As part of our Planet Earth Live global event, here’s an exclusive post from Andrew Chastney, Director. Andy is in Sri Lanka with the ‘Temple troop’ of toque macaques, following the activities of baby Gremlin.
Andrew Chastney
It’s been an interesting few days here in Sri Lanka, the full moon (a ‘super-moon ‘I believe) is marked by a Buddhist festival, honouring the birth and death of Buddha.
Our location, the ancient ruined city of Polonnaruwa, is one of the holiest places in Sri Lanka and attracts thousands of visitors each year to its temples, but at festival times the number of visitors explodes!
Trying to make a wildlife film in the Buddhist version of Glastonburyis tricky to say the least and it was no surprise that Gremlin and her troop decided to hang back in the jungle.
Final sound checks from Sri Lanka! Toque macaques investigate one of the Planet Earth Live microphones. Photo from Planet Earth Live team in Polonarruwa, Sri Lanka.
The monkeys are not bothered by humans, far from it, the culture here is very accepting and peaceful, it’s just that Gremlin’s troop find it easier to relax and do their monkey business in the relative calm of the forest. So our filming plans were slightly altered! We are still getting lovely stuff though, Gremlin is a charming little macaque and even though she is pretty much at the bottom of the proverbial pecking order, she’s a plucky little thing so we are hopeful that she has a good chance of survival.
We have been pretty lucky with most of our equipment whilst we’ve been here.
A few issues with the satellite and internet system have been sorted out, and we are managing to get some of that Planet Earth gloss on the films through our use of cable dollies and jib arms. Of course, we wouldn’t be anywhere without cameras, so for those of you who are interested in all things ‘technical’ here’s what we are using:
Gremlin even gets her own Facebook page
Panasonic P2 2700 – our main camera, allows slow motion
Canon XF305 – our sync camera for Gavin’s ramblings,
Canon XF105 – has IR (infra-red) capability for night material
Canon 5DmkIII - paired with a new 300 f2.8 this is taking the majority of stills, time lapses and some lovely video too
Canon 5DmkII – this has been converted to infra-red for night-time shots
Canon 7D – odd stills and video shots
Gopro HD hero – for those shots only gopro can get
It’s a long list! But there’s some great tools for getting great pictures! Stay tuned…
Local information about Planet Earth Live:
UK
South Africa
Asia
Nordic
Poland
India
Latin America
Australia
New Zealand
Italy
