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Home , Digital camera, The Life of Mammals, The Trials of Life, Wildlife on One

a walk on the wild side the extraordinary life of

by gillian greenwood

“I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating Neilthe natural world and trying to understandLucas it” - Sir Neil Lucas, a dedicated Neil grew up with a wonderful user, is a producer for the plethora of wildlife all around BBC’s Natural History Unit. him, an idyllic childhood full He has worked with David of nesting kestrels, barn owls Attenborough on three of his and other creatures. One of major series: , his most vivid early memories The Private Life of Plants and was of his father bringing The Life of , as well as into his bedroom a family of individual for Wildlife on hedgehogs that normally lived One and The Natural World. He under the garden shed. As spent the early part of this year a child he drew everything in the depths of the rain forests of filming he could find, from to horses and driver for a future edition of The Natural World. imaginary country scenes with ducks and other He has just returned from working on a six-week animals. The prize toy of his early years shoot on Corfu, directing the filming of all the was a model Commer van with a detachable wildlife and second-unit shoots for a BBC drama cameraman that could be put on the front, from based on the story of Gerald Durrell, My Family which he would pretend to spiders and and Other Animals, to be aired on Boxing Day woodlice around the house. He created his own this year. An extraordinary sense of adventure, ‘flick books’ and, fascinated by how images his infectious enthusiasm for the subject and his moved, he progressed to a toy Zoetrope, with astonishing body of work as a producer for wildlife a spinning drum and viewing slit, making his programmes are apparent in both the images he own cardboard inserts – some of his earliest takes and the story he tells. attempts at animation and film-making.

14 15  Fig Tree, Kenya I really like this shot, Neil Lucas it’s the sort of tree I wish I had in my local woodland. It’s pure size and root structure made it the focal hen did you holidays, I would help out at point of the forest first become a local wildlife park, gradually for and animals alike. I sat interested in spending more time at the park here for many ? than at college, which is how I first hours over a few I first started became involved in . We weeks waiting for to with supplied animals for the children’s the right kind of while series Animal Magic, which Johnny light. This was taken just before a Wstill at school. We had cameras and Morris presented live from the rain storm within 10 black & white film but no dark room, studios in Bristol. We also went minutes of sunset, so I sneaked into the University’s on location with Man and Boy so there was still photographic department, which I presented by and Mike patches of light adopted as my second playground. Kendall. We used to turn up with Morris started to explain what was to lift the buttress happening, the vision mixer switched roots and give the I wasn’t supposed to be there but hedgehogs, moles, badgers, picture some depth. knew where the key was kept. and all sorts of British wildlife. to the onto the badger’s I always went on a Wednesday, I have some very funny hole and all we could see was a dressed up in what I thought was memories of that time. we snowstorm. We discovered later University clothes, even though I was were filming often flew up into the that the hole had been made out of only thirteen or fourteen at the time. studio roof and would not come polystyrene, so naturally, when the In this way, I had unrestricted access down, but the funniest occasion badgers went in the first thing they for several months. There was was on Badgerwatch, another did was to try to dig it out. nobody there and I had great fun. I live show with Johnny Morris. found some old film with We took some baby badgers What was your first camera? images of Charlie Chaplin and started along to a special set at the BBC, My first SLR was a Praktica, but to print them, but sadly I was caught where they were using soon afterwards I bought a Nikon and couldn’t go there any more. cameras to demonstrate how the FE2, a great camera; and as soon as wild badgers outside were being I had one I wanted another, because What did you study at Art College? televised. They had built an entire it was aggravating to change lenses I completed a foundation piece of countryside in the studio, so often. I used to go into the course in graphic design, which complete with a grassy bank with garden and practice and also included ceramics, pottery, a hole where the badgers from , following birds in flight, often sculpture and photography, which the wildlife park were supposed with no film in the camera. meant that I could finally use the to emerge. We had to put the legally! But the course badgers down the hole just I believe you worked for a conservation was too structured, as I actually before the programme went on group in the U.S.A. for a while? preferred taking cameras apart and the air. So the seconds ticked I went to the U.S.A. to work seeing what I could do with them! by, the music started, the lights for a conservation group – the dimmed, my heart was racing, Peregrine Fund, based at Cornell What was your first experience and I quickly put the badgers in University in Ithaca, upstate New working with television? their place and stepped back to York. I worked in Arizona on their At weekends and during the the monitors. Just as Johnny Harris hawk, peregrine and bald reintroduction programmes, watching birds all day, keeping an eye on the new releases, and simultaneously shooting a lot of images. It was an extraordinary place peppered with old gold mines and coyotes and all around. After I received my first photographic commission from the Peregrine Fund, I went immediately to the local camera store where I picked up a battered old Nikon F3 to add to my collection of two FE2s. I spent about four years in the States, working there in the winter and returning to the U.K. in the summer. In the U.K., I continued to train animals for film and television, including the children’s drama Seal Morning and the TV vet series All Creatures Great and Small. I supplied

16 NIKON OWNER “My first SLR was a Praktica, but soon afterwards I bought a Nikon FE2, a great camera; and as soon as I had one I wanted another ...”

17 NIKON OWNER 17  Sir David on . Phuket, Thailand. Any trip with Sir David Attenborough is a fantastic experience but this one was special. A great beach, lots of sunshine and a magnificent elephant called Orapon; unfortunately this location would have been completely wiped out by the Tsunami.

kestrels, foxes and badgers and all sorts of other wildlife. Another film was Lionheart, the story of some children in their search across France for Richard the Lionheart, led by the king’s falconer. I trained the birds, and we went everywhere – France, Hungary and Portugal. One day we were flying birds from the back of an articulated truck hurtling down the streets of Budapest, which was used as a stand-in for twelfth-century Paris. Usually I was in front of the cameras, dressed up as an old falconer, or in similar guise. About this time, I also went to Corfu to work on My Family and Other Animals, based on Gerald Durrell’s classic book. I trained owls to fly around rooms and down olive groves. Oddly enough, I have just returned from working on a six-week shoot on Corfu, directing the filming of all the wildlife and second-unit shoots for a remake of the story, to be aired on Boxing Day this year.

How did you join the BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU)? I was originally asked first to work on a film about owls in the series, but I was in the U.S.A. at the time; subsequently I was asked if I would like to work for four days on a new project, , overseen by wildlife film producer John Downer. They wanted to film a blue tit flying alongside a car, which we achieved. Four days became four weeks and so on….I have been with the Unit now for 17 years.

What is your role within BBC’s Natural History Unit? As a producer, I tend to be drawn into the more technically orientated projects. I get involved

18 NIKON OWNER Neil Lucas “David Attenborough was a childhood hero of mine” in creating new equipment and filming techniques, and it is quite a challenge to keep the NHU ahead of the game. I’ve worked, for instance, with David Attenborough on three of his major series, The Trials of Life, The Private Life of Plants, and , and have worked on individual films for Wildlife on One and The Natural World.

What was it like working with David Attenborough? David Attenborough was a childhood hero of mine, and I had first met him some years earlier when I was working with gorillas at Bristol at the time Life on was being launched. David Attenborough came to the zoo one day while doing a piece for the local news, and we gave him one of the baby gorillas to play with. I remember very clearly the first time I had to direct him. I did not sleep at all the night before, continually rehearsing the moves in again he knew exactly what to say. disappearing as they submerged. mind. I had been to all the locations Every time I see that moment on the So, we got out of there in an instant, >>> 1st page: with the cameraman the day before screen, there’s a lump in my throat. It trying to walk backwards, falling Lioness, Kenya so I knew exactly what we had to was pure magic. over roots but simultaneously trying A lioness watching do, where David was going to stand, to keep the camera dry, all the time . what he was going to say, and where Have you had any dangerous moments waiting for the ’s bite, but the camera was going to be. But whilst working for BBC’s Natural they didn’t get us that day. >>> PREVIOUS page: the next morning it was raining and History Unit? BOTTOM LEFT: we had to do something entirely We try to avoid putting ourselves What is the most unusual sequence Bellflower. different. It was a nightmare. But in danger. We do our homework, you’ve been asked to film? My back garden David was brilliant; he helped me so we know precisely where to go It took place in New York , has always been get through it. If something was not and what the animal will allow us when I was working on Supersense. a constant supply of colour. working, he’d have quiet word in my to do. Scientists and wardens on We wanted to film peregrines ear and say something like ‘maybe location, who are familiar with the hunting between the skyscrapers, TOP LEFT: it’ll work if I stand over here’. No area and the wildlife, help us too. so we had to train pigeons and D2X on remote head - a small fuss, no histrionics. He knew exactly That said, occasionally you can have peregrines to fly down the streets part of equipment what he had to do. His knowledge is a scary moment. I was in Panama (although predator and prey never we use to bring encyclopaedic and his enthusiasm is filming gladiator frogs in a swamp actually saw each other as they movement into contagious. He’s great to work with, with cameraman Gavin Thurston. were filmed a year apart). The police our time-lapses. although you have to stop him from We were out at night, Gavin carrying closed off 5th Avenue for us, and >>> THIS page: helping all the time. He always joins the camera and using a pencil torch, diverted the traffic. The camera BOTTOM LEFT: in, carrying the equipment and so on, so not to disturb the frogs, and me was in a pickup truck and we had Catching Blue so you have to stop him getting dirty following with the and a larger model helicopters carrying miniature fin tuna, Spain. because you need him mud- for beam. We were up to our waist in cameras, and we raced up and BOTTOM LEFT: the next shot! water, being hammered by swarms down the street with the pigeons Sir David One of my most extraordinary of mosquitoes, and stumbling over following us. We also had a camera beside Blue . Natural moments was filming blue mangrove roots. We were about a rigged to ‘fly’ up and down the sides History Museum for The Life of Mammals. David half a kilometre from the nearest of skyscrapers, and at one point I in Santa Barbara, was dressed in a survival suit and dry land when Gavin stopped and was dangling by a rope 80 storeys . strapped to the front of an ocean- pointed his pencil torch at two red up, over the side of what was then going Zodiac, and we raced across dots on the water surface. ‘I wonder the PanAm (now Metlife) Building. ABOVE: . the sea following these 100 feet-long what that is,’ he said, and then Just like in the movies! Southern Spain. giants. We managed to get the boat spotted some more. I put on the Another photo right alongside a whale rising to the big torch, only to reveal What parts of the world have you that was pure luck. surface; David was so excited, but … lots of them, and the eyes were worked in?

NIKON OWNER 19  Kakamega Sunrise Luck plays a Neil Lucas great part in my photography. It was still dark as we had packed the 4x4s ready to drive out of the forest I have worked mainly in North, the camera itself – whether it zooms and make our way South and Central America and the or tracks in or out or cranes up to the Airport. As parts of south of the as and down – basically all the same the sun started to rise we realized well as southern Siberia, Kamchatka, movements we would apply when that the grey clouds Australia, Malaysia, , and filming animals in the wild. we’d had over Sumatra. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few days rain forests, which can be some of Was this a difficult task? had gone and we the worst places in which to work. Yes. The first thing we had to do were going to get the long-awaited Everything is just ready to bite you, was find the equipment because sunrise we needed and if they don’t crawl across your there was nothing available at the for the start of bed they’ll get you when you’re out time. To explore ideas and to design our programme filming. It’s not the big things you the equipment I met with techno- is still the best time-lapse controller on ants. Grabbing available, and it evolved initially from the camera kit we worry about; it’s the tiny ones. whiz Martin Shann who was working climbed up to a then with Oxford Scientific Films. four buttons to ten buttons and a lookout point and While working on an Attenborough Martin and I developed a ‘black- twirly knob! sat for an hour series, you became involved with box’ that would fire the cameras, drinking coffee setting up new time-lapse techniques. which were old clockwork Bolex So what do the latest controllers control? and watching this amazing view as How did that develop? cine cameras with electric motors The master controller not only tells the early morning In The Private Life of Plants, we stuck on the side. The black box had the camera what to do, but also it mist left the forest. had to find a way in which to bring four buttons, and if you wanted the can turn on and off growing lights plants to life and try to look at them camera to run at a certain speed, (used for horticultural purposes), in the same way that we view you had to press these buttons open and close blinds on windows, animals. In effect, we had to change in a particular order. The more fire flashguns, move the camera time – speed it up, and time-lapse complicated the shot, the more on tracks, and so on – it is the hub does just that. Put simply, instead people you needed to press the for controlling the entire time-lapse of running the camera at the normal buttons correctly – and you couldn’t operation, and it has to be portable. 25 frames per second, we take one press them fast enough, it was It is one thing to have a sophisticated frame every minute or whatever. hilarious sometimes and our success set-up in a studio in Bristol or Oxford, It’s like real-life animation. When it’s rate was very low at the start. And to but the system may have to work in played back at normal speed, time is work out the movement and frame the middle of a baking or in speeded up so everything appears rate of the camera we had to trace the freezing , and operate on to run faster. Until Plants, time-lapse it all on graph paper, and even mark 12-volt car batteries. In fact, when techniques had been quite crude, out a piece of elastic and stretch it making Plants, we were filming day the results rather frenetic and out of to represent the changes in time. It and night some of the specialised control. We wanted to make it look was very Heath Robinson, and we plants that grow near the top of more natural, which meant not only finally resolved to make something Mount Kenya, and the system was controlling the camera’s , but less hit and miss. Martin came up subjected to scorching also the amount of light falling on with a Mark II version, which was during the day and below freezing the subject when the shutter was often being worked on right up until at night. The system may have been open and even the movements of the last moment. Today, the system what we might consider ‘portable’, but even so, we had 100 porters to get all the camera equipment to the top, and six travelling up and down everyday with recharged batteries. We were up there for about three weeks, and it all worked superbly.

What’s the next stage in these kinds of developments? Those controllers were designed initially to work with 40-year-old film cameras, but in the late , when the first professional digital stills cameras, such as the Nikon D1, were readily available, I started to play around again, this time using an old loaded with early editing software to join the frames together to give moving pictures. At first the computing power was not adequate and the

20 NIKON OWNER “I’ve spent a lot of time in rain forests, which can be some of the worst places in which to work. Everything is just ready to bite you ...”

21  Great Gray Owl Minnesota,USA Without the flexibility of a I couldn’t have taken this photo. It was starting to get dark and this fantastic owl just seemed to glow in the last rise of the sunlight. The ability to change film speeds for each frame has saved the day on more than one occasion.

images were of low resolution, but it demonstrated the basic principles. When the D1X came along, and I obtained my first one within a week of them being released, I could get results in High Definition, and this opened up new opportunities. I took the first tests to the BBC’s research boffins at Kingswood Warren. They looked at the colour saturation and the edges and the entire technical spec, and declared that it was the best HD camera they’d ever seen; but it came as a big surprise to them that it had been done on Nikon stills cameras. The BBC then realised the potential and it funded me for a year to develop it further and make it work. Now, any of our teams can take out a digital stills camera, and as long as they get the settings right, they can create some amazing time-lapse sequences.

What is the advantage of using digital stills cameras for High Definition (HD) time-lapse? You get superb quality and you can see your images instantly. It has the right image size and the right quality that we can use for HD television. You can also work directly with your team in the U.K., even though you’re somewhere quite remote. You take a picture, beam it back on a phone to your picture editor and he can look at it and assess its suitability for the sequence you’re creating, and >>> Equipment: >>> Special Thanks: within a few minutes tell you if any adjustments are needed. You could Neil Lucas has an array of Nikon kit, We would like to express our warm also take the entire time-lapse, make including a D2X, three D1X’s, an F5, an thanks to Michael Bright whose a low-resolution copy and send it FM2n, as well as his trusty FE. He also has assistance with this article has been back so it can be cut immediately a huge collection of Nikon lenses, including very much appreciated. into the rough assembly of the the 80-400mmVR, 24-120mm, 105mm programme, while you’re doing the f/2.8D Macro, 90mm Macro, 20mm f/2.8, Visit: www.naturepl.com next shot. You can also use the same 80-200mm f/2..8, but his favourite remains for more images by Neil Lucas. technique to build a back-plate, say, the 12-24mm. > for high-resolution graphics.

22 NIKON OWNER Neil Lucas “I very rarely use film these days”

Which programmes broadcast recently my Nikon D1Xs and but this is have benefited from this development? sending them back for going to >>> PREVIOUS page: There was the Wildlife on One repairs to Nikon. It got change BOTTOM LEFT: programme that showed herding so embarrassing that I slowly over Rainbow behaviour in wildebeest that was sent them back eventually the next few years. The over African ‘filmed’ on Nikon digital stills under a different name! However, recent shoot with driver ants in wetland. This should be a cameras. Sequences in Alan Martin sorted things out and Kenya, for example, was in HD, picture of Africa’s Titchmarsh’s British Isles: A Natural did a lot of parallel testing in a and that was a big learning curve Mt Kenya; it is History, such as people entering controlled studio environment for cameraman Warwick Shloss there but very and leaving a football match, while I was in the field in Africa. and I because of the lighting well hidden were shot the same way, as were We compared data. The end conditions in the rain forest and behind the storm clouds that street scenes where we wanted to result has been that the technique the size of the main ‘stars’. The followed us for speed up the background but Alan has not only been accepted for ants are only 5-10mm long, and days. Titchmarsh remained in real time. time-lapse on location, but also they’re little brown shiny things for sophisticated animation in the on a shiny, wet forest floor … and TOP LEFT: Driver . Has your work changed with the studio. there are 20 million of them in a This image is of a advent of digital? single colony. There was always dead ant, Yes, I must get half-a-dozen Where might this be going in the too much or too little light and it set up in a make- questions a day by camera-people future? reflected off and the ants shift studio in my dining-room. and production crews all relating At the moment we’re looking at themselves. Getting close to to digital ways to solve their 3-D, multiple and image something that small and which >>> THIS page: problems. In fact, the BBC Natural manipulation. We’re getting down moved so fast was tricky. You TOP LEFT: History Unit is making an to ‘frame-matching’. also have to remember that if Great Gray Owl amazing new landmark If you think of there’s any aberration or fuzz in Minnesota, USA Without the series called , a standard 3-D the picture, that’s High Definition flexibility of a which relies heavily on image made with too, so we had to be very careful. digital camera digital time-lapse that two still pictures We tried all sorts of lenses and I couldn’t have came directly off the in a viewer, you straight-scopes, but ended up taken this photo. back of developments get amazing using Nikon and Leica macro- TOP RIGHT: helped by Jeremy results if you do lenses most. Winged Gilbert and the Nikon this with digital . team, Martin Shann, and cameras. You can What about your own stills work? Mount Kenya National park. the BBC’s Kingswood frame-match down I very rarely use film these I found this Warren people. It is almost to individual days, although I still keep my unfortunate working well now and , so you can old cameras and give them an termite in my is common practice, so line up your pixels airing occasionally. It is a whole washing bowl the old film cameras perfectly. So taking different approach. On digital you early one morning after a are gone. two images from can see instantly if the picture very heavy rain digital cameras works and you can shoot off a storm. You mentioned the mounted side by hundred images until you get the collaboration with side, you can really right one. It is quite difficult when ABOVE: Chris Langham, Martin Shann. Do you get a stunning 3-D you go back to film, and you have Corfu. still work with him on image. This has to think more carefully before I’m very lucky to technical projects? lots of potential triggering the shutter … but it’s get to work on Martin is now for 3-D movies and still enjoyable. many different types of working with graphics. I have been documentaries Aardman Animations, playing around with What assignments are you and dramas. This creators of Wallace this together with working on? shot of actor Chris and Gromit and National Geographic I am just about to leave for Langham was Creature Comforts, photographer Jim South Africa to film the Great taken during the filming of Gerald where he is using Brandenberg and it will White and Mako sharks for the Durrell’s book “My modified Nikon be mind-blowing if it BBC, which I am really looking Family and other D2H cameras for works. forward to. Animals” . animation. He LEFT: helped me a lot Do you shoot on film Finally, what would your dream High Definition with all our digital anymore at all? assignment be? test sequence. developments. Yes, we still shoot on It would have to be in the Selective images He has really film for many of our Himalayas, maybe Nepal or filmed over two been my mentor. major programmes, Bhutan, with a group of friends, hours on a D1X with a 24-120mm At first, I kept because High Definition and just taking stills – big lens. blowing up is still relatively expensive, panoramas. Wonderful! +

NIKON OWNER 23