of three animal families and their amazing journeys across the planet we all call home. “Earth” combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet’s wildest and most elusive creatures. Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the acclaimed creative team behind the Emmy Award-winning “Planet Earth,” combine forces again to bring this epic adventure to the big screen, beginning Earth Day, April 22, 2009.

“Earth” is the first film from Disneynature, the first new Disney-branded label in 60 years. It is headed by Jean-Francois Camilleri, executive vice president and general manager of the company. With plans to release one feature-length nature film a year, Disneynature was formed in the proud tradition established by Walt Disney with the classic True-Life Adventures series form 1948 to 1960, which won eight Academy Awards.

MoviesOnline sat down with directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield and Disneynature’s executive vice president and general manager, Jean-Francois Camilleri, to talk about their new film, “Earth.” Here’s what they had to tell us:

Q: Can you talk about the genesis of this project and why it was an important film to make?

Alastair: Well, it took five years to make. The original vision was that, if you look at nature in cinema, it’s been played on a relatively small canvas. If you look at movies like Microcosmos, Winged Migration and even March of the Penguins, they’re very focused movies on a particular subject. And, Mark and I felt that nobody had ever tried to do the whole planet and it seemed to be a time where people were increasingly caring about our planet. It was the perfect time. But, we didn’t quite appreciate the scale of the challenge. Logistically, it was massive. The genesis was the desire to make an epic movie about an epic subject, which is the natural history of the whole planet.

Q: There are so many endangered species in the world now. Why pick these particular species?

Mark: One of the storylines is the power of the sun and the journey the sun takes and the strength of the seasons. We wanted to choose animals that were affected by the seasons of the planet. The polar bear, living in the Arctic, is in the most seasonal environment on Earth, and much of the storyline is about how the mother polar bear has to battle with the naturally changing things in her environment. Similarly with the elephants, they have to undertake long, epic journeys through desert, which is seasonal. And, the humpback whales travel from the Equator, all the way down to the south. The other thing about those animals is that they are all engaging, intelligent creatures that we felt people would connect with, and that was very important in telling the story in the cinema.

Q: Do you have to be a certain type of person that you don’t get involved and try to help any of these animals?

Alastair: It’s a very interesting question that we do get asked quite a lot, and I generally think it’s a very interesting one because it’s one that concerns us a great deal. On the first level, what are you supposed to do? The male polar bear was starving, yes. Filming that was, for the cameraman and the director there, a very painful thing to do. But, what are we supposed to do, shoot the walrus? You might shoot one, but then you’ve got a life responsibility to go on doing it. The first rule wildlife filmmakers have is to be true to nature. You don’t interfere, you don’t get involved and the reality is that nature is read in tooth and claw. You have to be true to nature, both on the screen and also in the way that you deal with those issues. Obviously, Mark and I are passionate about the natural world, but we recognize that a cheetah is a predator, beautifully evolved. Yes, a cheetah kills Bambi, and that’s sad, but that cheetah has got its own cubs and I think people understand that, if you put it in context. If you look at the cheetah sequence in Earth, we very deliberately slowed it down. You look at that cheetah and can see every move of its muscle and every sinew in its body, and you think, “This is a beautiful predator, at the very top of its game.” George Fenton, our composer, chose an Armenian woman singing because that’s a completely different voice or sound than you would normally associate with a predation sequence, where you have the traditional, rather cliche drum for “Here comes the predator that’s going to kill them.” We didn’t want that. We wanted to say, “Look at this animal. It is beautiful.” But, we recognize that these are family movies and we’re very careful to cut them so that you don’t dwell on the blood and gore. You don’t need to. People know what’s going to happen.

Mark: That’s an important point. There’s a line of commentary over that cheetah hunt that says, “This is the circle of life that people in their urban environment have lost touch with.” In many ways, that cheetah hunt is metaphorical for lots of stuff that you don’t really need to see. You don’t need to see the blood and guts. The moment that that gazelle is brought down, you really don’t need to see what happens next. But, equally, I don’t think you want to shield people from the sequence, up to that point. That is nature. That is the stuff that some of us are losing contact with.

Q: How long did this take to make? Over what period of time did you make it? How much footage did you end up with? How long did it take to edit all of that together?

Mark: Five years was the production period, of which three years were filming. There were 2,000 days in the field with over 40 different teams. With these true-life adventures, there really is no script. The animals just don’t do stuff to order. The way to crack it is immense effort, immense time and using everything that we can to stack the odds in our favor, using the best scientists, the best locations and just a lot of time.

Alastair: And patience, patience, patience.

Q: What are some of the challenges that you both had to face, during the making of this movie, and what did you learn from them?

Alastair: There were a number of different challenges. Mark has touched on the logistical challenges, to a certain extent, and there were some real technological challenges in this movie. Actually, we were extraordinarily lucky that high-definition cameras had just become available, at the beginning of the shooting. There is an extraordinary camera system called a Cineflex, which stabilizes a lens four or five times more powerful than has ever been stabilized in a helicopter before, and that’s extremely important for wildlife documentaries because you can fly four times higher and still get all the close-ups you need. A classic example would be the wolf hunt. Wolves are very shy animals and they run very fast when they’re running down caribou calves, and you just cannot film that from the ground. That had literally never been filmed before. But, with our helicopter so high that the wolves could hardly hear it, we filmed the whole sequence. And the swimming polar bear, out there where you can’t go in a boat or on foot, we were able to film beautifully in the wild. I was in this helicopter and I was over this male polar bear that was swimming, and I knew nobody had ever filmed anything like that before. It was dark blue water and bits of white ice and he dove down, and I was genuinely in tears because I thought, “This is just beautiful.” I was pleased because I knew it was new, and I was in tears because I was emotionally moved by it. One of the things that we’ve been really pleased about the reaction to this movie in Europe and Japan is that people have said to us, “There’s stuff in this movie which we cannot believe hasn’t been created by a computer.” In a world where a lot of cinema is dependent on computers, and Disney does that better than anybody, it’s really wonderful that, with true-life nature, there is nothing in Earth or any of the movies we are doing as part of Disneynature that isn’t absolutely true.

Mark: That’s where the power of it comes from.

Alastair: That is something really refreshing and new.

Q: What was the most dangerous situation that you got into during filming, that had the biggest pay-off for you?

Alastair: The dangerous one was the lions and elephants with the sequence of the pride of 30 lions bringing down the elephant. You immediately might think that the lions are the dangerous bit and, yes, if you got outside your vehicle, they would have definitely eaten you. But, that was okay. You just sit in the vehicle. But, what was really dangerous was that that sequence was filmed in infrared, in complete darkness, because if you use white light, you would have disturbed the animals. We had about 20 people there with lights and cameras, and the only person who could see anything was the camera woman. Basically, we were in there and there were a lot of these elephants, and these mother elephants were really worried. A 15-20 ton mother elephant, looking after her calf, will run straight through your Land Rover without even thinking about it. That was something where the safety issues were slightly high on our concern levels.

Mark: There were some other surprising ones as well. The great white sharks you would think are not dangerous because we’re in a boat and the great white sharks are leaping away. But, they’re actually leaping quite close to the boat and, at that particular location, it has been known for a shark to leap out of the water, rather innocently chasing a seal, and actually land in the boat, which is not recommended.

Alastair: The other one that was particularly memorable was the sailfish which are these wonderful big fish that are 2-3 meters long with these great big javelin things on their noses. We had about 70 of them together. It was an extraordinarily lucky occurrence to have so many. And they were feeding on little bait fish, which are small fish. These little fish are very clever and they saw the cameraman as the best thing to hide behind, and the cameraman came out of the water and said, “This is just unbelievable. I’m in there and these javelins are shooting past my ear. I can literally hear the roar of this fish.” They swim at 70 mph. It is a fast fish.

Mark: Anything to do with polar bears is another thing. Polar bears are very unusual animals, in that most animals maybe present a risk if they’re wounded or they’re starving and hungry. Polar bears just see you as a nice, tasty mammal, wrapped up in a bit of plastic wrapper. You are fair game for a polar bear. If you think about where they live, out in the Arctic waste, there isn’t much to eat. When they come across something nice that’s the size of a fat seal, they’re going to have a go, if you’re not very careful.

Q: Where do you go from here if this one is Earth? What is on the slate?

JFC: I think Earth is a perfect film to start with because we start with everything earth. The next one will be about oceans, which is depicted in Earth a little bit but it will really be about the ocean, nothing but ocean. Then we are doing a movie called Naked Beauty which is about pollinators, bees, hummingbirds, butterflies and explains the incredible love story between them and flowers and vegetables. We are doing a movie with Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey in Kenya about African cats called African Cats: Kingdom of Courage, where we follow cheetahs, lions and leopards. Mark and Alastair are working on a new thing for us called Chimpanzees, which is being shot in the Ivory Coast in Africa

Q: Can you talk about bringing back DisneyNature after a 60 year absence? What prompted it?

JFC: Several things. The first one is there is a great appetite from the worldwide audience for this type of film. We saw it with Winged Migration, March of the Penguins and with Earth, which has been released already in European countries and Asia. I think it makes so much sense for Disney to bring these beautiful films and stories to the big screen. Sixty years ago we had True Life Adventures but even since, even when True Life Adventures ended, Disney has always been very close to nature and to animals so it was making a lot of sense. I think it’s a perfect period to do it because people care about nature more than they might have cared like 20 years ago. And we had these wonderful incredible directors working with us but also the techniques evolved, and worked so well with today’s beautiful theaters, with HD, and great sound. I think these wildlife feature films belong to the big screen and movie theaters. They are the best places to see these films, which might not have been the case 20 years ago. Today, if you want to discover Earth, and animal behaviors and the incredible stories in nature, the movie theaters are the best place to discover them. On the film we are doing with Mark and Alastair, every six months there is a brand new camera coming out that is even better than the ones before. So it’s a perfect time for us to do this and revisit nature.

Q: What about anthropomorphizing animals, like the young polar bears have the spirit of their father in their hearts, when he might have eaten them. Can you talk about that choice to do that so we can identify with them?

Alastair: You’re completely wrong to say the father would eat his own cubs, but you’re completely right that he’d eat anyone else’s cubs. But you are talking about a very key point. We have to recognize that these are family movies and that’s why I think they’ll work so well in theaters. I think they appeal to four year olds and I hope they’ll appeal to 94 year olds. To be honest, if we chose not to anthromorphize the animals in the script, people would anyway. That’s the way human beings look at natural history. I’ve made a lot of natural history television with very scientific narration and you still get anthromorphizing animals. And what’s wrong with that, for God’s sake? You say the polar bear’s young don’t know the spirit of their father, well they do—that’s what they’re doing. They’re carrying on their father’s genes. If you want to replace the word genes with spirit, it’s a bit more romantic, it’s a bit more theatric. I make no excuses for that.

Q: There are a lot of funny things that the animals are doing, like the courting bird and the little birds falling out of the nest and flying, did you make a conscious effort to balance it with humor?

Mark: Absolutely. It’s critical on a cinema movie. In any movie actually you want the full, rich gamut of emotions—laughter, sadness, pathos. You want them all. And the great thing about nature is it does provide them all so you’d be crazy not to use it. It does give you that full, rounded experience of cinema that we hope people will get when they see it

Alastair: The bird of paradise dance is hysterically funny. The fact that he puts all that effort in and the girl never turns up, well we’ve all been there.

Mark: Particularly Alastair

Alastair: Yeah. But it’s true

Mark: Even the baboons. They’re not wanting to get their private parts too wet or whatever. It’s great, it’s fabulous

JFC: What you said is very important. These are movies for the theaters and we need to have the same type of emotion as in any movie. And they managed to have all that.

Q: The dancing bird was in Planet Earth as well—was that repurposed footage? Did you use anything you’d shot for that and did you try to make things different?

Alastair: The wonderful thing about this movie is that we knew from the very beginning that we were working on a TV series and a movie. Very strictly, we thought for the movie that we would have a completely different storyline. The TV series, if you’ve seen it, is about mountains, rivers, deserts. Very few people can watch the whole TV series anyway. The movie has its own completely separate storyline---the whole planet storyline, the sun’s journey, the three key characters. And we shot a lot of extra material of those key characters. What the TV series helped us to provide was some of the animal behaviors that are in the movie like the bird of paradise, but all of them were completely re-edited for the big screen and there was a completely new music score composed and played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which was an extraordinary privilege. They’re the best orchestra in the world and that was a pretty amazing experience. And also having James Earl Jones’ voice which works brilliantly in the cinema but possibly wouldn’t be so appropriate for a TV series.

Q: Was he your first choice?

Alastair: Absolutely. We’ve used different voices in different parts of the world. In the UK version we used Patrick Stewart.

Mark: But for the U.S., yes.

Alastair: (To Camilleri): I don’t know if it was you who suggested James to us, it was Disney’s suggestion. We’re really happy with it

Mark: He brings a weight, a gravitas fitting of the subject, and it’s a rather large subject, the whole planet

Q: What would you like to have the audience take away from seeing this film?

Alastair: More than anything else we want them to have a good time in the cinema. This isn’t An Inconvenient Truth. It’s not The Eleventh Hour. It’s not trying to preach to people. There’s a lot of bad news about the environment out there. But if you had all the money in the world and ten lifetimes you wouldn’t see ten percent of what we can show you in this movie. It’s all there, it’s still there, it needs preserving. And we just want people to come out uplifted, really.

Mark: It’s funny, people come out saying there’s a conservation message but it’s so subtle and light that it just naturally emerges from the fact that when people see all the things they see in the movie, they realize that’s still out there and what we need to preserve. You just naturally come to that conclusion. It’s a very light environmental slant but it’s actually not so much delivered by us, it’s just the take home that people tell us after the movie. It has a strong conservation message and not really intentionally, it’s just the way it is. It’s inevitable.

Q: How do you market a film like this? Does it go to art house theaters?

JFC: It’s going to have a traditional release. The movie is going to come out on April 22nd on 1800 screens. It’s going to go in regular theaters like any movie

Q: It won’t be promoted with Happy Meals at McDonalds will it?

JFC: Nope

Mark: But there is a fantastic tree planting scheme, which we’re all delighted about.

JFC: The first seven days, for everyone who buys a ticket, we plant a tree in the Atlantic forest in Brazil.

Q: Potentially how many can you plant?

JFC: As many as possible. For each person who comes we plant a tree.

Q: Where did you get your passion for nature?

Mark: We both started rummaging around in the undergrowth, catching slugs and snails to show to our family and spending all of our time…

Alastair: I had a zoo in my bedroom. My mother would never, ever come near it.

Mark: Both of us had rooms full of animals that we probably shouldn’t have had and both of us really enjoyed being excited about them and explaining them to other people. We both went to university to read zoology and then just sort of tried to publicize our enthusiasm and kind of spread it so it was a natural evolution to end up doing this

Alastair: We started in television at the BBC Natural History unit and made a lot of TV documentaries, most of them with David Attenborough. The cinema has been the natural evolution of that for us

Q: What did you learn from making this?

Mark: The amazing tenacity and dedication, all of those animals have successfully pulled through a difficult year on earth and show incredible tenacity and drive and I guess that’s what we all need as well

Alastair: I think that’s true and one of the nice things about concentrating on mothers and their babies is that one of the things you think about the film is we’re preserving the planet for the next generation. That’s one of the resonances that we hope in a subtle way this movie might have an environmental message for people. I think there are very specific and exciting challenges about making nature work for cinema and creatively and technically something that will continue with us. We’re very fortunate to be doing that now with the chimpanzee movie and the big cat movie, which are very different challenges but very exciting as well

“Earth” opens in theaters on April 22nd.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within are in no way those of the editorial team of TheNatureWatch.com

Sony HD HXR-MC1P Mini-Cam / POV camera

TV hire companies are beginning to offer a nice range of nifty little HD cameras. Bluefin TV (in the UK) recently told us about a new Sony mini-cam that they now stock.

Introducing the new Sony HXR-MC1P (bit of a mouth-full but still a sexy looking little camera).

It's ultra-quick to set-up and has full remote control, records upto 6 hours of content directly to a 16GB Sony Duo Memory Stick (or to a separate clamshell recorder). With incredible picture quality and full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution what more could you want from a mini-cam?.

Available from only £70 p/d (at least from Bluefin TV in the UK) which is a mere pinch of the £1000 per day hire cost when the iconix was first released. Here's a link to camera details.

Recording and playback is operated within the seperated handheld control unit, so no need for cumbersome and hefty external recording devices. By combining the Exmor and CMOS sensor technologies this little camera has low power consumption and can keep on going for a whopping 405 minutes. A tripod-screw hole on the bottom of the unit makes mounting easy. It's also splash-resistant for use in the rain or near water.

Score!

Papua New Guineans join BBC Expedition

By Malum Nalu in Papua New Guinea

Over 20 Papua New Guineans are part of a group of 50 scientists, explorers and TV presenters on a BBC expedition to one of Papua New Guinea’s last frontiers, Southern Highlands Province’s Mt Bosavi.

The team, who are part of the world-renown BBC Natural History Unit, are filming a major TV documentary series entitled ‘Expedition New Guinea’ which will be aired in the UK and around the world towards the end of the year.

Daniel Huertas, a British researcher with the group, highlighted the international composition of the expedition team and in particular the pivotal role played by the PNG participants.

“We have a number of PNG scientists and local community members assisting and advising the international team in species recognition and location finding. The project would not be possible without the support and amazing knowledge of our colleagues from Port Moresby, Kiunga, Fogomaiyu, Talisu and Siena Falls,” he said.

British High Commissioner to PNG, David Dunn, welcomed the team to PNG and highlighted that the shooting of such a major documentary series reinforced the special relationship between the BBC Natural History Unit and PNG, which started more than 50 years ago by British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

“Sir David's ‘Zoo Guest’ series, which heralded his entry into wildlife television documentaries and 50 years of broadcasting, brought him to PNG in 1957. That much remembered pioneering series changed the way broadcasters filmed natural history forever and opened the wonders and beauty of the planet and in particular PNG to the world. Although the technology has changed dramatically since those early days the warmth of the welcome and generous support given to the numerous and regular visiting BBC teams by the people of PNG has not. I would like to thank the Government of PNG and all those associated for their continued help, support and collaboration and I look forward to PNG showcasing to the world its amazing beauty and bio-diversity through the Expedition New Guinea programmes,” he added.

Mt Bosavi, a dormant volcano endemically rich in flora and fauna, has been the subject of various studies by international research and conservation groups in recent years.

Mr Huertas said the mountain’s isolation and the enthusiasm of the local communities for their forest to be part of the documentary series made it the first choice for the BBC.

The expedition team’s adventures can be tracked through the BBC Science and Nature News website and a Blog by expedition member and the University of California’s curator and department chair for ornithology and mammalogy, Dr John Dumbacher.

Read more on PNG at the Malum Nalu blog