We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Director, Producer and Editor Katie Schuler: A journey into the life of the Pangolin, the world's most illegally trafficked mammal and the world's only scaled mammal. There are 8 species of Pangolins, four in Africa and four in Asia. Because their meat is consumed as a luxury item in China and Vietnam and their scales have supposed health benefits, it is estimated that one-million Pangolins have been snatched from the wild in the last decade. All Pangolins are considered endangered and are now listed under CITES Appendix 1, the highest level of protection world wide. We don't know much about Pangolins, their lifespan and how many are left in the wild, but based on their life cycle they are likely to soon go extinct at the rate they are being killed. I think it's tragic that there are incredible species on this planet that will go extinct before most people know they exist. In 2014, I was living in Palawan, Philippines during a one-year Luce fellowship with my husband. I met with Nino Rey Estoya, who combats illegal wildlife trafficking on the island. As he described how Pangolin is caught and smuggled off the island, I began storyboarding a film in my head. I went home that day, wrote the entire script, pitched it to Nino and we began what would be over a year of production. We began interviewing undercover informants who were posing as active poachers. One of them told us, “I had an experience where I saw the Pangolin looking into my eyes as I was slitting his throat, he seemed to be begging me to stop.” His experience was a big inspiration for the film.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
KS: Because we did almost everything out of pocket, we couldn't hire actors so we cast several different people to play each major role. We were very worried about continuity issues. Despite this, we were able to record about 90 percent of the poaching process. We were missing the very beginning, the crucial moment where a live pangolin being taken from the wild. After three failed expeditions to remote areas of the island, we were in jeopardy of not being able to finish what we started. I sent a desperate email to the Bali Zoo, one of the only places in the world at that time that had an Asian Pangolin species in captivity. Amazingly, they allowed me to use Toby, their Sunda Pangolin, to capture the remaining scenes. How do you approach storytelling? KS: The film is sort of an amalgamation of documentary, investigative journalism and re-enactment. In my personal work, I'm always trying to make beautiful images and show things from the perspective of the animal.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
KS: For people to emotionally connect with the Pangolin and its journey and to feel inspired to want to protect it. That people share the film with their friends and family. Conservationists, researchers, government officials....everyone needs to work together to solve this issue locally and on the demand side. If you want to get involved there are many Pangolin conservation organizations out there. I'm currently working with the IUCN Specialist Pangolin Group, pangolinconservation.org and OneMoreGeneration.org. Pangolin has been in high demand at film festivals world-wide, winning four best short awards and joining the NatGeo Short Film Showcase. It has also been an important tool for conservation, and has been used as part of One More Generation's pangolin initiative in primary schools, featured in The Nature Conservancy’s social media campaign to decrease consumption in China, and used as a central part of the U.S. Wildlife Trafficking Alliance's digital toolkit serving - reaching over 25 million travelers annually to end demand for illegal wildlife products. I have also been offered a seat on PangolinConservation.org's Board of Directors, and launched Instagram's @PangaforPangolins account, which raises awareness about pangolins using a child-friendly mascot. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? KS: I am overjoyed that people are emotionally connecting with the film and that audiences seem to pick up on the fact that we were not trying to make villains out of the poachers, smugglers and buyers. Sometimes we get opposite reactions though, from people that are furious and seem to want to avenge the Pangolin from those that create the demand. It's challenging to come up with the best strategy to combat the illegal Pangolin trade, especially when consuming these animals is ingrained into the culture.
Anything else you would like people to know?
I have a mascot for the film, Panga, who has her own instagram following. You can follow her journey around the world. See here for more details: @pangaforpangolins What next? I’ve become a sort of one-woman coordinating machine between researchers, zoos and rehabilitation centers worldwide. It’s an all hands on deck project and many days my time is split between keeping track of new solutions to the illegal trade such as DNA sourcing, dog-sniffing and GPS tracking while also keeping tabs on new scientific discoveries, and research initiatives being launched. I feel honored to be a part of a larger community of people who care deeply about the future of pangolins and am proud to be working alongside them to advance global conservation and protection of this animal. I can’t wait to sink my camera into some of these unfolding stories, help amplify these messages, and hopefully recruit new pangolin advocates. Later this year, I’ll be covering groundbreaking scientific discoveries with pangolin researcher Justin Miller in Togo. I also have work planned in early 2018 to construct photographic essays and other stories about the cultural consumption of pangolins in Southern China and its connection to traditional Chinese medicine.
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Every two years, the world’s best wildlife filmmakers and conservationists alike arrive in Grand Teton National Park for the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. Delegates are surrounded by one of the last relatively intact temperate ecosystems left on earth, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Jackson Hole Ecotour Adventures has been a proud partner of the festival for the past two seasons and was delighted to share Grand Teton National Park with delegates during the festival. At dawn, delegates departed the Jackson Lake Lodge on a morning safari in four Ecotour Adventures Safari Vehicles. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise bathing the Tetons in pink morning light, listening to the calls of bugling elk in the distance. September and October are the rutting season for elk and other hooved mammals, providing opportunities to observe fascinating mating behavior. Bear activity also peaks in the fall and we observed both black and grizzly bears on the tours. In fall, both species enter a state known as ‘hyperphagia’ meaning over eating. Seeking to consume upwards of 20,000 calories a day, bears are constantly on the move looking for food sources. Like elk, moose are mating throughout the fall and we found a large bull pursuing a cow early in the morning. Weighing upwards of 1000 pounds, the shiras subspecies of moose is actually the smallest of the three North American moose species, but they still cut an impressive figure. The groups also observed bison and pronghorn antelope with a classic Teton backdrop. Nearly exterminated by the late 1800’s bison have made a recovery in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Today they contain some of the largest remaining herds of wild bison in the world. Pronghorn often share habitat with bison and make up for their much smaller size by being the fastest land animal in the Americas. Prior to their extinction during the Pleistocene ice age, the North American cheetah pursued pronghorn, who have retained the sharp eyesight and speed required to evade such a predator. In the afternoon a second group of delegates joined the Ecotour Adventures Guides on a sunset tour, observing many of the same species, grizzly bears and finished up the trip by watching the sunset of the Tetons while observing a herd of cow elk with a single large bull. It’s no secret that Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are popular filming destinations thanks to their diverse and plentiful wildlife. We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to share the best Grand Teton has to offer with the JHWFF Delegates.
Jackson Hole Ecotour Adventures would like to extend a big thank you to delegates who were able to join us on safari. We’d love to see you again and are offering 10% off future trips to all Delegates. Email us at [email protected] for more information. This winter, Ecotour Adventures is thrilled to announce a ski and snowshoe addition to our tour offers, which include winter wildlife safaris in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. With stunning landscapes and concentrated wildlife populations, winter is one of our favorite times to explore the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Winter wildlife viewing opportunities include dense concentrations of elk, deer, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and moose, increased wolf activity, diverse waterfowl, bald and golden eagles, and more. Maximize your winter trip to Jackson Hole with a combination wildlife tour and ski or snowshoe trip into the Tetons. JHWFF Delegates get 10% off, contact us [email protected] to book. By Abbey Greene Jackson Hole WILD Festival attendees that participated in our Carbon Offset Program saved the 70 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s the same as:
How did we do this? Just a matter of weeks ago, the 2017 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and Conservation Summit took place. As an event that represents the best of the best wildlife and conservation filmmaking, our team felt it important to put our beliefs into action, and include an optional carbon offset fee at registration, among other green changes made this year. This optional $25 fee would offset their travel emissions by putting their money towards a green project, dedicated to taking carbon out of the atmosphere, and protecting habitats for rare cat species. 70 people, or ~10% of our delegates participated this year, with funds raised being donated to a Gold Standard project that will help combat global warming and provide and protect cat habitat.
What really stood out to us about Gold Standard projects was all of their projects cannot only have a positive impact on the climate to be certified; the projects must do more than that. They are required to contribute to at least two additional UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Reducing greenhouse gases also leads to benefits such as new jobs, better health, improved gender equality and the protection of natural habitats and endangered species. This way, the local community benefits from the project as well. Since this is the year of Cats, we settled on supporting Gold Standard’s Vichada project. According to Gold Standard’s website, “The project is located in the Vichada Department and the Orinoco river basin, combining reforestation for timber production with biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration. In addition to the reforestation of the savannah, the project protects the remaining patches of native vegetation and creates additional conservation areas on the banks of rivers and other watersheds. The forests offer a natural habitat for native animals and plants, protect and enrich the soil, save and filter water and contribute to the mitigation of the greenhouse effect.” By supporting this project, we are helping 80 million trees to be planted, and 76,356 hectare to be reforested (1 hectare=100 acres). Not only does the project help restore habitat, it helps restore habitat for cats and other wildlife. Julian Ekelof, Director of CO2OL Climate Solution, said this project was a good fit for us and our goals. “The Colombia project in Vichada creates forest habitats in a region that has remaining jaguar and puma populations,” says Ekelof. “The way the project is set up tries to bridge existing forest patches in order to create large areas of connected habitat for migratory species. The same is true for the project CO2OL Tropical Mix (in Panama). In addition, there have been several instances where the ocelot has been spotted in this project.”
This year was the first year we offered the carbon offset fee, and the more people hear about it, the more we hope for it to grow as we continue holding film festivals and events. There will be an optional donation available for the Big Cat Film Festival, so if you like everything you’ve read above, please donate when registration is available. To learn more about other projects going on around the world, visit Gold Standard’s website to see developing projects.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What do you feel is most important to remember when telling nature related stories to younger audiences? My Haggan Dream crew: We need to remember that younger audiences need the time and opportunity to fall in love with nature before we ask them to save it. It’s easy in nature films to focus on the negative, and even adults attending a wildlife film festival can walk away feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. Hitting kids over the head too early with these heavy messages does them a disservice. We want to build a generation of children who grow up with love and empathy for the natural world, and then give them the tools to know how to save it. How do you approach storytelling? What one thing do we want people to remember after watching our film, ten years later, when all the details have faded? For children’s programming, we answer this question, and then we write the most unique story we can to meet our objective. Children are smart, sophisticated and full of imagination, just on different developmental levels. We try to create stories that cater to and celebrate their sophistication on different developmental levels -- stories that allow kids to develop empathy for the natural world, before they are asked to save it. We want kids to laugh and think and enjoy stories, so that they are building the foundation for becoming people who want to tackle environmental issues. We want to create programming that allows adults and children to laugh together, so that they want to watch again and again. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? We went to Saipan for a few short weeks in 2016 to film a story about the need for protection of the mother sea turtles nesting on the island. The scientists monitoring the nesting beaches told us that only seven turtles nested that season. Tragically, one of those seven was killed by poachers while we were there, leaving only 6 nesting mother turtles that year. That reality made the film feel even more important. Anything else you would like people to know? Pacific Islanders are a strong community, and they feel a strong ownership of, and responsibility for, their coastal waters and the marine animals that live there. We wanted to honor this. We were part of a team of local partners and the community in Saipan, and we all worked together to make a film that was very much their film, their story. Honestly, we couldn’t have made this piece without them- the beauty of their island, the girl who lives there, the turtles- they shared all of that, trusting us to make a film with their story. At the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, this was the first year Excursions were available to delegates. They could learn about the newest technology in wildlife filmmaking, get outdoors to truly experience Jackson's beauty, and more. One popular workshop allowed attendees to do both: it was all about drones. The workshop, made possible by Freefly, explored the creative side of using drones with some of the best in the business. The panel of drone experts spoke about their experiences and gave advice to creatively use this popular specialty camera.
Patrick Dykstra, an independent filmmaker who has worked with BBC and produced content for Emirates Airlines and the government of Sri Lanka was also a workshop facilitator. He was happy with the experience, and was proud of everything that the attendees took away from the day. "Attendees learned about aerial filming techniques, laws and regulations, types of aircraft and camera systems as well as the practicalities of insurance, transport and working with producers. As a facilitator, I was really impressed with the attendance. The session was standing room only and the attendees asked some excellent questions. The field session was also well attended. Although I have been flying drones commercially for years, I also learned a lot from the other members of the panel. The breadth of experience was fantastic. Small UAVs, big UAVs, fixed wing and helicopters were all represented on the panel." Another workshop facilitator, Nel Boshoff, was proud of the variety of gear they had to show the attendees. "We showed a Freefly Alta 8, DJI inspire 2, DJI Mavic and DJI phantom. We demonstrated a gamut of drones all at the pinnacle of UAV tech." From the FreeFly Alta 8 with MoVI Pro, the most proven system capable of lifting all of the top cinema cameras, to the Mavic, capable of 4K video but folds up to fit in your pocket. Be sure to check out some of Freefly's latest tech, and learn about camera compatibility and more on Freefly's blog to find what best suits you. (Our favorite blog post that helpfully explains a lot about their newest technology is called "Flying with the Epic.")
We reached out to Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin to ask them five questions about the experience of making their film.
What inspired the story?
The idea of an over exploited 'wild fish-less’ ocean was incomprehensible. That the ocean could die in our children’s lifetime is too much to fathom. That is why the filmmakers made Ocean Warriors. We wanted to do a crime series with action on the high seas - we wanted it to be an adventure, a thrilling ride that involved and stimulated the audience instead of preaching to them. We wanted people to see how daring and exciting it can be to try and save the ocean. We wanted them to see young activists with boots on the deck, not lecturing about it, but doing it. And we wanted to show that you can win! Describe some of the challenges faced while making the series. Too many fishermen are chasing too few fish. We are taking fish out of the ocean faster than fisheries can replace them. More than three quarters of the world's fisheries are in a state of collapse. We wanted to tell an international crime story with real life sleuths and activists who are fighting to save our oceans. The production challenges were daunting, but nothing compared to the challenges we'll face if we don't stop those plundering and murdering our oceans. Centuries of belief that the ocean’s resources were infinite and our callous disregard even when faced with collapse have brought us to the brink of an environmental catastrophe. We continue to overfish and destroy the very system that supports life. Ocean Warriors, this six-part documentary series, took viewers to the frontlines of the battle to save our planet’s first ecosystem, the origin of all life on Earth.
How do you approach storytelling?
We worked with established groups like Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace as well as individuals like Jim Wickens, Michael Markovina and JD Kotze. The decision was made to go for an editorial weave with one ongoing series story, the chasing of the Interpol Purple notice listed outlaw vessel the Thunder. The epic chase for the world's most wanted poacher ending in a surprise no one saw coming became the spine of the series. Finding the balance between the ocean science and the verite scenes was our challenge. If you capture the true characters on the frontlines and all the dramas they face, so that the audience is fully engaged, then you can offer them the follow up materials that enlist, educate and advocate. The idea is to get their hearts beating then open their minds, this was our goal. Unlike farming, ranching or mining, the tragedy of the ocean, the commons … the fishermen do not sow it, hoe it, or grow it, seed it, feed it or weed it. There’s only massive extraction of the fish, and to many of the fisherman, fish are money swimming through the water. What impact do you hope this series will have on audiences? Ocean Warriors weaves multiple stories of courage, conflict and change, from the Antarctic’s remote Southern Ocean, to the coral reefs of Tanzania and the vast tuna fisheries of the Western Pacific. We set sail as a global coalition of activists, campaigners, scientists and investigative journalists prepared to stare down poachers, tear up illegal poaching networks and bring the outlaws to justice. We hope our series causes a new awareness to the dire state of the ocean.
Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?
The big idea for us was to serve ocean conservation as entertainment and not medicine. The direct-action activists in Ocean Warriors deliver adrenaline and high octane adventure in their fight to save the ocean. They put their lives on the line and filming this struggle was meaningful. Anything else you want people to know? "Our oceans are earth’s lifeblood, providing us with the air, water and food we need to survive. Sadly, they are in crisis due to climate change, pollution and illegal over-fishing. Ocean Warriors profiles the stories of the dedicated women and men who are taking up the charge to protect our oceans for future generations and is a call to action to join the cause,” said Robert Redford, Executive Producer of Ocean Warriors. “The challenge of restoring ocean health has never been more urgent. Our oceans are complex living systems that help feed millions, mitigate climate change and even yield lifesaving medicines. I am proud to collaborate with Robert Redford, Animal Planet and Brick City TV to bring awareness to this critical issue and inspire people to change the way in which we care for our oceans. While our oceans may appear infinite, ocean life is not. We must act now to save it.” Paul G. Allen – Executive Producer of Ocean Warriors.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Producer, Writer and Director Andrea Heydlauff: I had been working in big cat conservation for many years and was too acutely aware of the giant challenges big cats are facing around the globe – from relentless poaching for their skins and bones, killing from conflict with livestock and humans, and habitat loss and fragmentation. But I knew there were locally relevant, scalable solutions –stories that show that hope isn’t lost and there’s reason to keep forging ahead. I had known the co-founders of Lion Guardians, Leela Hazzah and Stephanie Dolrenry for years, and admired their model of how it saved lions and changed peoples’ lives. They told me about a young Maasai boy who had never seen a lion in the wild but whose father (who was a Guardian) took him into the bush to see his first lion; and in preparation this little boy put on his church clothes. I was moved to tears and thought what a gorgeous and hopeful story– of people who traditionally killed lions who were now putting on their best clothes to greet them. We actually had Lion Guardians come to Akagera National Park in Rwanda, a park African Parks has been managing since 2010 when we brought back lions in 2015 after 10-years of being absent. How do you approach storytelling? AH: I love stories that move you, that make you feel something - and ideally those are feelings of hope, inspiration, surprise, and even love. I look for real stories about conservation from unlikely places, and like to focus on the positive. I think we need to balance the doom and gloom of what’s happening with wildlife and also tell the stories of change – of survival, resilience and the extraordinary efforts of people who are coming together to help save species and wild places around the globe. As the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for African Parks, a conservation NGO that manages protected areas across Africa, I focus on these stories from the parks we manage and find people are often more inspired to get involved based on hope, rather than fear. What impact do you hope this film will have? AH: I hope this film helps Lion Guardians with telling their story, of their impact, and how they are changing people’s lives and saving lions – whether that’s through getting additional donor support to shining a light on the Guardians themselves, to helping inspire local communities that there are solutions to living with lions and other big cats. The film will be translated into Ma and Swahili and I hope the Lion Guardians can use it as one of their tools to engage their local audiences, and help protect more lions.
Anything else you would like people to know?
Before they started in 2007, people were killing lions in response to the threat of lions killing their livestock, while at the same time carrying out a rite of passage. Lion Guardians changed that paradigm. They’ve hired and trained more than 80 Maasai and other pastoralists to track lions, prevent conflict by working with communities to reinforce bomas (lion-proof corrals), retrieve lost livestock and stop lion hunting parties. And they’ve reduced lion killing by more than 90%. That’s extraordinary - it’s a story of how local people who once threatened the lion’s survival have now become their salvation. What’s next? I’m working with an extraordinary team out of Cape Town, South Africa called Green Renaissance and have a few short films for African Parks underway, one of which is about our efforts to return rhinos to Rwanda which we just completed in May 2017. Eighteen Eastern black rhinos were translocated from South Africa to Akagera National Park in Rwanda (which African Parks has been managing since 2010) returning the species to Rwanda after a ten-year absence. And I’m wrapping up another short film about one of the largest elephant translocations ever completed. We just finished moving 520 elephants to a new home in Malawi from two parks to a third – all of which African Parks manages, to help repopulate the park after years of poaching. These stories are about restoration, and showing the world what’s possible.
By Abbey Greene
Daniel Ole Sambu is an elder in the Maasai community, a natural leader and dedicated conservationist. He has over 10 years of experience working with communities and partners to protect the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem and its predators. During his time with the Predator Protection Program he has helped significantly reduce retaliatory killing of predators, namely lion.
Q&A:
Dereck Joubert's new film "Tribe Vs Pride" features your tribe's relationship with lions. Why is this story important for conservation efforts?
Daniel Ole Sambu: I am very excited to see the film premiered at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. To me, telling this story this will really help our conservation education team and the Maasai Olympics, two of our programs to help the Maasai cohabitate with lions in Kenya. It’s a brilliant presentation of the Maasai versus lions, where the Maasai’s have to make a far reaching decision to bear the losses of living with the lions, and to protect the very lions that kill their livestock. What is your own personal relationship to lions? Sambu: Just like any Maasai young boy, since childhood I also have the same spirit of killing a lion to prove my warrior-worth. Because killing a lion is prestigious culturally, I participated in five lion hunt attempts but never succeeded, although my friends did. It's the duty of every warrior to protect their family’s livestock from any outside intrusion, including lions. After a while, I became employed to protect lions from, among other things, cultural killing! So it’s now me between lions, warriors, and livestock. I am supposed to use my social character to bring peace and tolerance between livestock owners and the lions. I have come to realize that predators, lions in particular, form an integral part of any conservation initiative. Eventually, working with Big Life’s predator protection program, the lion which I wanted to kill has become my most favourite animal.
Tell us about Big Life's predator compensation program, which you manage in Kenya. Why is it successful?
Sambu: Started in early 2003, the predator protection program is a partnership between Big Life Foundation and the Maasai to address the imminent threat to lion extinction. In collaboration with the local Maasai community, Big Life works to try and better balance the costs and benefits of living with wildlife, replacing conflict and retaliation with tolerance. Since inception, we have witnessed lion killing virtually stopped on the three group ranches where we have the predator compensation fund. The fund was set up when we realized that the Maasai community is affected so much by the economic losses of their only source of livelihood, which is livestock. Essentially, if a lion kills livestock, the owner of the livestock is entitled to partial compensation. The compensation fund involves a 27-clause agreement explaining the roles and responsibilities of each partner, and with stiffer penalties for negligence and lion killing, have made it one of the most successful compensation programs in the region. We think it’s the biggest hope for lion survival in the pastoralist dominated ecosystem.
How can people in the U.S. support the lion conservation work you do in Kenya?
Sambu: By making a donation in support of Big Life’s predator protection program, you will be guaranteeing lion survival in this ecosystem, and support expansion of the program to areas that have have yet to receive any benefits from conservation. You can also visit as a tourist these areas outside the parks, and the dollars you pay in those lodges will support the conservation of lions. Finally, supporting our scholarship program enables children from less fortunate families attain the most needed education, thereby creating a very understanding community. Through this program, employment opportunities are created, directly improving the living standards of the local Maasai and helping to conserve lions.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
![]() What inspired this story? I visited a Shembe gathering years ago. I was appalled by the number of leopard skins being worn by dancers. At the same time, I was both intrigued and moved by the beautiful sense of meaning within the ritual. I think the film was inspired by tension between those two contrasting experiences of the same event.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
Our biggest challenge was coming up with a solution that worked for both the conservation bodies and the Shembe Church. Building an open line of communication between ourselves and the Church was a difficult process.
How do you approach storytelling?
We realize people aren’t going to watch something just because it's an important or critical issue. They need to be entertained. And to do that we needed to have character development and narrative arcs, but within the restraints of a real life story, the pace and direction of which we couldn’t dictate. We learnt that sometimes you need to push in a certain direction as a story teller and other times you simply have to wait for the story to evolve of its own accord.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
Our goal has been to protect leopards, primarily from people not knowing or understanding the threats they face, and to use entertainment as a way of doing that.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them five questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired the story?
Producer Sam Suter: As a team team we were moved by these individuals. They are geniune, passionate, humble and knowledgeable. It was a privilege to spend time with them. Some of those featured in the film are part of the anti-poaching init at Ol Pejeta, some manage human-wildlife conflict in the area, and others are the caregivers and protectors of the last remaining white rhinos on earth. These animals are gaurded 24/7 at the conversation. There are only three northern white rhinos left in the world – Sudan (the last male northern white rhino at 43 years old), Najin (Sudan’s daughter at 27 years old) and Fatu (Najin’s daughter at 16 years old). They all were raised in a zoo in the Czech Republic and were brought to Ol Pejeta in 2009 in the hopes that they would breed in a more natural environment. Sadly all attempts at breeding have been unsuccessful thus far and Ol Pejeta, alongside other individuals and organisations are working hard to attempt to use IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) technology to save this subspecies from extinction. Our hope is that this will be successful and we can one day have a steady population of these magnificent rhino again. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. SS: One of the biggest challenges was dealing with very sensitive animals such as rhino’s coupled with the fact that they were the last three northern white rhino’s on the planet. This meant at all times we had to be within a safe distance from the rhino as to not disturb there daily routine as any form of stress can have dire consequences. It also meant that the amount of time we had with the rhino’s was very limited so we had to maximize the few hours we had on a daily basis, to tell the whole story, which is never easy. You are also dealing with an animal that can be very unpredictable on its day so one would always have to listen to the rhino caretakers and follow their lead. How do you approach story telling? SS: The fundamental part of story telling is to give the audience a good idea of what message you are conveying in an allotted amount of time. The viewer needs to walk away after watching your film, knowing that their perception has been altered as a result of what they have just watched. To tell that story you need to identify key characters and key themes and then build an emotive story line around those factors that will captivate the audience. As with all film making planning is key as a well planned production will go a long way to accomplishing a strong narrative. So know who your key characters are and know what your message is that you are trying to convey. Working with wild life and endangered species, we are very sensitive when filming and always aim to document people and nature in a genuine way, connecting with our subjects, ensuring depth to our video product. What impact do you hope this film will have? SS: United for Wildlife, through this film, aims to give Rangers a voice. They are the ones fighting the war on the ground and working tirelessly in the field to protect our wildlife. And it’s about time we celebrate these men and women that are doing this work all over Africa, and the world. These are people with incredible insight and knowledge. Amongst them you will find skills and expertise that have been fine tuned to deal with everyday challenges like we could never imagine dealing with. They are doing good work and its key to help them expand upon what they are doing. Often we focus on the wrong individuals when it comes to controversial topics like conservation – and it is about time the world tuned into what people in the thick of it have to say about wildlife in Africa. This film focuses on the rangers working at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy – but they represent so many other rangers – men and women. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? SS: It was meaningful, sad and an honor to meet Sudan – the last make Northern white rhino. We have filmed the Southern white rhino many times in Southern Africa and we did not expect that these two subspecies of rhino would be so physically different. We were taken aback by this amazing prehistoric beast and the crew just fell silent from spending time with him and coming to the realization that these three white rhinos are the last of this subspecies, It was hard hitting. The Northern white rhino has a larger head, shorter legs, hairer ears and other features that make it different to the Southern white rhino. Sudan is incredible as such a large rhino, with incredible presence and amazing relationship with carers. Meeting all three of the last Northern white rhino – Sudan, Ninjin and Fatu was amazing. |
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