The June course,  which runs from 6 June – 6 July, has 2 available spaces left.  Book now to ensure your place on this course by emailing info@wildlifefilmacademy.com or submitting the application form on the website.

Please visit www.wildlifefilmacademy.com for detailed information about the course.

Register now - All Wildlife Film Academy students attending Durban Wild Talk Africa  Festival for the first time will gain free entry. 

The 4-day Festival runs from 27-30 August 2007, in Durban, South Africa.    Use this opportunity to meet International Commissioning Editors from Animal Planet International, National Geographic Television and BBC NHU, and be inspired and informed with the discussion topics, workshops and world-class screenings.  For up-and-coming wildlife filmmakers this is an event not to be missed. 

For more details about this festival and conference, visit www.wildtalkafrica.com

I’m currently based on Malilangwe Reserve in Zimbabwe and had planned to be here for 4 years but the place is so amazing I’ll probably stay on indefinitely.  As I’m permanently based in one location it gives me the opportunity to work on a number of projects at the same time thus making the business more productive.  Currently I’m working on 3 films, one on Wild Dogs, one on Elephants and one on Lions.  Following on from these will be films on Leopard, Ground Hornbill, and then Hyaenas.

The first film that will be completed is the Wild Dog film which we’ll finish shooting towards the end of this year. I covered their denning period last year with some very interesting behaviour of two females having pups. This is not so unusual, but the ages of the first and second litter of pups were 7 weeks apart.  Usually in a case where more than one female has pups, the alpha female will either kill them or adopt them.   In this case she couldn’t adopt them as they were 7 weeks younger than her pups, and she had already run out of milk. So when at 2 days old she took two pups out the den and dropped them there, I thought I would see the murder taking place. The bigger pups played with these little guys (eyes closed and couldn’t walk) endlessly until I thought they were dead. Eventually their mother, totally submissive to the alpha female snuck out and retrieved her 2 little pups. The alpha female never took the little pups out the den again. But every day from then on the alpha pups went in and brought the pups out. Their mother was powerless to stop them. I was convinced these pups would soon die from the harassment at that early age, but they survived.  The alpha female several weeks later was even trying to suckle them. So that will form the basis of the story and the denning period that is now coming up could provide for some interesting new behaviour.

During the filming of ‘Beauty and the Beasts’, I was following this female leopard which was hunting impala during the day. She’d gone down next to a bush and I couldn’t see her. The impala were walking away from her, but then the male impala (rutting season) turned and walked back to where he’d come from.   Straight into the leopard. As the impala spotted the leopard he jumped high. At the same time the leopard leapt up underneath and grabbed the impala in midair. They somersaulted as one to the ground. Then the struggle began. The impala was at least twice the weight of the leopard. By the time they’d hit the ground the leopard already had the impala by the throat. The impala dragged the leopard several metres but it became too much and the leopard rolled the impala to the ground.

 
Now came the anxious part of knowing whether I had it in the bag. I was shooting film in those days.  Did I have the right exposure, the focus, was I rolling the slo mo in time?   Only 2 months later did I get the results.  This shot has been used over and over by National Geographic promoting their Channel.

Wildlife Film Academy

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