[Music]
since 2012 we have been based in savuti
I just want to walk you through the
reason why we ended up there and how
that kind of led into the making of
savage Kingdom Botswana is a landlocked
country right in the heart of southern
Africa Chobe National Park is in the
northeastern corner and it’s a
particularly dry and fairly arid in
violent environment it’s a almost semi
desert and what that really means is
that water is always at a premium
especially in the dry season but savetti
was a particularly interesting place in
that the river that flowed into that
area is an ephemeral River and it only
flows for 20 years in every hundred its
name it translates as unpredictable
because and it’s apt because nobody
really knows when it will arrive or when
it will disappear again
now that unpredictability is due to a
number of events the catchment area
where the rain falls it flows down into
that area is about a thousand kilometres
away and honest long journey getting
there it has to break through several
fault lines and these fault lines
sometimes block the flow and sometimes
release it and then so really being so
dry and arid it relies quite heavily and
also the microclimate surround the area
if there’s good rainfall around savuti
and in the dry riverbed leading up to
savuti all of those factors come
together and only then does the river
actually flow into this into this area
when it does reach savuti and when it
flows into that area it empties out into
the bed of an old ancient lake and
really just brings that back to life it
forms this incredible oasis in the
middle of the desert and
when it’s at its full savuti is probably
one of the most incredible wildlife
habitats habitat that would rival any of
the wildlife habitat great wall of
habitats we have in Africa when I was a
child I saw the drying up of that
channel it disappeared completely and
that was 35 years ago but it did return
and in 2008 the river flowed back into
Seville in 2012 once the area had
responded somewhat we decided to move
our entire filming operation into savuti
for obvious reasons after several years
of being there we did two films on lions
film on on a leopard family in 2014 we
started to see that the area was
starting to dry out all those factors
that enabled it to flow slowly sort of
went out of sync and a big drying up
process was beginning we started
noticing that a lot of the herds the the
big herds that had gathered there just
started to naturally move off literally
to greener pastures and that presented a
problem for the Predators now the
Predators were stuck in that habitat
they were bound by their territorial
boundaries they couldn’t leave they were
sort of thrust into the situation and I
very soon started to recognize that this
incredible storm was brewing we had a
number of predator families that were
being forced into an untenable situation
they were being pushed and forced in top
of each other and that really was the
premise in the seed that pushed forward
the whole concept for the savage kingdom
itself what was going to happen when
Africa’s top predators were thrust into
a confined area
and most of their resources were going
to be taken away let’s have a peek one
Kingdom fire from heroes each whether
you need the power
[Applause]
fighting not just to survive but to
reign supreme over the Savage Kingdom
[Music]
tonight I’m going to walk you through
sort of round one the first season of
civilities own real-life Game of Thrones
season of diminishing habitat and a
number of predator families that were
literally fighting to survive and exist
in that particular area from the onset
we knew that this was not going to be an
easy ride these groups of predators were
were being forced into this real really
untenable situation and it wasn’t going
to be a story about Bambi’s and rainbows
knowing the knowing the circumstance and
wanting to be true to that whole dynamic
we were really determined to to capture
life as it unfolded in front of us no
matter how harsh and brutal and and and
difficult it became I have a bugbear
about natural history films that
sanitized predators and what they do I
think that people overlook there are
predators and they doing what is so
natural it’s it’s not for us to to to
pull away from it and I think that the
more that you pull away from the reality
of what they do the less you care for
them the less you buy into their lives
and emotionally invest in them we were
determined to you know show a sort of
honest account of the way these
predators really live and affected by
people no human pressure was involved
just a purely natural circumstance that
was playing out and how hard each one of
these predators had to fight it just in
order to to survive before we go into
more about the savage Kingdom and the
dynamic like to introduce the the team
that that helped me film this obviously
we had several family groups to to
follow we had two prides of lion wild
dog
leopard mother and a clan of hyenas and
so we needed multiple crews if we were
going to embed in the area and have a
crew per animal family this is rich he
is my right-hand man who Jeff was
talking about he’s a childhood friend
and he’s our longest-serving cameraman
and then there’s a crazy kid
crazy American kid he’s from LA he gave
up his life in the city and decided to
move out into the wilds with us very
passionate very driven and lovely lovely
guy
then there’s Laurence is my cousin
That’s not me
he is a Botswana bred bush-rat kind of
like I am and the adjusting for him
adjusting to living out in the wilds and
the bush skill is quite came very easily
to him is a great asset to the team
and then there was long tall fan cam who
is a bit of a wiry Australian guy and I
knew him for about 20 years and I knew
at home in ours he didn’t really bath
every day anyway so him joining us you
know it have been such an easy
transition for him I want to start by
saying that being a cameraman for the
nhf view for us it’s very much modeled
on what I learn to do and how I grew up
and it’s quite a difficult job you know
if it is always your life it comes
naturally but for guys who not used to
it it’s quite a task you have to be
Bushmen tracker you have to be cook you
have to be pretty much everything and
then you’ve got on top of that you’ve
got to spend month on end living out in
the wild just following and endlessly
following animals month on just keep
going and it takes a very specific type
of character to to do that I think
fundamentally you have to be a an animal
lover if your enthusiasm is about
animals and following your story and
loving their behavior the camera kind of
comes
secondary as long as you can do that you
can spend the amount of time that you
need to to to get what you want it
wasn’t all just lying around it you know
it it was long hours you know lions used
to they sleep for most of their lives
you know they eighty percent of their
time their sleep you you will spend days
watching them sleep just to capture a 15
minute piece of interaction on the
fourth day and it’s quite exhausting and
you have to be fairly comfortable in
your life and clearly cam you can see
you wasn’t showering anyway
but there’s a point in which everybody
starts to go a little bit crazy and you
start having your own little ducky drama
in the car you sort of fight wars and
you do all sorts of thing and everybody
at some point just gets a little bit
manic and a little bit crazy and start
doing some particularly stupid things
particularly can everybody seems to lose
the plot at some point but you know very
quickly we regain it and you know kick
them in line and they start focusing on
the job again one of the things that is
is so important to getting a behavior
and in working with these animals that
you’ve got to get these animals to
really trust you we had been there for
three years before the savage Kingdom
started and a lot of these animals
really started to become acclimated to
us and as you can see they they would
use our cars shade so often that’s how
comfortable they became with us and it’s
important thing to to do with animals
that they can play out their normal
lives without you feeling like you’re
influencing them only then can we really
immerse ourselves into their lives and
let them just get on with it
unencumbered now you some of you would
have noticed that our cars we paint with
zebra stripes I know it’s the Botswana
national animal
but we really do that because it’s cool
we young we hip we want to be different
and we want to be noticed you know most
of that’s luxury the only thing that is
true about that is that we do want to be
noticed most animals and predators only
see in black and white and there are a
lot of other vehicles that would come
through that area tourists would be
traveling through and what we wanted to
do is make ourselves instantaneously
recognizable to the characters that we
were working with that they could at a
glance know that we were there and they
trusted us and they were completely
comfortable with us having around and
they knew that we weren’t going to
impede on their lives while they’re
hunted and what they did and it so often
happened where we would be working with
the leopards she would go and should lie
down in the tree it’s getting a bit hot
she’d given up hunting for the day and
should get up and would be 80 90 meters
away from there should get up and should
literally walk straight to the car crawl
underneath her car and go to sleep or
lie right next to us they would choose
to come to us they sort of trusted us
enough and it was just an indication of
how well that plan works and how
accustomed they were to us and us being
around from a childhood fascination with
predators to a adults familiarity with
predators Andy and I were talking
recently and in the past 20 years or so
I’ve spent more time with predators than
I have with people I am fascinated about
the level of intelligence I am
completely passionate about spending
time with these animals
each one of them develop each species
develops a unique skillset that they use
in very different ways to each other and
even beyond that in specific individuals
will actually develop a skill set that
is specific to that particular animal
that is just an indication of the level
of intelligence that these animals have
and that’s what really drives me the
fact that I can be with predators off in
the field they adapt they change they
anticipate and there’s nothing more
exciting that knowing that at any point
in the day at any time that animal may
do something that nobody has ever
witnessed before nobody’s ever seen
before
and that’s really what drives me and
what keeps me out there and keeps me
wanting to be with these animals now for
some slightly more serious side to this
whole thing the one one thing that all
these predators have in common is they
have to kill in order to live it’s
exhilarating it’s it’s exciting it’s a
very primal almost gladiatorial kind of
instinct that they have and I really go
back to this point day I really feel
that people are very quick to judge and
I don’t shy away from it I think that we
have to get accustomed to the reality of
their lives and embrace it and and and
know that it’s completely natural it’s
not gratuitous it’s not it’s not for any
other reason than just pure survival and
it’s very natural and I think we should
become more and more accepting to it I
don’t think that I mean how he is as you
know have got a really bad rap and
there’s some time referred to as evil
and some time researchers as horrible
bad but you know it’s it’s not for us to
to lay that on them that’s a human
construct they’re just doing what they
are naturally designed to do they what
they’re born to do to survive
so Game of Thrones Jeff alluded to it
and what the comparison with that was we
were in a finite environment we had a
series of different clans that were
fighting it out to take ownership or
just to exist or to own that piece of
land and when we were trying to explain
this concept to people the minute we you
know reference Game of Thrones day it
became a shorthand that understood
exactly what it was about and it became
a shorthand for us to try and explain
the whole concept and how we wanted to
treat this project we were after
predator conflict and that is certainly
what we got during our time with savage
Kingdom in 15 months of filming we saw
28 different war scenes where one clan
conflicted with another yeah one or
other combination of predators actually
came together and literally fought it
out for for ownership or for a kill or
for possession of a particular area and
the parallels between what was happening
there and gamma Thrones you can
obviously start to see that link so we
thought it was a particular stroke of
genius to ask Charles dance – he was one
of the leaders of one of the clans again
Thrones and we thought that bringing him
into narrated for us would really help
that concept and help their project
Charles was very intrigued by the way
that we want to treat it he really
supported it and was very interested in
the way and what we were trying to
achieve with this project
and during during the the narrating part
of it when in the studio he also seemed
to have quite a lot of fun let’s take a
take a look
I am life
I am deaf
I give everything but I’d take all
I am the savage Kingdom the old queen is
dead now the greatest hunter takes the
throne
she leads the most brutal army in the
realm
mat-su me
ah that was that
well I’m not doing it again
[Music]
Charles was great to work with we felt
that his voice had a lot of gravitas and
had a lot of gravitas to it and with
this skill he was able to add a lot of
nuance into the way that we wanted to
portray this film and also give it very
much a sort of feature feel to it in the
very much’ scripted drama type of
delivery that we were after
savage Kingdom really became a
perspective piece for us we are
following five different family groups
and each of the episodes we tried to
tell from that particular family’s point
of view so we’re buying into we wanted
the audience to associate with a heroine
with a character and a family and go on
their journey know what they wanted to
do what they ambition was their path in
life their struggle and at some point
they were going to cross with these
other predators and invert inadvertently
they became the enemy and then that all
gets turned on its head when you now
watch an episode that was from the
so-called enemies perspective and the
whole dynamic shifts we are not
comfortable with the whole
anthropomorphism idea and we try to
deliberately avoid it in a lot of our
films we feel that well the problem is
is that we still wanted people to
emotionally invest in your characters
invest in those people so invest in
those characters and invest in their
story so what we did is we introduced a
second person voice or a proxy voice
that we used as a sort of emotional
stare just to kind of navigate you
through the sort of what those animals
wanted the intent the instincts their
drive without actually being
anthropomorphic and we think it really
really worked and choles bought into
that idea really really well and he
executed it incredibly well we couldn’t
have asked for a
a better delivery from him an example of
that is you know Sabah who I’ll
introduce you to you shortly
one of our main characters she had a set
of Cubs and she used to leave them on
leopard rock and it was it acted as a
nursery for her cubs while she was up
hunting and just that drive with her
wanting to return to her cubs you know
that second person voice just gave you
that that anxiety and that drive and it
just helped you context your lives you
know their lives in human terms names a
lot of the names that we have adopted in
the film were names that already existed
for a lot of the characters out there
there are names that died in the area
and people frequenting those areas had
given them and most of the time they
were functional they earned their names
they were descriptive of their character
or of an area that they lived in or some
behavior trait
behavioral trait that they used to do it
definitely wasn’t a an idea to make them
into little people but it gave us the
shorthand to be able to identify with
individuals within this this greater
battle
[Music]
since 2012 we have been based in savuti
I just want to walk you through the
reason why we ended up there and how
that kind of led into the making of
savage Kingdom Botswana is a landlocked
country right in the heart of southern
Africa Chobe National Park is in the
northeastern corner and it’s a
particularly dry and fairly arid in
violent environment it’s a almost semi
desert and what that really means is
that water is always at a premium
especially in the dry season but savetti
was a particularly interesting place in
that the river that flowed into that
area is an ephemeral River and it only
flows for 20 years in every hundred its
name it translates as unpredictable
because and it’s apt because nobody
really knows when it will arrive or when
it will disappear again
now that unpredictability is due to a
number of events the catchment area
where the rain falls it flows down into
that area is about a thousand kilometres
away and honest long journey getting
there it has to break through several
fault lines and these fault lines
sometimes block the flow and sometimes
release it and then so really being so
dry and arid it relies quite heavily and
also the microclimate surround the area
if there’s good rainfall around savuti
and in the dry riverbed leading up to
savuti all of those factors come
together and only then does the river
actually flow into this into this area
when it does reach savuti and when it
flows into that area it empties out into
the bed of an old ancient lake and
really just brings that back to life it
forms this incredible oasis in the
middle of the desert and
when it’s at its full savuti is probably
one of the most incredible wildlife
habitats habitat that would rival any of
the wildlife habitat great wall of
habitats we have in Africa when I was a
child I saw the drying up of that
channel it disappeared completely and
that was 35 years ago but it did return
and in 2008 the river flowed back into
Seville in 2012 once the area had
responded somewhat we decided to move
our entire filming operation into savuti
for obvious reasons after several years
of being there we did two films on lions
film on on a leopard family in 2014 we
started to see that the area was
starting to dry out all those factors
that enabled it to flow slowly sort of
went out of sync and a big drying up
process was beginning we started
noticing that a lot of the herds the the
big herds that had gathered there just
started to naturally move off literally
to greener pastures and that presented a
problem for the Predators now the
Predators were stuck in that habitat
they were bound by their territorial
boundaries they couldn’t leave they were
sort of thrust into the situation and I
very soon started to recognize that this
incredible storm was brewing we had a
number of predator families that were
being forced into an untenable situation
they were being pushed and forced in top
of each other and that really was the
premise in the seed that pushed forward
the whole concept for the savage kingdom
itself what was going to happen when
Africa’s top predators were thrust into
a confined area
and most of their resources were going
to be taken away let’s have a peek one
Kingdom fire from heroes each whether
you need the power
[Applause]
fighting not just to survive but to
reign supreme over the Savage Kingdom
[Music]
tonight I’m going to walk you through
sort of round one the first season of
civilities own real-life Game of Thrones
season of diminishing habitat and a
number of predator families that were
literally fighting to survive and exist
in that particular area from the onset
we knew that this was not going to be an
easy ride these groups of predators were
were being forced into this real really
untenable situation and it wasn’t going
to be a story about Bambi’s and rainbows
knowing the knowing the circumstance and
wanting to be true to that whole dynamic
we were really determined to to capture
life as it unfolded in front of us no
matter how harsh and brutal and and and
difficult it became I have a bugbear
about natural history films that
sanitized predators and what they do I
think that people overlook there are
predators and they doing what is so
natural it’s it’s not for us to to to
pull away from it and I think that the
more that you pull away from the reality
of what they do the less you care for
them the less you buy into their lives
and emotionally invest in them we were
determined to you know show a sort of
honest account of the way these
predators really live and affected by
people no human pressure was involved
just a purely natural circumstance that
was playing out and how hard each one of
these predators had to fight it just in
order to to survive before we go into
more about the savage Kingdom and the
dynamic like to introduce the the team
that that helped me film this obviously
we had several family groups to to
follow we had two prides of lion wild
dog
leopard mother and a clan of hyenas and
so we needed multiple crews if we were
going to embed in the area and have a
crew per animal family this is rich he
is my right-hand man who Jeff was
talking about he’s a childhood friend
and he’s our longest-serving cameraman
and then there’s a crazy kid
crazy American kid he’s from LA he gave
up his life in the city and decided to
move out into the wilds with us very
passionate very driven and lovely lovely
guy
then there’s Laurence is my cousin
That’s not me
he is a Botswana bred bush-rat kind of
like I am and the adjusting for him
adjusting to living out in the wilds and
the bush skill is quite came very easily
to him is a great asset to the team
and then there was long tall fan cam who
is a bit of a wiry Australian guy and I
knew him for about 20 years and I knew
at home in ours he didn’t really bath
every day anyway so him joining us you
know it have been such an easy
transition for him I want to start by
saying that being a cameraman for the
nhf view for us it’s very much modeled
on what I learn to do and how I grew up
and it’s quite a difficult job you know
if it is always your life it comes
naturally but for guys who not used to
it it’s quite a task you have to be
Bushmen tracker you have to be cook you
have to be pretty much everything and
then you’ve got on top of that you’ve
got to spend month on end living out in
the wild just following and endlessly
following animals month on just keep
going and it takes a very specific type
of character to to do that I think
fundamentally you have to be a an animal
lover if your enthusiasm is about
animals and following your story and
loving their behavior the camera kind of
comes
secondary as long as you can do that you
can spend the amount of time that you
need to to to get what you want it
wasn’t all just lying around it you know
it it was long hours you know lions used
to they sleep for most of their lives
you know they eighty percent of their
time their sleep you you will spend days
watching them sleep just to capture a 15
minute piece of interaction on the
fourth day and it’s quite exhausting and
you have to be fairly comfortable in
your life and clearly cam you can see
you wasn’t showering anyway
but there’s a point in which everybody
starts to go a little bit crazy and you
start having your own little ducky drama
in the car you sort of fight wars and
you do all sorts of thing and everybody
at some point just gets a little bit
manic and a little bit crazy and start
doing some particularly stupid things
particularly can everybody seems to lose
the plot at some point but you know very
quickly we regain it and you know kick
them in line and they start focusing on
the job again one of the things that is
is so important to getting a behavior
and in working with these animals that
you’ve got to get these animals to
really trust you we had been there for
three years before the savage Kingdom
started and a lot of these animals
really started to become acclimated to
us and as you can see they they would
use our cars shade so often that’s how
comfortable they became with us and it’s
important thing to to do with animals
that they can play out their normal
lives without you feeling like you’re
influencing them only then can we really
immerse ourselves into their lives and
let them just get on with it
unencumbered now you some of you would
have noticed that our cars we paint with
zebra stripes I know it’s the Botswana
national animal
but we really do that because it’s cool
we young we hip we want to be different
and we want to be noticed you know most
of that’s luxury the only thing that is
true about that is that we do want to be
noticed most animals and predators only
see in black and white and there are a
lot of other vehicles that would come
through that area tourists would be
traveling through and what we wanted to
do is make ourselves instantaneously
recognizable to the characters that we
were working with that they could at a
glance know that we were there and they
trusted us and they were completely
comfortable with us having around and
they knew that we weren’t going to
impede on their lives while they’re
hunted and what they did and it so often
happened where we would be working with
the leopards she would go and should lie
down in the tree it’s getting a bit hot
she’d given up hunting for the day and
should get up and would be 80 90 meters
away from there should get up and should
literally walk straight to the car crawl
underneath her car and go to sleep or
lie right next to us they would choose
to come to us they sort of trusted us
enough and it was just an indication of
how well that plan works and how
accustomed they were to us and us being
around from a childhood fascination with
predators to a adults familiarity with
predators Andy and I were talking
recently and in the past 20 years or so
I’ve spent more time with predators than
I have with people I am fascinated about
the level of intelligence I am
completely passionate about spending
time with these animals
each one of them develop each species
develops a unique skillset that they use
in very different ways to each other and
even beyond that in specific individuals
will actually develop a skill set that
is specific to that particular animal
that is just an indication of the level
of intelligence that these animals have
and that’s what really drives me the
fact that I can be with predators off in
the field they adapt they change they
anticipate and there’s nothing more
exciting that knowing that at any point
in the day at any time that animal may
do something that nobody has ever
witnessed before nobody’s ever seen
before
and that’s really what drives me and
what keeps me out there and keeps me
wanting to be with these animals now for
some slightly more serious side to this
whole thing the one one thing that all
these predators have in common is they
have to kill in order to live it’s
exhilarating it’s it’s exciting it’s a
very primal almost gladiatorial kind of
instinct that they have and I really go
back to this point day I really feel
that people are very quick to judge and
I don’t shy away from it I think that we
have to get accustomed to the reality of
their lives and embrace it and and and
know that it’s completely natural it’s
not gratuitous it’s not it’s not for any
other reason than just pure survival and
it’s very natural and I think we should
become more and more accepting to it I
don’t think that I mean how he is as you
know have got a really bad rap and
there’s some time referred to as evil
and some time researchers as horrible
bad but you know it’s it’s not for us to
to lay that on them that’s a human
construct they’re just doing what they
are naturally designed to do they what
they’re born to do to survive
so Game of Thrones Jeff alluded to it
and what the comparison with that was we
were in a finite environment we had a
series of different clans that were
fighting it out to take ownership or
just to exist or to own that piece of
land and when we were trying to explain
this concept to people the minute we you
know reference Game of Thrones day it
became a shorthand that understood
exactly what it was about and it became
a shorthand for us to try and explain
the whole concept and how we wanted to
treat this project we were after
predator conflict and that is certainly
what we got during our time with savage
Kingdom in 15 months of filming we saw
28 different war scenes where one clan
conflicted with another yeah one or
other combination of predators actually
came together and literally fought it
out for for ownership or for a kill or
for possession of a particular area and
the parallels between what was happening
there and gamma Thrones you can
obviously start to see that link so we
thought it was a particular stroke of
genius to ask Charles dance – he was one
of the leaders of one of the clans again
Thrones and we thought that bringing him
into narrated for us would really help
that concept and help their project
Charles was very intrigued by the way
that we want to treat it he really
supported it and was very interested in
the way and what we were trying to
achieve with this project
and during during the the narrating part
of it when in the studio he also seemed
to have quite a lot of fun let’s take a
take a look
I am life
I am deaf
I give everything but I’d take all
I am the savage Kingdom the old queen is
dead now the greatest hunter takes the
throne
she leads the most brutal army in the
realm
mat-su me
ah that was that
well I’m not doing it again
[Music]
Charles was great to work with we felt
that his voice had a lot of gravitas and
had a lot of gravitas to it and with
this skill he was able to add a lot of
nuance into the way that we wanted to
portray this film and also give it very
much a sort of feature feel to it in the
very much’ scripted drama type of
delivery that we were after
savage Kingdom really became a
perspective piece for us we are
following five different family groups
and each of the episodes we tried to
tell from that particular family’s point
of view so we’re buying into we wanted
the audience to associate with a heroine
with a character and a family and go on
their journey know what they wanted to
do what they ambition was their path in
life their struggle and at some point
they were going to cross with these
other predators and invert inadvertently
they became the enemy and then that all
gets turned on its head when you now
watch an episode that was from the
so-called enemies perspective and the
whole dynamic shifts we are not
comfortable with the whole
anthropomorphism idea and we try to
deliberately avoid it in a lot of our
films we feel that well the problem is
is that we still wanted people to
emotionally invest in your characters
invest in those people so invest in
those characters and invest in their
story so what we did is we introduced a
second person voice or a proxy voice
that we used as a sort of emotional
stare just to kind of navigate you
through the sort of what those animals
wanted the intent the instincts their
drive without actually being
anthropomorphic and we think it really
really worked and choles bought into
that idea really really well and he
executed it incredibly well we couldn’t
have asked for a
a better delivery from him an example of
that is you know Sabah who I’ll
introduce you to you shortly
one of our main characters she had a set
of Cubs and she used to leave them on
leopard rock and it was it acted as a
nursery for her cubs while she was up
hunting and just that drive with her
wanting to return to her cubs you know
that second person voice just gave you
that that anxiety and that drive and it
just helped you context your lives you
know their lives in human terms names a
lot of the names that we have adopted in
the film were names that already existed
for a lot of the characters out there
there are names that died in the area
and people frequenting those areas had
given them and most of the time they
were functional they earned their names
they were descriptive of their character
or of an area that they lived in or some
behavior trait
behavioral trait that they used to do it
definitely wasn’t a an idea to make them
into little people but it gave us the
shorthand to be able to identify with
individuals within this this greater
battle
[Music]
Please follow and like us: