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SURINAM / GUYANA / VENEZUELA
As you will know from watching the film, Neil Rettig has been working with Harpy Eagles since he was a “twenty three year old wild adventurer”, as he describes himself ! Since the early 1970s, Neil has been one of the only cinematographers to document the life of the Harpy Eagle in the wild. For this production we were extremely privileged to have access to the whole of Neil’s film archive, shot in Surinam, Guyana and Venezuela over the past twenty five years. Neil and his field colleagues have always been very dedicated to the research and conservation of the Harpy Eagle - a proportion of the money raised by selling this footage to productions such as ours is ploughed straight back into the Harpy Eagle Conservation Programme (see “Conservation” section, and a piece by Eduardo Alvarez, a key player in Harpy Eagle conservation)
Find out more about Harpy Eagles and the fight to save them in the “Canopy Animals” and “Conservation” sections of this web site.
Find out more about Neil Rettig’s incredible film and research career
on Neil’s own page in the “Canopy
Researchers” section of this web site.
PANAMA
Tim Scoones and his film colleagues are no strangers to rainforests. Tim had already spent two years in the mid 1990s in Panama (principally on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal, and surrounding areas) filming for National Geographic’s “Explorer” series - a one hour show called “Panama Wild” and a half hour show called “Beeman”. As well as giving Tim Scoones and Justine Evans valuable experience in working in rainforests (including in the canopy), this huge body of work (involving seven camerapeople, hundreds of filming hours and thousands of feet of film) provided a wonderful source of “stock footage” (i.e: out-takes from the film) of which Tim had intimate knowledge - vital when sifting through hour after hour of “raw” shots.
The story approach of the Panama films was different to this canopy story, so similar images could be edited to tell a new story - breathing life into shots that might otherwise have sat on a library shelf unused for years. This allowed the team to allocate their filming budget to new and exciting locations and canopy stories not already covered in Panama.
The Panama shooting provided sequences on coatis, bats, leaf-cutter ants, plant growth, slime moulds and the “biochemical war” between plants and insects.
Find out more about timelapse photography in the “Timelapse - entering
the wacky world of plants with our very own time machine” section of the
“Filming
Techniques”
part of this web site.
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MALAYSIA
This was the first shoot of the project, and one of the most challenging. Justine Evans (camera), Kike Arnal (climbing specialist) and Nick Stringer (associate producer) spent seven weeks on the island of Borneo (Sabah) in September 1996 to film the sequence of the big fruit feast and flying snakes and lizards in the “Open Colonnades” of Borneo’s Dipterocarp forests. Luckily for the production, Danum Valley, one of the locations in Borneo best set up to receive film crews, was experiencing the “mast fruiting” phenomenon just at the right time. This natural event, where a huge proportion of the forest’s trees bear fruit at the same time, drawing in animals from miles around, sometimes happens only every 8 years or so.
However, it was one thing for something to be happening in a rainforest - it is entirely another thing to actually be able to film it ! Apart from a few days filming extreme close-ups of Orang Utan and Gibbon behaviour at Sabah Zoological Gardens to complete the sequence, the vast majority of the filming was out in the wild, with very shy animals at the end of a very long lens. Justine and Kike set about building filming platforms (just a few feet square) in likely positions near fruiting trees around the forest. But a Dipterocarp forest is one of the tallest forests in the world, so Justine’s platforms were often 150 feet up - that’s 15 stories high ! And once in position, Justine was unable to move - frustratingly for Justine, sometimes key action was happening just on the wrong side of a small branch or clump of leaves - a case of “so near and yet so far” …… something Neil Rettig knows so well from his long lens work with Harpy Eagles in Surinam, Guyana and Venezuela.
Justine’s patience, stamina and field skills are phenomenal - she would go out to a filming platform before dawn and stay there until after dark. During daylight hours she stayed dead still for fear of interrupting wild behaviour. Getting to a platform would involve a 150 climb, and then hauling her camera gear up after her - all to be in position before the sun came up. This shoot, however, tested Justine’s resilience to the limit - in the first three weeks of sitting on platforms, Justine had virtually no footage to show for it ! Her luck was just not in - there were Orang Utans and Gibbons around her, but not in places where she could film. But Justine kept her nerve and her luck turned, as you can see in the footage of the Malaysia sequence. The Gibbons were a particular triumph, as they are notoriously difficult to film. Luckily for the crew, the shoot was seven weeks long - a three week shoot would have achieved nothing.
Justine, Kike and Nick returned from Malaysia enchanted by the beauty of the Dipterocarp forests, and fascinated by its animals. But just a few months after they left, “El Nino” and forest clearing combined to fuel the worst forest fires Borneo has ever seen. Many of the Dipterocarp forests have been decimated by the fires and the wonderful Orang Utan is now in serious danger of going extinct in the wild. Justine and her team may have witnessed and documented the end of an era in canopy biology.
Find out more about Justine’s work on canopy platforms in the “Filming Platforms / Long Lens work - the art of luck and patience” section of the “Filming Techniques” part of this web site.
Find out more about Orang Utans and the fight to save them in the “Canopy
Animals” and “Conservation”
sections of this web site.
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FRENCH GUIANA
Places on the “Operation Canopy” French Guiana balloon expedition in November 1996 were extremely limited, with a long queue of top rainforest scientists waiting to join and get access to probably the world’s most extraordinary forest science tool - the huge dirigible and its suspended Canopy Luge (mobile) and Canopy Raft (stationary).
However, after months of negotiation, the crew were allowed to join the expedition, but had to shoot the whole sequence in only just over a week ! The pace of this shoot was frenetic, and the crew were exhausted by the end! As space was limited, only the basic “synchronised sound” crew of Neil Rettig (camera), Kim Hayes (sound) and Tim Scoones (director) went to French Guiana. There were many experienced climbers on “Operation Canopy”, so this was the one shoot where the team did not require Kike Arnal to provide specialist climbing safety support. The field base was a simple affair of open-sided shelters with hammocks, some work tables and a kitchen (just enough to keep off the torrential tropical rain), but it was essentially full of scientists and “Operation Canopy”. Luckily the film crew were able to stay in a room a few miles down the road - better for cleaning and preparing delicate camera and sound equipment after a full day in a wet, muddy rainforest.
Once the crew arrived they quickly realised that they would only get a few golden filming opportunities. Places to actually fly on the dirigible or the Luge were limited by weight, and the dirigible only flew for a few hours at or near dawn when there was no wind that might blow it off course. Each morning the crew had to choose where Neil would film from, because there was no moving around once he had committed to a filming position! Working on the Canopy Raft (the large inflatable structure that stays in place draped over a number of tree canopies) was similarly restricted. Another interesting challenge of working on large inflatable platforms was that it was impossible to use a tripod - the spikes at the end of the tripod legs may have damaged the structure, plus the slightest movement of anyone else on the raft sent the camera into an unacceptable wobble! This meant that Neil had to film the whole piece hand-held - no mean feat when balancing nine stories up in swaying trees, or dangling from a balloon!
As if all this wasn’t challenge enough, the crew had other things to contend with. Firstly, the weather was not as good as it had been expected for the time of year. There was much more rain than normal (some of it torrential), and some of the early mornings were too windy for flying. Then one morning Dany the balloon pilot announced that a tiny part in the fan system of the balloon had broken and a spare part would have to be sent from France. The part was going to arrive after the film crew had left again, so this was potentially disastrous for the documentary sequence, not to mention the science. Fortunately the mechanic crew of “Operation Canopy” were sufficiently experienced that they managed to adapt another part to replace the broken one - a great relief for all, and only one morning missed.
In order to film the early morning launch, and to prepare for a filming flight, each day started about two hours before dawn. Filming the full range of activities of the “Operation Canopy” team kept the crew busy until after dark every day.
One day the crew decided to film on the Canopy Raft at night (the raft, being a semi permanent and relatively safe structure, is one of the few canopy access techniques that allows for night science work). A generator was walked in to the raft site (just under an hour’s walk on muddy forest trails) and lights and cables were hauled up onto the raft. Unfortunately the weather closed in and it rained most of the night. Neil, Kim and the scientists they were filming (Meg Lowman and Phil Wittman) spent a miserable night, cold and soaking wet, up on the raft. Tim spent the night on the forest floor below, sleeping on a pile of climbing ropes to keep him above the flooded ground, huddled under a tarpaulin to keep off most of the rain and mosquitoes. Virtually no shots were taken, and no-one got much sleep! The only consolation was a clear and calm morning the next day when Neil managed to use the raft as a canopy platform from which to film the dirigible and luge flying over the forest.
Despite these challenges, the crew managed to film everything they needed and were pleased with the results - see for yourself - you would never guess that they only just got the sequence!
Find out more about the amazing dirigible, Luge and Raft of “Operation Canopy” in the “Climbing Techniques” section of this web site, and link through to “Operation Canopy’s” own web site from there.
Hear about how the night on the raft was for Phil Wittman, one of the scientists filmed, in the “Climbing Techniques” section of this web site.
Find out more about Meg Lowman and her work on the biochemical war between insects and plants on Meg’s own page in the “Canopy Researchers” section of this web site.
Find out more about the biochemical war between insects and plants and the consequent discovery of new drugs from the rainforest in the “Conservation” section of this web site.
See how Neil Rettig managed to film the flight of the dirigible and
Luge from seemingly impossible camera positions in the “Perspectives -
Getting a Sense of Height and Space” section of the “Filming
Techniques” part of this web site.
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COSTA RICA
Costa Rica was our most important location, partly due to the incredible diversity of forests in such a small country, but also due to the wealth of scientific work going on in rainforests and cloud forests in various parts of the country.
We had three camera crews working in four different locations in Costa Rica. Crews were in Costa Rica from between three and seven weeks in June (wet season) 1997. They worked at La Selva Research Station (lowland rainforest), Monteverde (cloudforest), San Luis Biological Station and Ecolodge just outside Monteverde (edge of cloud forest) and the Simon Bolivar Zoological Gardens in San Jose, where a number of Costa Rican mammals are kept in captivity.
The three crews were :
1. Justine Evans plus local assistants. Justine filmed bromeliads with special lenses to create height and perspective in La Selva, some night animals at the Simon Bolivar zoo in San Jose and the “falling mouse” sequence at San Luis.
2. Neil Rettig (camera) and Kim Hayes (sound). Neil and Kim filmed all the pieces to camera and interviews with Nalini Nadkarni, plus cloud forest scenics and hummingbirds at Monteverde. Neil also filmed a number of tracking / “flying” shots in Monteverde cloud forest and La Selva rainforest.
3. Steve Downer (camera) and Sally Murray (assistant). Steve worked for three weeks in La Selva both out in the forest (not climbing) and in a specially built macro (close-up) studio. Steve filmed many of the smaller animals that use canopy epiphytes - in particular the Strawberry Frog, the seed-collecting ants and life inside the mini-lake within the leaves of a bromeliad plant.
These three crews were supported by production crew plus around 25 biologists and other specialists working in Costa Rica. Kike Arnal, our climbing specialist, co-ordinated the rigging for climbing and tracking shots, working with Neil Rettig and Justine Evans whenever climbing safety was an issue. Producer Nick Stringer co-ordinated the macro studio work with Steve Downer. Producer Madelaine Westwood assisted Steve Downer with his studio work and also worked with Justine Evans in San Jose (night animals) and San Luis (falling mouse). Producer / director Tim Scoones went to Costa Rica a week early to get logistics organised, and then moved between all three crews, but particularly concentrating on the pieces to camera and interviews with Nalini Nadkarni in Monteverde.
Find out more about Neil Rettig’s distinctive tracking shots in the “Tracking Shots - How did we manage to “fly” through the forest ?” section of the “Filming Techniques” part of this web site.
Find out more about Nalini Nadkarni and her work with cloud forest epiphytes
on Nalini’s own page in the “Canopy
Researchers” section of this web site.
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BRAZIL
The sequence of Jay Malcolm trapping night animals of the canopy and climbing trees with his amazingly simple pecona, or “foot-belt” was shot at the forest fragmentation experimental plots north of Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon in August 1997. The shoot was only about ten days long, and this had to include the natural history footage of the Woolley Opossums feeding and getting trapped, as well as Jay climbing trees, setting traps and lamenting the rapid disappearance of the world’s rainforests. This meant a busy schedule both day and night for the crew of Neil Rettig (camera), Kim Hayes (sound), Kike Arnal (climbing specialist) and Tim Scoones (director).
Living conditions in Brazil were about as simple as they get ……. the whole crew and our “star contributor” (Jay Malcolm) slept in hammocks under a simple roof (no walls) in a dusty site at the edge of the forest. The hammocks were sufficiently close together that one had to negotiate with one’s neighbour as to which way one was going to sleep in the hammock, otherwise there was the risk of collision in the middle of the night ! Washing happened in a nearby stream, frequented by a caiman - a local type of crocodile. The food, however, was excellent - our field cook, Senor Antonio, had years of experience under his belt.
The main challenge of the Brazil shoot was the weather, but not the weather one expects in the Amazon. August 1997 was the peak of the “El Nino” influenced drought - by the time the crew arrived, it had not rained for 70 days and the forest was dried to a crisp. Midday temperatures would often exceed 40 degrees Celsius - not good conditions for climbing trees, especially for Jay who basically “bear hugs” his way up thin trunks with a combination of indigenous skill and brute strength. It was only Jay’s incredible stamina which kept him going, especially when the crew required him to climb again and again ….. “Take Two”, “Take Three”, “Now a different angle” …….. Neil Rettig reckons that this was one of the hottest shoots he has ever been on, and he has been working in the tropics for twenty five years. The irony was that the drought finally broke on the day the crew left - enough rain to turn the dusty red earth roads into mud slides. Dressed for a day or two of journey home in aeroplanes and cities, the crew spent the last few hours of the shoot pushing trucks full of gear up muddy slopes!
Part of the sequence required shots of Woolly Opossums moving around
in the trees at night. For this the crew had to build a filming studio
in their camp into which trapped Opossums could be introduced. That
is why the hammocks were so close together - about half of the roof space
had to be converted into a studio. Opossum filming happened each
night (after a full day of hot climbing and filming). The crew would
basically film until they could not stay awake any more. Large lights
required a large generator which had to be hired in Manaus and brought
in specially. Large generators make a large noise, so no-one in the
camp was able to sleep until the night filming was over. This did
not impress the Brazilians who were working with the crew, as sometimes
filming would stop at one o’clock in the morning ….. but Senor Antonio
got his revenge by snoring like a rhinoceros for the rest of the night..….
To find out how the crew filmed the Woolley Opossum night sequence in a field studio in Brazil see the “Set-ups - showing what can’t normally be seen” section of the “Filming Techniques” part of this web site.
To find out what the crew used as a field sound studio for Jay’s voice-over pieces, see the “Sound - the fourth dimension to the experience” section of the “Filming Techniques” part of this web site.
Find out more about Jay Malcolm’s work with small mammals in the canopy
on Jay’s own page in the “Canopy
Researchers” section of this web site.
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