Instant Genius - Filming a Dynasty - Nick Lyon

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

The latest Sir David Attenborough-narrated BBC Natural History Unit Landmark Series is called Dynasties, and it tracks power struggles within animal groups. We talk to Nick Lyon, the producer of an episode about Zimbabwe’s Painted Wolves, to see how he captured an incredible fight for dominance in the wild.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit namea audio.com to learn more. You don't find them the sort of getting at 3 in the morning and you know you could be driving all day just looking for tracks. You have to pretend to yourself that you'll find them, even though deep down you know that you didn't see them yesterday or the day before. You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Focus magazine team. We're the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world.

Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello and welcome to the Science Focus podcast. I'm Alexander McNamara, online editor at BBC Focus magazine. Animal communities are often hierarchical, with an alpha male or female controlling the pack. The new BBC Natural History's Unit landmark series, Dynasties, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, tracks the power struggles that establish those hierarchies. Following five species and five episodes, it asks, who's at the top? What do they have to do to get there? and who's lurking behind the bushes threatening to topple them off their throne?

In this episode, we're talking to Nick Lyon, an experienced natural history filmmaker who produced an episode of the series about painted wolves. With his team, he tracked several packs of painted wolves at Manapult's National Park in northern Zimbabwe for more than 500 days, and witnessed an amazing power struggle between the mother and her daughter. He's talking to us about the behaviour he filmed in Zimbabwe that he'd never seen before, what it takes to create a powerful natural history story and how to gain the trust of wild animals.

Here's Nick Lyon, talking to BBC Focus editorial assistant, Helen Glennie. Nick, you were part of the filming for the new BBC Natural History Unit Landmarked series this year, and it's a show called Dynasties. And much like Planet 2 and Blue Planet 2, it's presented by David Attenborough. So can you tell me about dynasties? What did the show focus on? well I directed the painted wolf episode and so

to kind of fall in with the concept of dynasties we were trying to look for a big family that was about we'd imagine we'd have some kind of change of leadership within the duration of filming the great thing about this series is that we've spent normally with our landmarks

we might spend three or four weeks in a single location if we're really lucky we get to go back there for a second shoot. But with this, we had 11 trips to Zimbabwe, so we got to know the animals very well because it spanned out over a long period of time, then we could identify a situation that was likely to lead to an interesting story. So that's what, that was a kind of defining reason

why we chose our location for the painted walls in Zimbabwe because the matriarch of them three packs was getting very old. we thought there was a story to be had there. We kind of always thought of dynasties as potentially kind of allowing us to have almost a game of Thrones sort of thing. So the situation was set up before we arrived that, so Tate is our central character. She's the old matriarch and she is mother to two neighbouring alphas, Black Tiff and Janet. Janet doesn't feature in the film, but when we went out there, we were filming both,

because these aren't scripted. We don't know what's going to happen, so we have to kind of cover all our bases to begin with. And as the story evolved in front of us, then we could narrow our focus as we saw where it was coming from. But certainly Black Tip jumped out as a front run of very early in filming because her pack,

and there wasn't really enough space for her anymore, and her only option was to... Yeah, it sounds fascinating. How did you know that that was going to take place? Did you know about these characters and about this family structure before you went out there? Well, we didn't know. that was going to happen, but we knew the full background of the painted wolves because

our insight and introducing us to all the characters in Marla Falls, the dynastic element we were looking for. Great. And do you know where the idea for Dynasties came from? Do you know how that was generated in the first place? That, I think, was our executive producer, Mike Gunton. I think he was just looking to do something a bit different because we haven't done a single species in this way for maybe 20 years and certainly technology's moved on massively

since then. So we really haven't done anything like this at all before at the BBC. So it was a great opportunity. I think everyone jumped at the opportunity to spend that much time with individual animals because it's really the dream project. It's rare to be able to get under the skin of your subjects so much. And in the end, we just became part of the pack. So can you tell me a bit about how the filming changes when you're just filming one single species? What are the challenges and what are the really good things about focusing on that one species? I mean, I guess the biggest difference is when you're doing sequence work, which is, you know, like the planet Earth, where you hop around from place to place

and you show little vignettes of behaviour. It's a very different framing to how you shoot things. Because you basically work out the best time of year, the best location to see 8.000. specific behavior, be it courtship or rearing offspring. And so you've got all sorts of pointers and cues as to when you should go, how long you need to go for, and you know exactly what you want to get. You can't always guarantee you to get it because it's wildlife, but you've got a very strong idea.

Whereas with this, it was very different because we were going there to tell the true story of these animals' lives. So there's no scripting, and you basically have to be filming everything. Because you don't really know at the beginning what's going to happen or certainly who's going to rise to the fore in your story because we, you know, for example, with tape, we were pretty certain she would not survive the film, but we did not know how things could have pan out at all. And actually, what happened was very unexpected and quite dramatic. And the animals that rose and the four were, you know, again, it was total

curveball and surprise and the only way we managed to cover it properly was the fact that we've been covering all the individuals in the pack from day one. So we had that backstory in place. So it's a very different, you know, that's a huge challenge to know that you're having to cover all the animals because you literally don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, so you mentioned that you did 11 trips out to Zimbabwe

to capture this. How long are those trips? How many filming days did you end up having overall? I think we had 669 kind of crew days in the field and what was that in filming days? I think we worked out it was 585 filming days 585 filming days.

That's amazing. Is that more, is that significantly more than you'd normally get on this sort of show? It's not necessarily more than you get for a show of this scale. It's just, it's the focus in one single area that's incredible. And what you always find when you go on these filming shoots is you have a,

you have quite a steep learning curve. So you tend to find that your rate of acquisition of useful shots really starts to peak towards the end. And then you go to a different location, a new story, you have to start that learning curve again, whereas a brilliant thing about this is, you know, we, we could build on that learning curve every time we came back. So we weren't starting from square one. were in a much stronger position

and the animals just got to trust us more and more so our encounters with them became a lot closer and they were not distracted by anything that we were doing so we were able to introduce new bits of kit to them that we didn't previously think we'd be able to if we'd just been there for three weeks

I wouldn't have put a drone up but by the ninth shoot they were so used to anything we did that we showed them the drone we put it in the air and they were super chill I didn't even look at it and they never looked at it.

It's quite amazing. How do you, when you go out on your first shoot for a particular species, where do you start? Can you tell us a bit about the first day of filming what you try and do then? Well, it will all depend on what type, you know, what animal you're doing. And they're all different, and there's very different ways of approaching them. But with the painted wolves, our big inn for them was our guide, Nick Murray, because he's known them for so long and he's known to take a whole life. that she's incredibly trusting of him

and it was Nick that introduced us to Tate it's very much a kind of friend of my friend so there was already a level of trust transferred from her trust for Nick and then to us and then that just developed over time as we I mean because we had to get a lot closer than Nick needed to

for his purposes he's often set quite a long way back just watching them but for what we need to do and get these really intimate filming opportunities. We had to get closer and closer over time, but we did it very gradually. But I guess the whole thing is based on respect and trust from day one. So when you first meet the animals, you have to make sure that you're respectful

and you are constantly responding to their cues because you don't want to upset them because that just ruins the relationship. It's all about them being 100% secure. around you that you're not going to do anything weird. Yeah, so how long does a bond like that take to form? How long do you think it took before they were really comfortable with you guys? They were pretty relaxed with this evening.

They go out hunting, and so they always leave a babysitter. I was looking around, I couldn't really see anyone. I just to see where the baby ends. That was the moment where I thought, okay, the trust has got to that level, big shift. That's incredible. That kind of sounds like Tate also knew that you'd been there long enough that you'd learned how to be a babysitter. And you had, you knew what you had to do.

It's really interesting. Definitely not so extraordinary your eye and you'd know who it was by the way they moved. Yeah, that sort of suggests a level of kind of recognition and getting to know each other that probably most of us have only ever experienced with other humans. Other humans or pets, I would say. Yeah. I mean, I would say that was the best thing about dynasty, the fact that it's... Yeah, so when you are doing shows like this, do you end up sort of exploring dead-end?

Do you ever have shoots where you go and you try and find a pick of animals and you can't find them, or they're not cooperative or anything like that? Yes, it does happen. I don't think I've ever had a failed, I've never had a failed sequence. But as I was just saying, my second shoot on Venestys was incredibly tough. It was a month-long shoot, and we had 16-hour days every day, and we spent a total of two hours with our subjects. Over the course of the whole month.

Yeah. Wow. And yeah, it's funny because when you find the animals and you're filming, of course it's still tiring, but it's enough to keep you going. You can kind of live off adrenaline and fumes for a while, even if you're kind of empty in the tank. But when you don't find them, the sort of getting up at 3 in the morning and you know you're going to go.

be driving all day just looking for tracks. You have to pretend to yourself that you'll find them even though deep down you know that you didn't see them yesterday or the day before or the day before. And that's when it can get grueling. But

we managed to push through that and by third shoot and again, the third shoot was by no means of certainty because the only certainty we had in our location was Tate was very unusual that she dended in the same dens every year, the same three dens in the same order.

And so we knew that we had that guaranteed access to the puppies, except what we hadn't counted on was Black Tick coming in and booting her off her territory. So by the time it came around for puppies, we didn't know where, you know, we did not know where Tate was, and we had to issue park-wide searches. And I think the, I think our trackers, walked every corner of the park and they did that for three or four weeks solid to find this Tate's den. It was incredible work by them.

But if they hadn't found it, that was cutoff point. And I think it came to maybe two days before the shoot when we finally got the call that they'd found the dens. And otherwise, we were to pull the cord in there and that might have been the show abandoned. Yeah, and that's amazing because surely Black Tip coming in is

great for drama, but at least that drama doesn't mean much if you don't manage to catch her it on camera. Yeah, it's an exciting moment, but then it all dawned on, it's like, oh dear. I also, our camp was located right next to where Tate normally den, but suddenly she'd been booted two hours away.

So it made our day a lot longer. We had to get up even earlier, drive in the dark, and try and find them while it was still dark, because they're so kind of corpuscular, you know, dawn and dusk that you really need to be with them before the light comes up. So it meant very, very long days because we basically had a commute built in as well.

So you mentioned that you got to know the characters quite well. You could recognise the animals based on how they moved and things like that. It seems like these Natural History Unit landmark series are really heavily storyline-based and very character-based, and that's one of the things that makes them so interesting. So how do you establish those characters? How do you figure out the relationships between the characters and the characters? why they're behaving the way they are? Well, a lot of it for me was just purely observation.

And because we're filming everything, when I start to see patterns, I can go back into the rushes and analyze exactly who was doing what, when. And also, all our rushes were geotagged. So you'll see maps in the film. And the idea came about because I started plotting the key events using all the GPS tracking points. And so I was able to build these kind of territorial boundaries

and see how they shifted over time. But it was, yeah, it's just a lot of thinking about the subject all the time. It was kind of an all-consuming project for me for four years. So, yeah, it's observation and next help. You know, once we established who was who, then it was very clear what was going on. Yeah, so do these picks of painted wolves have a really defined hierarchy that you knew about beforehand. Like, do they all fit within the same sort of patterns?

I mean, they're very egalitarian, but they do have an alpha male and female. And what really defines the role of the alpha male and female is they're the sole breeding pair within the pack. And everyone else helps rear the puppies. But beyond that, it's incredibly sharing anyone, gets injured, they look after them. As tape was getting older, they were just feeding her. They are very, very family-oriented.

It's just a lovely animal to hang around with because they're so kind to each other. And that might sound weird, but I've worked with animals that can be quite tough for each other and to spend so much time with animals that really look after each other and get excited about the puppies. They're just a joyful animal to play with. Is there anyone in the pack that's sort of bottom of the rung and doesn't really get treated well? Not, no, not in our packs, not that I noticed. I mean, occasionally when the puppies are little, they'll pick on one for a bit,

but it did seem to move around a bit. I didn't really see any bullying or there weren't any outcasts in our packs. It was all very inclusive. And throughout the course of filming, it sounds like you had a really good knowledge of or you and your team had a good knowledge of what the painted wolves do, how they behave. Did you see anything that you didn't expect? Yes, I won't tell you all of them. But one thing we saw that the science books say doesn't even happen is Black Tits Pack started to hunt baboons about six months into filming.

Very unusual behaviour. It's even leopards, who people often associate as being baboon hunters, left it's actively... Wow, so why did they make that change? This is my picture. Picking up a dry season seemed to actually be higher. And while you were there, was the dry season drier than usual? Is this a response to a new environmental pressure?

No. These animals, you know, your wildlife filming, these animals aren't going to do exactly what you want them to do. And presumably, you don't catch everything that they do. So how much artistic license do you employ post-production. Can you sort of patch bits together that recreate things that you miss? You know, what's that? Is there a trade-off that you try and stick to between accuracy and storytelling? Well, we made a very simple rule at the beginning of this production, which was to say

if we ever say a character's name, it has to be that character. It does mean that sometimes you can't necessarily show a sequence that you'd like to do. Yeah, and I guess if you guys had that experience where you start to recognize them as individuals, then it's nice to be able to give the audience the chance to get to know them that well as well, even though, you know, the audience has a very short amount of time with them. But I mean, every time one of them came on the screen, she could tell me who they were. Brilliant. Can you give us that description?

She doing it on the website, actually. There's no white markings on it. She has almost no white on it. She has a very small black tip on her tail. That's where her name comes from. But it's Phyllis. Tell me a little bit about how you guys film the pack. when they're on the move compared to how you film them when they're stationary?

Like what sort of equipment are you using? Well, we mean we had tons for most of the time and you don't want that. They're going to go and try and get a, okay, I think they're about to go hunting. You could drive five kilometers away. And you imagine they could go and freight down the lens. And often they'd run either side of us. You know, they were so used to us that they wouldn't. I think they actively buy by sometimes.

It was just part of their fun. And how do you think the painted wolves interpreted you guys? What do you think they thought you were doing? I really couldn't say. I think they must have following them endlessly and not taking their food. Because they're often trailed by hyenas, but hyenas are always there napping their food, whereas we were just for months and years. Yeah, do you think that your presence there ever changed their behaviour? And if it did, do you take steps to mitigate that?

well the first thing I would say on that is we weren't what we found was we weren't habituating them to people they habituated to us as individuals and we were also very careful because you know they trusted us so much that we could get as close as we liked but obviously working in a place where there's tourists we never wanted the tourists to kind of see what we were doing and think it would be acceptable for them to try and do it so we'd back off the animals massively if we saw tourists about simply because we'd we didn't want humans who didn't have that relationship with the animal trying to push it and interfere with their hunting.

No, I don't think we're very dramatic moments. You mentioned that Manipols, this area that you were filming in, has quite a few tourists around. Can you describe the area to us? What's it, what do you use for? Well, it's a national park and a UNESCO-Wazi River. At the other side of the Zambezi's about our storytelling, because there's a really good kind of diversity of animals there. Yeah, what's the, how accessible is it?

How can people go in and see the area? The film might not make it seem so, but... Yeah, and did you look at the human impact on these animals at all? It's not within the main narrative of the film. There's, as we allude to it a little bit because... Yeah, so you've told us a little bit about when you guys ended up being left with the cubs at a den, Apart from that, did you have a favourite filming experience that really stands out? I mean, there's so many.

Companies are mobile. Once they've left it down and they're just exploring the world for the first time. They're just so much fun. They're so cute. And near the end of filming and playing all sorts of students. Awesome. And in terms of the filming techniques that you use and the technologies, what's new in Dynasties?

Is the new technology that you're employing now that you hadn't worked with before? I wouldn't say it's radically new but infrared or thermal I mean we do have we have a thermal sequence in the film which is really amazing like it's in the daylight but it actually happened after sunset its cameras we just would have missed that whole encounter we just seen it with our eye but better than our eyes

I mean that that phase took over again but it was just giving us that I guess about extra half an hour of light and filmable light particularly if money and technology were no barrier, what filming projects would you want to pursue? I've always wanted to something up on the Tibetan plateau.

I'd like to do and snow leopard. That would be a good story. I would love to do that. Cool. And what do you think is next in wildlife filming with technology developing and techniques developing? What are we going to see in the future that's going to be different?

It's, you know, it's hard to predict. I remember when the first drones came out and they were just crashing and they seemed so uncontrollable and the quality was really bad and I was thinking do these things really at the future and now I'd say the best shot in my whole program

is from a drone it's just an incredible shot and and it's things like that just open up new possibilities because once you've got to drone to do something you can actually get it to do small moves

so suddenly you don't need to think about taking a heavy crane out to location because you can just get the drones and do the motion of the crane that you would you were doing a reveal shot and suddenly the kick gets a lot smaller so you can it's kind of subtle shifts that allow you

to think about things quite differently and will transform the look of your shows if we were to get silent drones again that would that would open up a lot of new possibilities because at the moment the drones could be quite noisy and it was fine for the painted walls because they trusted us so much that they knew that that was part of us but you have to be careful you know you can't use a drone on every

species because the noise it makes so you have to you have to be very respectful of each individual animal's reaction to your presence and what equipment you're using and you have to use appropriate equipment. So a silent drone would be a great thing for us, I think. Yeah, so you mentioned that favourite shot that you got was from a drone. Can you describe that shot to us? What were you capturing there? The funny thing was that this was operated. There was two researchers who were very, very talented. And so they kind of work on my editorial team. And they being cast perfectly sideways, a little thin line, you've got each animal running in a line. And it's also then they have to be

running at the right orientation to the sun to get it. It was a really important part in the film as well. That was Nick Lyon talking about filming Painted Wolves for the new BBC series Dynasties, which you can watch this Sunday at 8.30pm on BBC 1. Previous episodes can be streamed on BBC Eye Player. Thank you for listening to the Science Focus podcast. In our December issue, we dig deep into the surface of Mars

and explore what NASA's Insight mission could help us discover about the structure of the red planet. We also investigate how nuclear fusion could provide us with unlimited energy and what will happen once the International Space Station ceases operation. The magazine is available now, and there is, of course, much more inside. And remember, if you like what you hear, then please rate to review and share with anybody you think might enjoy our podcast. Also, if there is anybody you would like us to speak to, or a topic you want us to cover, then let us know on Twitter at Science Focus.

Thank you for listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Focus magazine team. We're the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at ScienceFocus.com. We'll look out for us in your app store. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have. digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal,

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