I have an admission to make.  You may think that, as the person who developed the concept of a canopy film and directed field operations at dizzying heights in rainforests around the world, I must be a fearless, macho, daredevil director who would stop at nothing and risk all.  But I’m not.

I’m terrified of heights.

Yes, heights really scare me - I go pale, I shake, my heart races, my knees knock and I’m paralysed by a primal fear.  I can’t even think straight.  To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything that unusual about such fears, especially when you are hanging by a thin rope and a few clever metal gripping things nine stories up, with nothing but fresh air between you and the ground.  But it leaves me in awe of the people who spend a large proportion of their lives in such precarious positions, and even manage to think straight and do great science!

So why on Earth did I choose to make such a film?  Many people ask me this (myself included!).  I guess I have always had a strong connection with rainforests - a sense that they are a cauldron of biodiversity, and important to the Earth ecosystem in ways so profound and diverse that we are only just beginning to understand part of their mystery.  I spent many months in Panama on a previous film project and like so many visitors to rainforests I spent large amounts of time walking around in the damp gloom of the forest floor getting a stiff neck from peering upwards at the canopy, where all the forest’s most interesting sounds were echoing, and where the tropical sun would bounce tantalising flecks of light and colour down at me.  Nalini Nadkarni described this to me as “walking around at the ankles of the forest, when virtually everything worthwhile was happening up in the canopy”.  So the canopy always fascinated me, and there was an explorer’s need in me to find out more about it and show it to the world through television.

Through working on and developing other film projects, I already knew Neil Rettig and Justine Evans - the uniquely talented cinematographers who were to film the show in the end.  Neil and Justine also shared my passion for conservation and my  curiosity about the canopy.  Like me, they also couldn’t resist the challenge of making a film in a new place - quite literally breaking new ground - and making a film that some were saying was impossible (Dieter Plaage, a world-famous cameraman had tragically died just a few years before whilst trying to shoot a canopy element of one of his films).  It was a film just waiting to be made.

Early research put me in touch with the world’s best canopy scientists.  Rather than finding a bunch of hardened, macho, scientific tarzans, I discovered a fabulous diversity of men and women, young and old.  What shone from all of them was a deep passion for their work and an immense respect for the heights at which they worked.  They are a very friendly bunch and I felt welcome in their small and very cohesive community.  Those tantalising flecks of coloured light had lured a fascinating group of people up into the trees.  I was hooked on the story.

I began putting the idea about and drawing together an extremely talented production team - as passionate and cohesive as the canopy scientist community.  I then remember meeting up with Neil Rettig at a film-makers’ conference and announcing that we were ready to meet the challenge.  But I also explained that there was still one snag - one weak link in the chain.  And that was me.  How was I to direct such a film when I was terrified of heights?  I suggested to Neil that if he found another director the team would be complete.  But Neil had other ideas.  He convinced me that I was indeed the person who should direct the film and that I would work in high trees, dangling from ropes.  He reassured me that if necessary the team could get me in and out of canopy situations in a safe an relatively stress-free way.  Without this pressure from Neil I would never have made the film.  But he convinced me, and we went ahead.

Looking back at it, it may actually have been an advantage to the project that I had an instinctive fear of heights.  Firstly, I was always going to be in awe of the people and animals who lived their lives in the canopy, and in this way I was able to represent the curiosity of a height-fearing viewing public.  Secondly, I was never going to be complacent about the risks involved in making a natural history film in such a place - the thought was just too scary.  All canopy scientists seem to agree that the thing they fear most is not a rotten branch or a venomous snake or a swarm of “killer” bees, but their own complacency - a false sense of security which distracts them from danger and puts them at risk.  I was never going to be complacent about what we did - not for a second.  And as the person responsible for the safety of the entire crew I was going to ensure that everyone made climbing security their top priority - over and above the desire to get that unforgettable shot.

And so it was that I ended up interviewing Nalini Nadkarni, Jay Malcolm and Meg Lowman nine stories up, clinging to mossy branches with white knuckles.  And no, I never did get used to the heights.  They always terrified me, and I always wanted to be back down on the ground.  Sometimes I was so scared that I couldn’t even remember what question to ask next - I soon learned to write everything down in advance in a small notebook.  But we got through the filming phase without serious incident, thanks to the incredible skills of our climbing cinematographers, Neil Rettig and Justine Evans, our climbing and rigging specialists, Kike Arnal and Darren Rennik, and the canopy scientists we were filming.  I distinctly remember the moment in our Brazil shoot when Kike was the last person to come down the last rope rig of the entire project.  The forest understorey was dense and I couldn’t see Kike as he came down to the ground.  I couldn’t resist shouting to him:  “Kike!  Are you OK?!”.  Kike shouted back:  “Of course I’m OK!”.  The sense of relief I felt was unbelievable, and unforgettable.

As the film began to take shape, feelings of fear turned to feelings of pride.  Although fear of heights was only an occasional phenomenon, fear of failure was always with me.  As we realised that we were indeed going to finish the first ever major documentary on the rainforest canopy, our close little team felt a great sense of pride that we had pulled it off, despite being told at the outset that we might have bitten off more than we could chew.

Now seeing the film go out to millions of people throughout the world, I feel very proud at what we did, and I feel glad that Neil persuaded me to stay and direct.  But I feel even more proud that we are breaking new ground in how television works in public awareness and conservation by realising Nalini Nadkarni’s and my ambition to write this web site to take the film’s ideas and issues further.  It is our hope that other film-makers will see this web site as a precedent - one of those tantalising flecks of light that will lure them towards doing more with their films, and paying a little more back to the wonderful natural world from which they make their art and their careers.

Maybe one day all television programes such as this will have a follow-on web site that will combine, through their mass appeal and enormous reach, to catalyse a culture shift in the world towards a deeper respect for nature, and a natural desire to conserve it.

Maybe one day people won’t even talk of  “conservation”.  They’ll just talk about plain “common sense”.

This is our hope.

Tim Scoones,  January 1999