The clip can be found on my site here.

The shoot took place in September and October 2010 and the programme broadcast in the on Nat Geo Wild channel both in the UK and US in Autumn/Winter 2011/12.

The next screening in the UK is tomorrow, Friday 20th January at 4pm.

The shoot at the time was an incredibly enjoyable one and working with the Ammonite team, with their Starlight and Thermal imaging cameras was a great experience.  The trip was blogged extensively in my news section.  I was assigned the task of filming supportive daytime footage, to contrast the behaviour of leopards between daytime and nighttime, with some interesting results.

The box was already pre-assembled, so was pretty straightforward… found a place on her shed, luckily there is a plug inside the shed already so just had to drill a hole through for the camera power cable to get through.

The camera transmits its signal to a receiver, inside plugged into the television… All Mum now has to do is select channel AV3 and there it is… a view of inside the box from the comfort of the sofa.

This compliments a nice little wildlife friendly garden… what with an array of bird feeders and newly installed insect houses, this should be an attractive wildlife haven for years to come.  Good one Mum!

I’ll keep progress updated here if and when any inhabitants move in and begin making a nest come springtime!

Having spent half of last year away, filming for forthcoming Five series Tarsier Towers took priority and updating my showreels has taken a back seat.  But what better way to start the year than bringing things up to speed… with more still to come.  Over the coming weeks I have more recent work to showcase, including my contribution to Ammonite’s Night Stalkers series for Nat Geo Wild, from a three week shoot back in October 2011 in Sri Lanka; underwater work for a baby swimming lesson company; as well as the most important task of compiling my ‘best bits’ and refreshing my main showreel montage.

Happy New Year to all… May 2012 be the best yet!

First up, was a long anticipated return to the Bristol Media networking scene.  Having been away with Tarsier Towers in Indonesia for half of this year, I was keen to reestablish myself back in the city and start the process of reminding people who I am, what I do and all that… it can be a fickle industry!

I’ve been attending Bristol Media events since 2008 and always get a lot out of them.  Last night kicked off with a newly reformed TV Steering Group meeting; a number of industry heads to meet monthly to discuss and plan events to make the Bristol Media membership better value for money and to help attract more people from the TV industry to become members.

Lots of good ideas were brought up so watch this space over coming months to see what events emerge!  Any ideas for what events should be happening to keep Bristol at the cutting edge of the industry are most welcome… just e-mail me your thoughts and I’ll bring up in future meetings.

Once that had all wrapped up, people began arriving at Goldbrick House and soon the atmosphere was bustling as the free bubbly began disappearing.  The event reminded me what it was all about – easy to start conversations with like-minded people across a range of creative industries… very interesting and talented people in the city!

The main social event of the week, and the TV industry year is The Rough Assembly – Bristol Editors Christmas Party.  Always an awesome event and this year didn’t disappoint – absolutely superb and a must attend event every year.

I’d been coming to this event since about 2005 I think and have been most years, only missing for when out of the country filming.  Having been away for the last six months, it couldn’t have been better timing to have almost the whole industry – friends and colleagues from the past and present all in one place!  You couldn’t move without bumping into another familiar face and have a great catch up… Good seeing everyone I chatted to on the night.

Hats off to the organisers for moving fast and rearranging the venue at short notice when tickets sold out within four hours… Thank God as I’d missed out first time around!  A great show guys and have you considered setting up an equivalent summer barbecue event?!

Merry Christmas one and all… See you in 2012!

So much to absorb in the sessions, my head was bursting by the end of it but lots to take away and prepare for.  The talk of the town is the continued blurring edges of television and online content, merging more than ever before and I do see a future where no production is commissioned without fully thought out and planned additional web and media platforms as a package.

Also we are at the dawn of Connected TV becoming more a part of our lives and TV watching experience… look out next year for the next generation of boxes integrating broadcast schedules with online content… the changes are sweeping in fast, it should mean many more opportunities to collaborate and engage with the audience, but 2012 is looking to be a big year for multi-platform programme making, taking things to the next level.

Thank you Caroline Marshall and the team at Bristol Media for making it happen!

Since the launch of my new website I am now able to keep everyone up to date with news from the frontline on shoots and any events I will be organising or attending that may be of interest.

Keep checking back to see more.

Thanks to Balance Visual Communication for working with me to create my current branding and content managed website.  It amazing that part of his brain exists what with being a MMA fighter as well!?

Today was a big day… not only was it the opening day for the world’s biggest international wildlife film festival, all happening in my home town… but for me personally it was the day that two events that I’ve been working on and organising happened, so lots of prep work and organising still needed to be done to bring it all together!

Since July, I’ve been sourcing kit for the underwater camera workshops as well as sourcing people and stories for the opening night event at the Old Vic.  Unfortunately, the two events clashed and I was most needed to help for the logistics and delivery of the underwater workshops, so had to miss out on the event at the Old Vic… an evening entitled ‘The Moment My Heart Stopped’.  The evening involved showing clips and having filmmakers live on stage recounting their stories and showing footage of their most memorable moment and the line up looked something like this:

Alastair Fothergill, Casey Anderson, Didier Noirot, Sophie Darlington, Kim Wolhuter, Christian Baumeister, George McGavin, a VT clip of Sir David Attenborough (who is away filming in Madagascar), Martin Dohrn, Doug Allen and a song to close by Andy Brandy Casagrande IV.

Great line up, I’m sure all the delegates had a good time.

So the underwater camera workshop went pretty smoothly and with about £400K worth of equipment, everyone was in for a treat and there were a lot of toys to play with!

Doug Allen and Jeff Goodman led the beginners workshop, with an insight into breath hold diving by Diane Tanner. Hugh Miller and Mike Pitts led the way for the advanced workshop, so some great speakers who have been involved in so much of the high end underwater camerawork over recent years. The advanced workshop had the bonus of viewing some superb 3D footage courtesy of Yes No Productions’ Steve McNicholas (the person behind the show ‘Stomp’) and DJ Roller, an American filmmaker who made the trip over just to be present at the workshop!

Also present was Dave Blackham with a plethora of kit and owner of probably the newest piece of kit at Wildscreen, a Panasonic 3D camera (AG-3DA1) plus accompanying Gates housing, fresh from the States and probably the only such unit in the UK right now.

Other key contributors/suppliers on the day included Dan Stevenson and Neil Brock (Bristol Channel Diving Services) who demoed and gave an introduction into using rebreathers, plus the guys from Polecam came along to showcase their underwater system… it was a packed schedule and loads of points of interest and lots to get stuck into and share around.

Kit wise, we had three EX1-R’s plus Gates housings, a couple of Z1’s in Amphibico and Gates housings, and a little A1 for good measure…

I had the enjoyable task of filming the pool session, so brought along my trusty PD150 with Sea and Sea housing (Old School) to capture all the action. May well try and put something together and post it here before the week is out. It was a really good event to have been involved in and the support team did a great job helping with all the lugging and organising of kit…

…Thanks to Iain Simpson, Lee Thompson, Rob Morgan, Beth Neale plus Martin McGrath and Andy Torbett for providing the health and safety support. Well done Chiara Bellati for producing and bringing it all together!

Now all kit is safely back and stored, can relax and look forward to the rest of the week’s events…

Last filming day! Last chance to get any bonus footage to bring back home… decided to head straight to the leopard cub viewing location again, so see if I could capture any more interesting behaviour between the cubs and the mother and the cubs, seeing as the chances of a viewing were high – they’ve been seen every morning apart from one.

Upon arriving, my driver Ajid said he could see the mother and cubs, but I had to keep my head down and get my tripod and camera set up as quickly as possible… minutes later and there was one cub clearly visible, sitting on a rock which was being bathed in the first light of the day – perfect start!

No sign of the mother though… the cubs were there on their own and played around for a little bit with each other, running and jumping around on each other, very cute to watch! But I knew for the occasions I’ve seen this behaviour is that once the cubs have been left, they only stick around for about 15 minutes before retreating, for what must be a cat knap into their cave, with their mother away for several hours. So I knew I’d missed the mother – in fact their routine seemed to be brought forward by half an hour this morning, presumably because it was a clear, hot day – they can’t stand being out in the hot too long.

So was happy to get more cub playing footage, but a little disappointed I didn’t get another chance with the mother… nevermind, I did manage to get something so overall am happy with the results from this location.

The rest of the morning was spent driving around, trying to spot more leopards… we were rewarded by the sight of an adult leopard laying in the shade near a waterhole. Got a few different shot sizes before the scene developing with the arrival of a large female elephant at the water’s edge. I was on my long 500mm lens so the first shots were tight on her trunk feeling about the grass, like a hand in a sock before it sucked up some water and sprayed it over her body! Switched back to the zoom lens to continue the sequence with an assortment of wides and moves. She then walked past the leopard, which was looking on curiously before disappearing into the undergrowth. The leopard got up and plodded off a few minutes later.

A fitting end to my time out here – the two animals most people want to come to Yala to get a glimpse of, sharing the same space and at peace ready to carry on their lives we’ve had a privileged window into these past three weeks after our cameras depart. Looking forward to returning and picking up where we left off.

Great experience filming with the Ammonite guys for the first time… watch out for Night Stalkers leopard and crocodile films on Nat Geo Wild around Autumn 2011!

Probably the most disappointing day of the shoot – there always has to be a day like this, when nothing seems to go your way and it comparison with the other days, which have largely been very productive, today really fell below par!

Started off with a frustrating two hour wait for the cubs to appear, as they had yesterday… I had a better position, had the extra elevation on the tripod legs I needed, but it was not meant to be. None of the three cubs or their mother made an appearance, which was painful as always at the back ones mind in this situation is ‘should I be spending my time more wisely some place else’… who knows, but certainly after two hours in the best light of the day lost, I had to admit defeat and move onto another place and hope that something else would show up to make up for the disappointment.

Unfortunately it didn’t! Another heavy downpour in the afternoon didn’t help matters, as it really cut down the available light to film… by 5:30pm it was too dark to continue. The only positive I can take is that I found a water hole with three or four very small baby crocodiles, which we really need – filmed a little bit of swimming and climbing out onto the side and they are tiny, about half a metre in length. They are deceptively small when nothing else around them puts their size into context… even on a 1.4 x extended 500mm lens, they still were relatively small in my frame, considering an adult’s head almost fills the frame on the same lens… they are tiny! Will be going back their again first thing tomorrow to try and capture some interested behaviour and see what happens in this crocodile nursery!

The primary focus this morning was to get back out to the same opening to see the rock face as yesterday morning – the glimpse of three young cubs and their mother was enough to send any wildlife cameraman or photographer there with blinkers on.

The problems encountered yesterday of not being high enough to see over the branches was not fully overcome, disappointingly… despite having an extra foot and a half of height, still I couldn’t get a clear shot through the opening and this was hugely frustrating when I’m shooting some lovely playful moments between the cubs and their mother’s tail, but obscured by foliage, too distant to do anything about. It feels like having tickets to the World Cup final only to find you’re sat behind a bollard!

The primary focus this morning was to get back out to the same opening to see the rock face as yesterday morning – the glimpse of three young cubs and their mother was enough to send any wildlife cameraman or photographer there with blinkers on.

The problems encountered yesterday of not being high enough to see over the branches was not fully overcome, disappointingly… despite having an extra foot and a half of height, still I couldn’t get a clear shot through the opening and this was hugely frustrating when I’m shooting some lovely playful moments between the cubs and their mother’s tail, but obscured by foliage, too distant to do anything about. It feels like having tickets to the World Cup final only to find you’re sat behind a bollard!