BBC_Wild Cameramen at Work_3of4_Sky
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00:00Scotland, a paradise for wildlife, and a cameraman's dream.
00:15This country, with its rugged mountains and endless coastline, has produced a generation
00:20of the best wildlife cameramen in the world.
00:27For decades, five filmmakers, all rooted in Scotland, have travelled the globe to bring
00:32home incredible images, shaping our understanding of the natural world.
00:39How did these men learn the incredible skills needed for catching the natural world in action?
00:48What is it that prepared them for travelling the globe and enduring the toughest of environments?
00:57In this series, these five cameramen will share their extraordinary stories and the
01:01secrets of their trade.
01:04Secrets often learned from filming wildlife in the wildest parts of Scotland.
01:11But this time, the camera is on them.
01:36Our skies are alive with birds.
01:44Unlike most animals, birds can move in all directions.
01:51Often very quickly, and constantly changing directions.
02:02They frequently live in remote, isolated pockets of the world, and filming them can
02:07be a unique challenge.
02:13I've always been impressed with the skill required of our cameramen to film these creatures.
02:20And there's no better exponent of this craft than John Aitchison.
02:37The islands of the South Pacific are rich in bird life.
02:42French Frigate Shoals is only half a mile long, but amazingly home to over 300,000 birds.
02:51For a bird lover like John, this is paradise.
02:55He spent two weeks here filming young black-footed albatross as they learned to fly.
03:07Albatrosses are fascinating birds.
03:08They live a very long time.
03:10They live in extraordinary places.
03:12They live always in very remote islands, or at sea.
03:18Point of going there was that at a very specific time of year, the young albatrosses grow to
03:22the point where their wings are ready, and then over about two or three weeks, all of
03:27them go.
03:30A young albatross learning to fly and survive on its own.
03:35But what you don't realize is that to get this shot, John was perched on a rickety makeshift
03:42scaffolding tower resting on the seabed.
03:46I suppose it was about five or six meters high, maybe.
03:50And I just stood on there every day with the camera set up, watching for the albatrosses
03:54coming out.
03:56It was only a building scaffolding tower.
03:59It wasn't built for sitting on the seabed.
04:01And I thought it would sink in on one side and tip.
04:04And so when the waves picked up a bit sometimes and were slapping underneath the planks, I
04:09was wondering about whether it was actually going to fall over quite often.
04:12So it kept me on my toes, really.
04:18Especially as John wasn't here just to film the albatross.
04:22He was also here to film tiger sharks, eager for an easy meal.
04:33It's one of those dilemmas you have as a cameraman.
04:35It comes up sometimes where there's a hunt.
04:39You're supposed to be there filming what happens.
04:43I can't intervene.
04:44It wouldn't make any difference anyway.
04:45I've got very mixed feelings about this because I really want to see the albatrosses eating,
04:46but that's what I'm here to film.
04:47I can't help wishing that the albatrosses will get away each time.
04:48Lots of cheer inside when they do, little shark, right in the shallow.
05:12It's easy to see it in human terms when one animal's hunting another, but it isn't right
05:28to see it in those terms.
05:30The sharks have a role.
05:31They have to eat.
05:32But at the same time, you can't help empathising.
05:46John has been perfecting his craft for over two decades.
05:52His first big break as a cameraman came in 1994, when he filmed the wildlife of the Eithan
05:58Estuary, 12 miles north of Aberdeen.
06:06The first programme where we could go somewhere and live there for a long time, it was nine
06:12months in one place, living alongside this beautiful, small estuary.
06:18It's the sort of place that over nine months you can get to know almost every stone, every
06:21turn in the river, everything that happens there.
06:24It was a lovely experience, actually.
06:26It became part of us, I think, in that time.
06:32This precious coastal environment is home to nearly half of the UK's bird species.
06:39During his time here, John was able to film some rarely seen behaviour.
06:47The Eithan's famous for its eider ducks, and I'd never seen any film of an eider actually
06:52removing the down from its body and filling the nest.
06:56We had no idea what it even looked like.
06:57And after a really long time in a hide, the duck that I was filming then did this.
07:04She sort of stropped her breast and plucked out this amazing down, it just fluffed up
07:09into this beautiful cloud of grey down.
07:14It was such an intimate moment, she was doing this delicate thing, and I was right by her,
07:18I was probably six or seven feet away, she didn't mind at all, she was oblivious to me
07:22in my hide.
07:26It was wonderful, it was such a revelation.
07:34Working in Aberdeenshire made John decide to move north of the border permanently.
07:42He chose to make his home in Argyle on the west coast, surrounded by dramatic landscapes
07:47and abundant wildlife.
07:51Scotland just had everything that I was hoping, really.
07:55It's got such fantastic wildlife.
07:58It's quiet, it's beautiful.
08:01For a wildlife filmmaker, you can't do better.
08:04I think living close to nature is crucial for me, really.
08:07It resets my balance, being able to go outside, see what the weather's doing, see what the
08:12tide's doing, hear the geese going over.
08:14I've very often found film ideas just by being here.
08:20Over the years, John has made several short films about his home and how it inspires him.
08:36It was the wildness of this landscape that attracted us to it.
08:42We found it exhilarating and new because, of course, we had no history here at first.
08:50But our neighbours did, and two in particular shared their love of this place with us.
08:58Every part of it meant something to them, had some memory attached.
09:04They told us all the best wild things they'd ever seen here.
09:10The moments which gave them joy.
09:19With so much wildlife on his doorstep, John always has his camera at the ready.
09:28There is one sleek, secretive creature he particularly likes to film.
09:34The otter.
09:41I love filming otters.
09:42They're just the most beautiful animals, and they're always interesting, they're very clever,
09:47they play a great deal.
09:52Otters are quite difficult to spot, but when you get your eye in, you get better at it.
10:00I didn't know I was there, the wind was ideal, it's just blowing my scent away, and the cub
10:10was very small.
10:11This is about the second smallest cub I've ever seen here, so I'm really pleased.
10:22A close friend of John's, who lives nearby, is fellow wildlife cameraman Mark Smith.
10:32His busy schedule takes him all around the globe, but like John, Mark chose to base himself
10:38on the west coast of Scotland.
10:41Here in Argyle, the landscape is just beautiful on a day like this.
10:45You've got mist rising off the loch.
10:47To me, you come back from often pretty hard trips, and you're able to just relax in this
10:53place.
10:59A particularly taxing trip for Mark came whilst filming one of the world's rarest birds of
11:04prey, the striated caracara.
11:09More commonly known as Johnny Rook, they're found in significant numbers on the Falkland
11:13Islands, and it was here that Mark and his wife, Jane, based themselves.
11:21We were there for five months, just me and Jane living there with those animals.
11:27I mean, it was just a fantastic experience.
11:33The Johnny Rook, they're the most amazing birds I've ever seen, in a way, because they're
11:38completely curious.
11:39They don't have any fear of mankind at all.
11:44From a filming point of view, it's an absolute joy.
11:47You can walk anywhere in this amazing landscape, and look around and think, all I need to have
11:53is an animal in there.
11:55And you turn around, and there's six of them behind you, just dying to get into the shot.
12:01We really loved working around them, but at the same time, they would just destroy anything
12:07that you left out.
12:12Every day, before you left the camp, you had to secure everything.
12:17You had to take every little thing inside, zip it up, secure all the guy ropes, because
12:22when you left, they would just come and try and destroy your camp.
12:31Their strategy for survival is investigate everything.
12:35There might just be a meal in it for them.
12:51Some birds have more conventional strategies for survival.
12:57Every winter, tens of thousands of these barnacle geese fly south from the cold Arctic to spend
13:03it here, at Loch Grunyat, on the island of Islay in Scotland.
13:12The drama of the birds taking flight in the early morning requires John to be constantly
13:18vigilant.
13:40They went quite early, but it's just so spectacular, you never know quite what's going to happen.
13:47Some birds are quite difficult to film.
13:50They move very quickly.
13:52They're moving in three dimensions, so you have to keep focusing, I have to keep them
13:55in focus all the time.
13:56Meanwhile, you're trying to keep them in frame, you're trying to make the composition nice.
14:00There's a lot going on, and it is quite hard.
14:03It does take a lot of practice.
14:04There's a lot of tension, actually, when you're here, because what I have to do is, I creep
14:09in in the dark.
14:10I have to not disturb the geese, I have to wear dark gloves so that my hands aren't bright,
14:14I have to creep the camera just above the level of this bank here so that the geese
14:18can't see me.
14:19And as the light comes up, you never really know quite what's going to be there.
14:25It's just great, it's just so exciting.
14:30These geese winter on a peaceful RSPB nature reserve.
14:35But you don't always have to travel to wild locations to get the best shots of birds.
14:41Sometimes it can happen in the most unexpected of places.
14:45I was trying to make a short film about kestrels, and I particularly wanted to film a kestrel
14:51hovering in slow motion.
14:53And actually, it turned out the best place to get at the eye level of a kestrel hovering,
14:57rather than looking up all the time, was on a motorway bridge.
15:02The kestrel was just hovering there with its eyes absolutely fixed on the mouse, completely
15:10fixed.
15:11It could have been hanging on a string, it was as though it was fixed in space, its wings
15:17and its tail doing all their work, which you could see really clearly.
15:24It was a picture I was particularly proud of actually, it was something that showed
15:27very precisely what kestrels can do in among all this man-made chaos of the motorway.
15:40This uncanny ability to spot beauty in unnatural environments was a valuable skill for John
15:50on one particular trip to Delhi to film black kites.
15:56I'd never been to India before, so I was really excited when I was asked to go and film something
16:00in India.
16:01What they didn't tell me was that the very first thing on my first day in India was to
16:06go to this massive dump outside Delhi.
16:19In that chaotic, stinking, rotten environment, there's food, mainly bits of meat from slaughterhouses.
16:28The kites are instantly focused on that place.
16:35All these kites in slow motion just streaming in, picking up stuff and flying off again,
16:39chasing each other, was spectacular.
16:41It was one of the most strong experiences I think I've ever had.
16:47We had to take a change of clothes and throw away the clothes that we were wearing because
16:50they were so disgusting afterwards, and boots and everything.
16:54I thought I'd be filming the Taj Mahal or something and I was on this huge rubbish dump,
16:58but it was, you know, memorable.
17:05Mark has had to endure some aromatic environments of his own to get the shots he needed.
17:12None more so than when he was trying to film white-bellied eagles catching fruit bats deep
17:18in the Australian outback.
17:24We got in there and, of course, like everything, you get there and the reality is pretty different
17:29to what you imagined it would be, and you've got this hawthorn scrub which is about twenty
17:33foot high and you're walking through it and there's a constant bat-lit drizzle of bat
17:39urine coming down, so you're just basically surrounded in this sort of scummy mess for
17:44most of the day.
17:45But not only that, it's really ugly because it's just hawthorn scrub the whole time.
17:49So you can get close-up shots of the bats, but there's no way you're going to ever see
17:52any eagle doing anything.
17:55You looked at it and you thought, how on earth are we going to ever film this?
18:01The solution was to build four tall scaffolding towers so Mark could be closer to the eagles.
18:09He and the producer had to build them at night to avoid scaring the bats away.
18:14It was the most amazing thing, thirty foot up this scaffolding tower in moonlight with
18:18the starlight and occasionally bats flying around and desperately trying to fix these
18:23things together.
18:30Despite the testing conditions, Mark was able to capture these spectacular shots.
18:42The end result was just great, you know, we managed to get, you know, that shot.
18:47The eagle coming straight towards the tower, picks up this bat, gets it in its talons and
18:54goes off again.
18:55So it was kind of worth it in the end.
19:03Filming the wildlife in our skies from above the ground is one thing, but filming birds
19:09from below ground level is another matter altogether.
19:12I think one of the strangest things I've been asked to do was to film in what they call
19:16the shallow grave at an RSPB reserve in Norfolk called Snettersham, which is a really special
19:22place actually, it's an absolutely wonderful place.
19:28Snettersham is the scene of one of Britain's greatest wildlife spectacles.
19:36The wash, which is a huge area of mudflats and estuary, fills up with water and there
19:41are a huge number of wading birds that feed on the mud when the tide's out, especially
19:46knot.
19:47If you looked at a knot you would say it was a medium-sized, greyish, fairly nondescript
19:53bird, but when they gather together they're just sensational.
19:58John was looking for a new approach to film the knots, one which would give him a unique
20:02angle.
20:03His shallow grave would do just that.
20:06If you dig a hole in the beach and put the camera in the hole and lie down, which is
20:11very uncomfortable and difficult, then you're at the eye level of the birds, which is about
20:16that high off the ground.
20:17And that view transforms things completely.
20:25Well, it's a quarter past four, I'm in the shallow grave, I've got eight layers of clothes
20:37on, two layers of plywood, and half an inch of gravel, I hope it's worth it.
20:46It certainly was.
20:58Hides are brilliant, because when you're in a hide you're not a person anymore, particularly
21:03lying down in a hide like that on a beach.
21:05As far as the birds are concerned, there's no person there at all, so they just came
21:09in and landed all around me, they were touching distance away, completely oblivious, and that's
21:15just such a special experience.
21:17It's so rare to have that happen.
21:19And then, of course, the view from it, the patterns that they made, the way that they
21:25shift around, it's almost like a liquid flowing over the beach.
21:29Birds are easily scared, so hides are invaluable when filming them.
21:50They allow cameramen to secretly capture their most intimate moments.
21:56A hide helped Mark become the first cameraman ever to document in detail a rare Scottish
22:02bird of prey, the sea eagle.
22:10It was 1994-95, and there was only ten pairs of sea eagles nesting in Scotland then.
22:16And so the big challenge really was the pressure involved, because we'd got permission to do
22:22that after a lot of work.
22:23And so it was quite stressful, because we really couldn't afford to mess up.
22:31To answer the pressure, Mark could only set up his hide when the parents were away from
22:36the nest hunting.
22:38Otherwise, he risked scaring the eagles off the nest completely.
22:44You only had 20 minutes to go in, put the hide in, and get out again.
22:48And it came to the time for filming, where you've got to go in for the first day and
22:53sit in there.
22:54So you go in there very early morning.
22:56I was sat there for the whole day in the worst cloud of midges I've ever seen.
23:02And you're sat there as quiet, as quiet as you can.
23:04And you've got the camera, and you've got this little opening with the lens poking through.
23:10Suddenly, bang, right on the nest, you've got this huge sea eagle.
23:19It's the most amazing feeling, because it feels as though she's looking right at you.
23:23And so you're just sat there, you're almost unable to breathe, because you feel that if
23:27you make any movement at all, she's going to find you.
23:32They're looking straight at a reflection of them in the lens.
23:34And if they make a movement, or you move the camera, they see it.
23:41Over three hours, or something like that, she eventually got used to the whole thing.
23:45And then she would start to feed the chick.
23:51Sometimes you know that what you've got is great.
23:54All that time you've spent is kind of worthwhile, and you get an amazing shot.
24:01Filming birds close up requires a huge amount of patience and skill, and the results are
24:06often very striking.
24:10But the patterns big groups of birds paint over the sky's canvas can be equally mesmerising.
24:19This memorable sequence came when John filmed a flock of starlings, with fellow bird lover
24:25Bill Oddie, by the River Severn in Gloucestershire.
24:33You couldn't choreograph a show better than the starlings do it.
24:38They just come in loosely, and they start to fly a little bit.
24:43And more come, and more come, and then you get a really big flock comes.
24:48And eventually you end up with 10,000, or 20,000, or 100,000, all in one place.
24:55And then they start these incredible evolutions, these shapes.
24:59It's like some other creature that's just morphing in space.
25:14It's almost like some mathematical thing.
25:29The excitement of them, of that show coming together, and then ending so beautifully when
25:34they spiral down, and they drop down into the reed bed, and the show's finished.
25:38And you know that's it.
25:39It has to be the end of the film.
25:40It has to be the end of what the starlings have done.
25:42It's worked perfectly.
25:58The patterns of nature are a trademark of John's work.
26:04Back home in Scotland, John explains how he captures these beautiful patterns.
26:12These are lapwings.
26:14And what's so special about this is that lapwings have become really rare in Britain recently,
26:19and there are hundreds there.
26:22So there's this beautiful flock now.
26:24Two flocks really, a big flock of lapwings and a small flock, which have just merged.
26:30And the colours are just coming up in the sky.
26:34And this shifting, drifting pattern of lapwings against it.
26:40I'm really looking for how they fit in the larger picture.
26:43So the frame moves all the time.
26:45I'm following the flock around.
26:46I'm not really filming individual birds, but I'm trying to get a sense of what's going on.
26:51I'm trying to anticipate where the whole flock's going,
26:54so that the composition stays nice the entire time.
26:57It's quite a difficult thing to do because they're shifting themselves relative to each other,
27:01and the flock compresses and expands all the time.
27:07I have to anticipate quite a lot.
27:09I get it wrong quite a lot as well.
27:10But when it works, you get a lovely sense of flow and of movement,
27:14which is something almost unique to birds really,
27:17this sense of how they use the space, how they're in this three-dimensional space.
27:24There aren't that many places that are as wild as this in terms of what lives here anymore.
27:32The west coast of Scotland, particularly in the islands like this,
27:34have got so much variety and natural habitat left,
27:38that you do get these big flocks of birds like this,
27:41which you just don't get in many places any longer.
27:48There's a wonderful quality to the light in the west, I think,
27:53because there are big skies.
27:54It's open out in that direction.
27:56There's no light pollution.
27:58There's no town.
27:59There's nothing actually on the horizon really.
28:03As a photographer, it's a fantastic place to work.
28:07It's always inspiring.
28:17Next time, our cameramen are in the oceans,
28:21sharing the water with sharks,
28:24filming flying fish
28:26and the biggest animal in the world.
28:29I've waited a long time to see a blue-underwater,
28:31and that was just magic.
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