There was a touch of getting the band back together for the production of tonight’s Wildlife Rescue on Channel 4, as many of us had worked on multiple series... Read more
There was a touch of getting the band back together for the production of tonight’s Wildlife Rescue on Channel 4, as many of us had worked on multiple series of The Secret Life of the Zoo for Blast Films. Like SLOTZ we had blue chip natural history ambitions on a Channel 4 8pm budget, with the aim not to make a standard fly-on-the-wall documentary series about the people that work with the animals but to make the animals themselves the protagonists and tell emotive stories about their lives, and in this case their survival, from their own POV.
Like The Secret Life of the Zoo a combination of top notch natural history photography, big close-ups, rigged and hidden cameras put viewers slap bang in the middle of the action, and sensitively produced characterful master interviews with the dedicated staff and volunteers help to really empathise with the animals in their life or death situations. Unlike SLOTZ though, these animals are wild and they need to be rehabilitated quickly and set free so that they stay wild. There was no returning for pick-ups like we could at Chester Zoo, the location team (expertly led by SP @PipBanyard) had to capture every shot of the story then and there - particularly challenging during rescue and releases - wild animals don’t hang around for second takes.
Back in the edit, really interrogating the thousands of hours of rushes to find the shots and actuality to tell the best possible stories was essential, tight unobtrusive voiceover scripting aims to lift the storytelling further and provide an important element of natural history takeaway, and a wonderful original score from composer Paul Honey was the final layer that hopefully creates the compelling drama we were striving for. Fingers crossed we hit the sweet spot…..
Always a privilege to work on these kinds of specialist factual series - hopefully there remains a place for them in this fast changing TV landscape.
WILDLIFE RESCUE, Thursdays 8pm, Channel 4.
@Blast Films @TVC Soho @SamBarnes @DanCross @EmmaBowen @JonathanShaw @RicLindley @AlistairMayes @RichardHughes
Like The Secret Life of the Zoo a combination of top notch natural history photography, big close-ups, rigged and hidden cameras put viewers slap bang in the middle of the action, and sensitively produced characterful master interviews with the dedicated staff and volunteers help to really empathise with the animals in their life or death situations. Unlike SLOTZ though, these animals are wild and they need to be rehabilitated quickly and set free so that they stay wild. There was no returning for pick-ups like we could at Chester Zoo, the location team (expertly led by SP @PipBanyard) had to capture every shot of the story then and there - particularly challenging during rescue and releases - wild animals don’t hang around for second takes.
Back in the edit, really interrogating the thousands of hours of rushes to find the shots and actuality to tell the best possible stories was essential, tight unobtrusive voiceover scripting aims to lift the storytelling further and provide an important element of natural history takeaway, and a wonderful original score from composer Paul Honey was the final layer that hopefully creates the compelling drama we were striving for. Fingers crossed we hit the sweet spot…..
Always a privilege to work on these kinds of specialist factual series - hopefully there remains a place for them in this fast changing TV landscape.
WILDLIFE RESCUE, Thursdays 8pm, Channel 4.
@Blast Films @TVC Soho @SamBarnes @DanCross @EmmaBowen @JonathanShaw @RicLindley @AlistairMayes @RichardHughes
