The most exciting thing Nick Upton, his photographer, and my husband saw
when in the field was a muntjac deer running in terror from two
yellow-throated martens. The deer was in such a panic that it ran
within 2 meters of the film team. Did they catch any of this on film?
No. Cameras have to be set up and in place and waiting. Scenes like
martens hunting deer are once in a life-time. The cameras and the film
crew were not ready for it.
One reason for the scores of man vs nature type films is because the
producing companies and the television channels are looking for things
that will sell. Abn unfortunate thing about Typhoon Island (preview
here: <http://www.sciencevision.at/en.php/movie_taiwan>) is that US
distributors and TV channels were not interested in the film. As far as
I know, it has never been shown in the USA. It has been shown
throughout Europe and Taiwan. BBC only became interested in supporting
the film after an Austrian company, Science Vision, put most of the funds.
Film producers like Nick Upton work hard to accurately capture animal
behaviors and habitats. This involves filming in the wild, filming on
sets, some 'faking' with zoo animals, and very careful editing. After
filming, however, the producer often must get into a huge fight with the
funding companies to maintain details of behavior in the face of demands
for more violence and disasters. In the case of Typhoon Island, these
were typhoons and earthquakes. One of Nick's fights with Science
Vision, however, boiled own to film quality vs story completeness. Nick
had to insist on inclusion of biologically accurate sequences filmed
using infra-red cameras, which produce grainy pictures. Science Vision
wanted to replace these grainy scenes with aesthetically pleasing
time-lapses of Taiwan's scenery filmed during the day at better resolution.
Having training in science is important for helping a producer make a
film scientifically accurate. Nick got his Ph.D. in Zoology at
Cambridge. He asked Taiwan's scientists to review the script to ensure
accuracy. It was this sort of attention for detail and cooperation with
scientists that really impressed me.
CL
