3. Living on Location

Pipsyys, kuten pysy, että joku on kuitenkin jääntä. All in all, wildlife filmmakers, like Emma, are a tough breed, and few come tougher than David Atomra. These days, we know roughly what to expect on a shoot, and what we'll be filming. But on some of his early programs, he had absolutely no idea what was in store. When you got the map of New Guinea, there was just a hole in the map. I mean, there was just a wide space. There's nobody knew what was there. So I caught in touch with the administration and then eventually got permission to accompany an expedition, which was going to cost this space to see what there was. And it's quite exciting, except of course it's very hard going. I mean, it pours in rain every day, and there's steep mud going up and down, and waiting across the river, and then back up again while they are. And there's nothing there. You couldn't stop because you only had so much food. After a bit, if you're out for so long, you can't do it. I mean, you can't carry enough food to keep you going forever. Two weeks or something, it was a rule of thumb. If you thought you were going to the other side of the boss and tell you what's there, as it were, you couldn't go back, you just had to go on. Living on location for long periods in a remote place can be as much a mental test as a physical one. Sometimes your surroundings can start to get to you in unexpected ways, as Emma discovered on her river dolphin shoot. We tried at first to make the tent quite clean, and then you realised that there's no point doing that. So we had a bunch of animals that you either decide your friends with, or you're going to get quite stressed. So we had a couple of rats that lived in the tent, and they would chew up anything they could find to build little nests at the top of the eaves of the tent. And I didn't really mind that. I mean, they were slowly destroying their way through little bits of camera bags and things like that. I can mostly deal with that, except for the morning when I woke up, and it had chewed a hole through my really nice pair of knickers I'd bought with me. And that made me really sad, because that was my little bit of luxury I had there, and it had taken this sort of bright pink material and used that to line its nest. I was quite cross at the rat at that point. Please say, never happened to me. Creature comforts though are essential when you're on a remote shoot. It might be a nice posh pair of pants, or perhaps a little bag of sweets. So David always used to take a box of CDs to listen to in the tent in the evenings. I like to take a jar of marmite. It's a life saver when you eat nothing but rice and beans for a fortnight. There's often not a lot of food, it's very basic cooking, and I can't survive without chocolate. I've never gone on a jungle shoot without a pretty good snack bag, and I guard that with my life. Tropical jungles are extraordinary magical places to film, but they're also some of the hardest. It's not just the permanent dam and the bugs, but as the David knows only too well, even after years of working those environments, it can still seem nearly impossible to find the animals you want to film. Because you can't see much. To start with it's quite dark, and secondly, your eyes aren't attuned to it, and many of the animals are actually very well camouflaged, and it's very. I can say humiliating, if you go with one of the local people who live there, and they'll say, "There's an animal there." And you'd say, "Where? There!" And it's straight in front of you, and you can't see it. They can of course, and they see a lot more things than you can see. After a bit, I mean, after a week, you get a bit better at it. But when you first go there, the place looks absolutely deserted. Now we go from one extreme, well the hot and humid climate of the rainforest to the other end of the spectrum. A freezing world that, in summer, has almost 24 hour daylight. Both have their challenges. Ax Waters is a director working on Planet Earth 3, and she was part of our expedition to Ellsmeer Island in the Canadian Arctic. We arrived in summer time, so there were loads of flowers everywhere actually and cotton grass, which was really beautiful. And then we were there for two and a half months. Sleeping in daylight was something to get used to. The tents that we had of specialist Arctic tunnel tents, and they're bright red from the outside. But then on the inside they're bright yellow. When you're trying to sleep in 24 hour sunlight, that's actually quite difficult, because they're so bright. So I had an eye mask, and I had ear plugs in as well, because there's so much wind in the Arctic. So your tent will constantly be flapping about, and it's so noisy. Ellsmeer Island is one of the harshest places on the planet. And no sooner have you got used to summer's 24 hour daylight, then in what seems like a flash, it turns to winter. And that is a whole new, very chilly experience. We got down to about -15 Celsius, which was probably about -20 windshield. By the end, I was sleeping in my down jacket, and I had a hot water bottle every single night. I'd wake up and I would be covered in frost. hair would be frozen, my face would have frost on it. I was quite pleased to be out of that. However, the environment is not the only challenge you encounter on a planet Earth shoot. We were there to film Elzmiere's white wolves and you always need to be alert when a pack of predators is around. They visited us fairly regularly and we had a scientist with us and she left her welley boots outside of her tent and one of the wolves just grabbed it and ran away as quickly as possible and you know when you're out in the Arctic a welley is very important you know they're these special thermal boots. So then Theo jumped on his quad bike and went after the wolves. The wolf thought it was brilliant. Having a great time shaking this welley and running around with it. So then Theo caught up with them and then they dropped it and he put his ATV all train vehicle over the top of it and then the wolves just surrounded him because they thought I'm going to get this welley. So then I jumped on my quad bike and drove over and because there were two of us the wolves all disappeared. But I think Theo had a moment where he was on top of his quad bike and just suddenly thought what do I do now? But then he rescued the boot, took it back to camp and it was completely shredded. Luckily Theo the producer was on hand to help out with that one. Because these wolves live in such a remote part of the world they are unfazed by human presence and that can make for some very interesting interactions. When you meet them you can just tell that they're checking you out they're not dangerous or anything. We always felt fine in their presence and we had one tent that had a log here which was a bit further away. So I went down there to go and get something from that tent I think it was a piece of camera equipment and halfway there I realised the wolves were at that tent and they were breaking the guidelines holding the tent and then one of them clocked me looked up, tilted its head. You could just see it thinking, "Look at me going this is interesting there's a person." When you're out in the wild things can happen very quickly and you just have to hope your training kicks in. So then the others all looked up and then they all started walking in my direction and I started walking backwards thinking I'm on my own and although I'm prepared I don't really want to be surrounded by wolves on my own. The other team members were actually just behind me not far away but they were cooking so the cook was quite loud and they couldn't really hear me very well. So I was walking backwards and then the wolves started trotting but when a wolf trot their legs are so long so that's like us running. So then I started really trying to run backwards but you can't turn your back on them you need to keep facing them and then I shouted towards my camera operator Stuart and he put his head up and he realised that the wolves were there all the other team members came over and surrounded me and it was fine. Memorable moments on a shoot can come from all sorts of situations. Some like that are well produced scary but other memories can come at the most surprising times. We had a toilet that was made out of plywood so it was just plywood with a hole in it and then we went out into the tundra a safe distance from the tents behind some hummocks and we dug some holes and we would just place this plywood toilet over the top of the holes and we would have this beautiful view of the Arctic and you know it was in all conditions so you didn't know what you were going to get so when you need to go you could be in a blizzard or it could be this beautiful sunrise sunset and the most beautiful toilet experience of your life or it could be the most horrendous. You could say that's wildlife filmmaking in the nutshell. I think that's probably a good note to end on right there. But when we often find ourselves in these unusual situations while making planet earth we do do it for a reason and that's to witness, to film and to tell the most extraordinary stories of nature that we can. We need to entertain them and tell them the absolute truth about what is going on in the world. I became completely enamored with these downtown badass wily raccoons. And that's next week on the Planet Earth Podcast. If you ever wondered who you really are, I'm Jenny Cleeman, a writer and journalist. In my new series The Gift from BBC Radio 4 I've been uncovering extraordinary truths that emerge when people take at home DNA tests. He said what do you know? You don't even know that your father's black. So I'm like Jeff we got him and he's like what are you talking about? And I go we've got him. Obviously it was completely unintended consequence of a gift. Join me as I investigate what happens when genealogy, technology and identity collide. Listen to The Gift on BBC Sounds.