Hobbies & InterestsHistoryE-museum launched to celebrate wildlife film memories and milestones. E-museum launched to celebrate wildlife film memories and milestones.
09/04/2008
David Attenborough’s romp with wild gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda has become one of television’s most memorable moments.
But how many viewers realise not only that it almost wasn’t filmed but that, even after it had been, the footage was almost lost in a jungle shoot-out?
The real story about the sequence’s shaky beginnings is among the scores of surprising anecdotes that have just become available online following the launch by the Bristol-based charity of WildFilmHistory – an e-museum of wildlife film memories and milestones.
The free-to-view collection – at the website linked below – contains more than 150 landmark productions from the first 100 years of the wildlife film-making industry plus over 90 hours of videotaped interviews with industry pioneers.
Among the interviewees is cameraman Martin Saunders, who accompanied Sir David on the now famous LIFE ON EARTH shoot to Dian Fossey’s remote Rwandan gorilla sanctuary and worked on many other award-winning BBC series.
He relates that he was getting worryingly low on film by the time the gorillas began to play and that the producer was anxious to keep enough back to record the chief reason for the expedition – to show how primates use their thumbs in much the same way as humans.
“I was actually told not to film it,” says Martin, but he found the scenes too mesmerising to heed the request. “I think that what was forgotten was how incredible it was - that we were actually there, in the wild, in the rain-forest of Rwanda, with a wild family of gorillas, and there they were rolling around with David! I told the producer: ‘I've really got to film this” and he said, “oh all right - run 100 feet on it”.
Even then, the film almost didn’t make it to the screen. On their way to the airport, the crew was shot at by armed militia then ordered to open up all their equipment cases for inspection. Fearful that his precious film would be exposed and ruined, Martin switched the labels on the canisters while David Attenborough diverted the attention of the men with guns.
It has taken the Wildscreen team more than two years to find, collect and cross-reference the oral histories, films, photographs and books that make up the WildFilmHistory collection and which date back to 1895.
Other contributions to the site feature Oliver Pike (1900s), the extraordinary Martin and Osa Johnson (1920s), Cherry Kearton (1930s), Armand and Michaela Denis, (1950s & 60s), Johnny Morris (1960s & 70s), Lord (Aubrey) Buxton, the founder of Survival Anglia, Desmond Morris and, of course, Sir David Attenborough himself.
One of the e-museum’s biggest fans is naturalist Nick Baker, whose appearance’s on THE REALLY WILD SHOW, NICK’S QUEST and NICK BAKER’S WEIRD CREATURES makes him a leader of the new generation of wildlife presenters.
He says: “This is a terrific resource for everyone who enjoys watching wildlife films or is interested in the history of popular television. The collection includes many of the people and programmes that inspired me to get in on the action! The very early stuff is especially amazing – sometimes because it is incredible what the filmmakers were able to do within the limits of the day and occasionally because what they thought it was okay to do is just jaw-droppingly awful by modern standards!”
Curator, Derek Kilkenny-Blake adds: “WildFilmHistory is important because, until now, there’s been no centralised, cross-referenced, readily-accessible collection of materials about an aspect of cultural life that is relevant worldwide but especially in Britain – a dominant force in the industry ever since it began. There’s increasing interest in such materials because of the insights they offer into changing tastes and values. By bringing them together, we safeguard records which otherwise might be lost.
Additional materials from the collection, including books, equipment and footage, can also be accessed, by appointment, at Wildscreen’s headquarters, The Rackhay, Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol, BS1 4HJ.