By Grace Howe
Natural historian and filmmaker Keith Scholey is producing three full length wildlife documentaries that will examine the behaviour of cheetahs, tigers, and lions in their natural habitat.
The first film, due for release in America this autumn, is entitled ‘Big Cats’. Five years in the making, it was made primarily using the new Sony F23 camera, which is discreet and advanced enough to cause minimal interference in any animal’s environment. The camera can be left for days in the wild without needing attendance or interruption from human hands.
This technology provided a unique opportunity for capturing animals in a gathered community. The film is an attempt to view these creatures in an entirely new way, by allowing their natural behaviour and interaction with each other to create a storyline and give phrasing and drama to the piece, with little influence or explanatory commentary from the BBC editing team.
I spoke to Keith, co-producer of the Blue Planet and Planet Earth series, about the idea behind this new film and how the production has developed since the final rushes were gathered.
“Keith, What inspired you to become a filmmaker instead of sticking to science on paper? You began this journey with a biology degree!”
“In a rather geek-ish way, the subject just obsessed me, I wanted everyone to be interested in what I was interested in, and excited by the same sights. During travelling and in my first jobs in wildlife documentary, I felt enormously privileged to view what I had done and intrigued by the possibilities of sharing it.”
“In this film, you have attempted to capture the essence of how the Masai-Mara lions and cheetahs interact with each other. It is based in Kenya, and offers a view a to how these big cats live and function in their own life journey, and to create a feature film instead of an ‘informative documentary’ Why did you decide to film with this new objective?”
“We wanted to show these beautiful animals in an entirely new way. It is an attempt to explore how they live and communicate. That animals are aware of their life and their own life span is left to the side of most documentary explanation. This film is shot over two generations of each species, so there is the family line to follow.
I wanted to show that cats are aware, as we are, of preference, sadness, meanness, and character. The looks, the mood-changes, the treatment they give each other and the way they strive to survive. After four years of observation we realised that what we were seeing was moving, in a new way, a story of life as well as wild scene. I wanted to communicate that.”
“Films that create an affinity with animals can help to ensure that we prioritise conserving them. Did you have this objective in mind when you made the film?”
“No! We want to take the viewers completely away from themselves. We will not have a voice-over commentary as yet, and we are undecided on where to put necessary explanation, but it is not about human intelligence. What we learnt from it was the clear and gruesome methods of survival. The ruthlessness, determination, affection, love, fear. That is how we found the story line, in the interaction, the strong and weak characters and how they live together.
Particularly fascinating to me was how the female cheetahs are driven to protect their young and fend for themselves in the treacherous environment with the lions. In other parts as with the blue whale young in Blue Planet, we see how and when the mother is driven to desert her young in her own effort to survive - how long it takes them to let the cub go. The film also compares the two challenges of living and breeding within a gang, and living as a solitary parent.”
“The things we expect to divide us from animals, the consciousness that they supposedly don’t have, the decision-making, liking and dislike, love and hatred, exists within any community.”
“All wildlife explanation is best when it increases compassion for animals. In many ways this film can teach human beings, not about their own lives or mind, but how most of what they do and respond to depends on survival and instinct, rather than intelligence. That is what I hope to achieve! We want to show that any animal community contains just as much of the complexities of human nature that we credit as being part of intellect and thought, and the human brain. Our study I believe showed similarities with the human relationships we form and the affiliations we value.”
“Since the earliest natural history documentary films, it has been very influential to include the human touch in some way, with music, commentary, or explanation. Natural scientists such as David Attenborough have set the example of always communicating not just the landscape, the place, the atmosphere, but their own affinity with the animals, which in turn moved people to understand the environment better and to understand animal similarities. Now you are moving away from this as a production team, what will be the biggest hurdle to promoting your film?”
“We specifically aim to reach audiences that would never dream of watching a documentary on television! The time constraints of people’s lives allow for entertainment to be allocated, and it must be a promise to be entertainment, and a break from the routine. We hope that for America in particular they will respond brilliantly to something presented as a full story, with a storyline, and the Disney sponsorship ensures the kind of publicity environmental issues need if we hope to help our wildlife and planet. We had to say yes! I hope it will mean that the next generation get involved in animal conservation as we are.”
‘Big Cats’ will be release across America in September of this year.
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