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Ebook American Cinematographer Magazine September 2022 Vol 103 No 9 9Th Edition Various Online PDF All Chapter
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September 2022 The International Publication of the American Society of Cinematographers
Wildlife Cinematography
On Our Cover:
A leopard in its natural environment. (Photo by
Beverly Joubert, courtesy of Wildlife Films.)
Contents Features
20 Documenting Nature
Wildlife cinematographers share their expertise.
52 The Traditionalist
20
Robert Elswit, ASC offers sage observations while
reflecting upon his career behind the camera.
Departments
8 Letter From the President
10 Shot Craft: Lens coatings
64 The Virtual World: Life Rendered
70 Clubhouse News
76 New Products and Services
80 Wrap Shot: Howard Hall
VISIT ASCMAG.COM
48
2 / SEPTEMBER 2022
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American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 103rd year of publication,
is published monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
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4 / SEPTEMBER 2022
“Loved the Vista Primes. The colour and the focus fall off of these lenses really
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OF MODERN CINEMATOGRAPHY.
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6 / SEPTEMBER 2022
MANY OF YOU HAVE COMMENTED ON OUR WRITING in this column cinematographers: Robert Elswit, ASC. Elswit has shot many brilliant
and the pages of American Cinematographer. We deeply appreciate films, none more amazing than the black-and-white Good Night, and
that you read what we write. Reading is something we have done a Good Luck about the character of Edward R. Murrow. Murrow, of course,
great deal during our tenure as ASC President. During these upsetting first became known during Churchill’s time with his famous wartime
times of disease, violence toward our Capitol, shooting of unarmed peo- broadcasts for CBS from London during the Blitz. He then went on to
ple of color, inflation, and war, we have turned to read about others in confront Senator Joseph McCarthy and his crusade against supposed
troubled times. communists, so he knew a bit about controlling fear. I can think of noth-
Often this reading of books — which somehow lead from one subject ing better than a viewing of Elswit’s film to help us deal with the chaos
to another — has taken us to the challenges of wartime. We have read and fear we face today.
three books about the British leader Winston Churchill that give remark- Also in these pages, we take up the growing sophistication of cine-
ably varied accounts of him, in which he is portrayed as either brave, matography in wildlife documentary filmmaking — a niche sector, but an
dedicated, dissolute, infantile, brilliant or manipulative. But always, important one given the threats from climate change and species ex-
Churchill was a defender of the idea of Rule Britannia. He was a crea- tinction. Recognizing this, the ASC will be partnering with Jackson Wild
ture of his Victorian upbringing and believed in the idea of The Empire. and Red Digital Cinema to provide cinematography training to emerging
For a cynical but fun read, try one of the Churchill biographies, The nature filmmakers from around the world. Education is central to our
Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, which shows how Churchill’s fa- mission, and another way of helping us manage our insecurities about
mous speeches were designed to harness the emotions of his people to the future.
counter the Germans.
In these times, many of you have commented to us on emotionalism
running rampant. The splendid and the vile in the grocery store, the
bar, Starbucks, and so on. For a cinematographer, job number one is
actually — in the best of times — managing fear. We have mentioned
this before: A set leader has to manage their own fear first, and then the Stephen Lighthill
fear of everyone else on set — the insecurities and worries of directors, President, ASC
actors and crews.
In this issue, we profile one of the ASC’s calm, diplomatic and prolific
8 / SEPTEMBER 2022
The popularity of vintage lenses variables that contribute to the ap- widespread use of vacuum-depos- surfaces represents light that
has been on the rise in recent parent sharpness of the lens itself ited thin-film antireflection coating doesn’t reach the imager (the film
years. Why rescue old glass from — which is a combined result of the — technology that is still employed emulsion or digital sensor) and is
the dusty archives and revive it for lens’ resolving power and contrast today. therefore lost to our exposure. Re-
modern cinematography? What is reproduction. A heavy influencing flected light inside the lens may also
it about vintage lenses that makes factor is the efficiency of the coat- The Problem be redirected (re-reflected) back
them so different from contempo- ings. Less-efficient coatings result A portion of light that strikes a toward the imager, which is how a
rary ones? in less contrast reproduction, which translucent medium such as glass lens flare is created.
Some muse about the mystical results in a less-sharp image. will not be transmitted through it, Optical designers strive to elimi-
contributions of lead or thorium but will instead be reflected off. nate as much reflected light as pos-
oxide in glass, but the primary A Brief History You can observe this phenomenon sible to increase the performance
factor is the coating. Historically Antireflection coatings were first by looking out a window during the of the lens and reduce flares. To
speaking, lens coating — or, to be reported on in 1894, early in day: You can see the world outside an optical designer, the lens flare
more precise, thin-film antireflec- lens-manufacturing history, by a because light from outside is being is a fault of the optical system that
tion coating — is one of the most British optical designer/inventor transmitted through the window to reduces the overall performance of
significant advances in photograph- named Harold Dennis Taylor. He your eyes, but you can often also the lens. All lens flares will reduce
ic optical design since the origin of discovered that some older, slightly see a reflection of yourself in the the contrast and color reproduction
photography. tarnished elements of flint glass glass. That reflection comes about of the image.
Many directors of photogra- transmitted more light than new, because some of the light bouncing The goal, therefore, is to reduce
phy assert that the use of vintage freshly polished elements — the off you is reflected off the glass and reflections as much as possible.
lenses for digital cinematography slight aging of the element’s surface back at your eyes; this portion of
helps to reduce the sharpness reduced reflections. light is not transmitted through the Basic Concepts
of the digital sensor. While the There were subsequently many glass to the outside world. You might recall from high-school
increased sharpness of the digital attempts to re-create this phe- When we’re working with pho- science class that light behaves
image is due in large part to the lack nomenon artificially, but none was tographic lenses, we typically want in two ways: as a particle and as a
of photochemical degradation in commercially successful on a large as much light to be transmitted wave. Here we’ll look at the wave
the interpositive/internegative/re- scale until the late 1930s. At that through the glass as possible. behavior.
lease print process, there are many point, multiple inventions led to the Light reflected off individual glass When two waves are in perfect
10 / SEPTEMBER 2022
CHRISTIAN SPRENGER
“THREE SLAPS”
The workings of antireflection coatings. The purple line represents a thin-film coating on a glass surface. Most
of the incident wave (black wave) of light that strikes the lens is transmitted through. Some is reflected off the
surface of the coating (cyan wave) and some is reflected off the surface of the lens beneath the coating (gray
wave). These two reflected waves cancel each other out if they are in perfectly opposing frequencies.
the wave is reflected off the glass flare as possible, and today’s lens
surface beneath, it travels back coatings perform extremely well in
through the thickness of the that respect.
coating. Because that wave has
traveled through the coating twice, How Coatings Are Applied
it has gone twice that thickness Based on practices established in
farther than the wave reflected off the 1940s that are still in use today,
the coating surface. When this hap- lenses are placed in a vacuum
pens, it sets the wave reflecting off chamber — along with a combina-
the glass at the complete opposite tion of metallic elements that are
phase (or frequency) of the wave then heated to an extreme degree,
reflecting off the coating. We now typically by an electron beam. The
have two waves in perfect opposite heated metallic elements vaporize
frequency of one another, and they and are then deposited onto the
cancel each other out — as if they surface of each glass element in
never existed! the vacuum chamber. The chem-
You might think that having two ical composition of the metals, in
beams of light reflected would addition to the length of time the
cause a double reflection, but coating process lasts, determine
because of the phase between the thickness and efficiency of the
the two waves, they interfere with coating layer.
one another instead. The reflection
of these two waves is therefore Multi-Coating
eliminated, and the light that A single layer of thin-film antireflec-
opposite phase (or frequency) of wave. would have been reflected is now tion coating can only cancel out the
each other, they can cancel each In this case, we’ll add another passed through the lens to reach reflection of a single wavelength,
other out. This happens with collid- surface to the glass: a thin-film the imager. Due to the physical or one color of light. Remember
ing ocean waves or sound waves, optical coating. Some light will be law of conservation of energy, that light is made up of many
too. If two ocean waves of equal reflected off the coating surface; which states that energy cannot be wavelengths, between roughly 400
but opposite frequency collide, some light will pass through this created or destroyed, the end result nanometers and 700 nanome-
the result is a calm or flat sea. In coating and be reflected off the of these opposite-phase waves is ters long. In order to affect light
audio systems, if one speaker is in glass surface below; and the rest that they’re not actually “canceled,” of different wavelengths/colors,
reversed polarity to the other, the (most) of the light will be transmit- but rather the energy is transmitted additional layers of coating must be
sound waves emitting from them ted through both surfaces. through the lens. added — each of which will affect
can be in exact opposite frequency It’s the two reflected waves of one wavelength, as determined by
and — if the frequencies are indeed light that are of interest to us — in The Flare’s the Thing the thickness of the coating. Many
perfectly inverted — cancel each particular because the light that While a principal benefit of antire- modern lenses have a dozen or
other out, eliminating sound. passes through the coating (and flection coatings is an increase in more layers of coatings per surface
This principle is called phase is reflected off the glass surface the transmission of light, another of each element.
cancellation. below and back out through the and perhaps more important job is No combination of coatings will
coating) travels farther than the to eliminate internal reflections, or completely eliminate reflections; a
Light Waves light reflected off the coating flare. For many years, optical de- percentage of light will always be
This same concept is possible with surface. Due to this dynamic, by signers of cinematographic lenses reflected (and a percentage will
DIAGRAM BY JAY HOLBEN.
light waves. In order to eliminate the controlling the exact thickness of have striven to eliminate as much always be absorbed by the glass).
reflection of a wavelength of light the thin-film coating, we can specify
from the surface of a glass lens, we the wavelength/frequency — i.e.,
want to create a secondary reflec- the color — of the reflected waves
tion in the exact opposite phase that we want to cancel out.
Light that would have been reflected is now
or frequency of the first reflected With the coating applied, after passed through the lens to reach the imager.
12 / SEPTEMBER 2022
P
14 / SEPTEMBER 2022
Top: An image of filmmaker Alana de Freitas taken with a lens that has excellent coating These elements will provide the
and veiling-glare/flare reduction. Bottom: The same composition captured with a lens most beneficial additional flares
that has minimal coatings and very poor veiling-glare correction. Due to extreme flare, the while still allowing the lens to trans-
background light nearly obliterates all contrast and color. mit a usable photographic image.
16 / SEPTEMBER 2022
www.RED.COM
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Outstanding Cinematography for
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18 / SEPTEMBER 2022
CONSIDER ATION
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capture such previously undocumented mo- tent,” says Atkins, who grew up in Mobile, Ala.,
ments in nature. He has shot underwater with and studied marine biology before taking up
2,200°F molten lava pouring into the sea off a camera in the 1980s. “When I started, there
Hawaii’s Big Island. (Survival tip: heat rises.) were very few people in the genre.”
He shot the first film footage of a nautilus, a And the films were patchy at best. “Forty
mollusk that lives 1,000' down in the Indo-Pa- years ago, it was enough to just show what
cific and has evolved very little over the past animals looked like,” says Mark Linfield,
500 million years. “You want your films to be co-founder of Wildstar Films and a former
unique and to tell new stories,” he says. “Or old BBC natural-history producer. “You would say,
stories from a new perspective.” ‘There’s a mandrill!’ It relied on revelation.
SEPTEMBER 2022 / 23
24 / SEPTEMBER 2022
RED
Working together to create a
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DOCUMENTING NATURE
Evolving Tools
Wildlife cinematographers are also enjoying new technology that en-
ables them to shoot in places and in ways that were not possible before.
Rugged, high-resolution cameras with a pre-record function that can
capture sudden action shots at high frame rates and with an ability to
shoot in low light are now widely available. Red cameras are ubiquitous,
but Arri and Sony cameras are favored by some.
“With the new Red cameras — two hours after sunset, I am still
[shooting],” says Dereck Joubert (Okavango: River of Dreams, Eye of the
26 / SEPTEMBER 2022
Please join us this year for CineGear Atlanta and meet the Chapman/Leonard team!
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Los Angeles, California + Atlanta, Georgia + New Orleans, Louisiana + Austin, Texas + Orlando, Florida + England, United Kingdom
SEPTEMBER 2022 / 27
Innovations in drones, helicopters and remote-operated gimbals have the Disneynature documentary Polar Bear. She has worked as an
ushered in a new era of wildlife cinematography that offers filmmak- aerial operator since 2011, most recently serving as assistant aerial
ers greater access and safer ways to work. It is now feasible for the operations coordinator on the upcoming Mission: Impossible — Dead
camera to run alongside a racing cheetah on the grasslands of Africa Reckoning.
or follow a wolf pack on a hunt from above the Arctic tundra. The Polar Bear was shot 650 miles from the North Pole. “We utilized the
question is which platform to use for the job. GSS — equipped with the Red Helium, Revolva KipperTie [lens mount]
For the 2006 BBC series Planet Earth, a laser-gyrostabilized, heli- and [Canon Cine-Servo 50-1000mm zoom] — in the air, on the ice and
copter-mounted system called Cineflex was deployed to film animals on the water,” Tirén says. “The system mounted on these different
via compact HD cameras and long lenses. This prompted others to platforms allowed us to move through the landscape with the animal,
think of ways to use these state-of-the-art gimbal systems on the which really helped to tell the story of their journey and how they go
ground. about their everyday life in their natural habitat in its simplest form.
Jamie McPherson, a 20-year veteran of nature filmmaking, was You can achieve beautiful parallaxes with the help of foregrounds and
looking for a way to film African hunting dogs, which can pursue their backgrounds — dolly-esque looks that are otherwise very hard and
prey for 3 or 4 miles. After he worked out how to attach a Cineflex impractical to achieve in environments as harsh as the High Arctic.”
gimbal to the side of a Land Rover, he and his crew could follow After Cineflex came drones, which “absolutely revolutionized wild-
cheetahs “at 60 miles per hour. You feel you are in their world; you can life filmmaking,” says Keith Scholey, co-founder of Silverback Films.
film the stalk, the chase and the capture — it feels really dynamic and “You can get intimate behavior by literally being a fly on the wall. One
really fast.” huge upside: You don’t have to use helicopters, which are not good for
Since then, Cineflex (now GSS) and its competitor Shotover have the environment and are cripplingly expensive [to rent].”
developed gimbals that can be attached to 4x4 vehicles, boats, Jet John Shier, based in Montana, has spent much of the last five
Skis, icebreakers and even a buggy with balloon tires (for filming pen- years filming pumas in Patagonia. “I can have [a drone] in my backpack
guins on ice). McPherson has even jury-rigged one to the side of an and use it at any time,” he says. “It’s so manageable.” On one occasion,
elephant to film tigers hunting. he came across two pumas fighting. “I shot the cat fight all on my own,
Aerial cinematographer Erika Tirén utilized the GSS system on with a drone and another camera on the ground simultaneously — I’d
28 / SEPTEMBER 2022
lock one off and go to the other.” Stephen Oh, camera operator and CEO of XM2 Pursuit, has been
Some caution that there can be too much reliance on drones, designing new ways to mount cinema cameras on drones and helicop-
particularly noisy models that make some animals anxious. Wildlife ters, as well as on ground-based vehicles. With a variety of platforms,
filmmaker Dereck Joubert, who works with his wife, Beverly, notes XM2 aims to give filmmakers an array of tools for different purpos-
that some drones “sound like bees, and that high-pitched tone can be es. “They’re each a different paintbrush for a different application,”
very irritating, particularly to elephants. Buffalo start moving; big cats Oh says. “They can emulate each other, but they can’t replace each
get up — hippos, also. A helicopter with a long lens is much better. We other.”
use drones, but cautiously.” Trial-and-error becomes key as new camera platforms are cre-
Says Tirén, “There are certainly things that drones can do that ated, he adds. “You quickly realize we’re entering a new space. It’s
helicopters can’t, and vice versa. I think the industry still has a lot to not something you can go to school to learn. Drones have only been
learn in terms of which of the two to use when, and I’m hoping we’ll around for a decade now. [The technology is] still fresh and new, and
get to a point in the not-too-distant future where helicopters and there are always new ones being developed. It’s opening a whole new
drones can coexist in harmony. But we’re not there yet. On many oc- world for everyone [in the field], actually.”
casions, drones are chosen [over] helicopters just to cut costs before “When you start getting long lenses on drones, they will become
researching and comparing the practical aspects. There are [many] massive tools,” Scholey says. “And if you look at the quality of these
examples of where it takes a lot longer, and a lot more crew is needed, military drones, there is clearly a lot of new stuff coming down the
to achieve the desired shot or shots [with a drone].” line.”
Drone technology is evolving quickly. Alastair Fothergill, who As for the next frontier, Scholey points to the ocean. “Underwater
served as a director and producer on Polar Bear, says, “When we drones could start to be interesting, pushing the limits. If you have a
started [production] in 2019, the drones — [DJI] Inspire and early drone that can move at 20 knots underwater and can dive and follow
Mavics — weren’t high-enough resolution, had short battery lives and animals, imagine the results. Most of what marine creatures do we
were too loud.” The polar bears didn’t like the sound. “Then the Mavic have never seen.”
2 came out — it’s quiet, has longer battery life and better res. Sudden-
ly, we could fly them longer, and the bears weren’t bothered by them.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 / 29
30 / SEPTEMBER 2022
Cinelease.com Entertainment
Services
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SEPTEMBER 2022 / 31
that makes the difference,” says Silverback Films director Keith Scholey,
former head of the BBC’s Natural History Unit. “That is what elevates the
top cinematographers and camera operators. They are incredible people
— they have to work out what the subject is going to do [10 minutes be-
fore the subject does it]. It’s no good knowing 30 seconds ahead, because
you will miss it.”
Nobody has done more to elevate the art of wildlife filmmaking than
the famed Natural History Unit of the BBC. Established in Bristol — in
southwest England — in 1957, the NHU pioneered the “blue chip” wild-
life series, often featuring David Attenborough’s uniquely enthusiastic
narration. “Everybody [in our field] looked to the BBC’s NHU to see how
they told their stories,” says Atkins.
Planet Earth
The BBC has a rich body of wildlife films, but its 2006 release Planet
Earth — an 11-episode, five-year production — has become the refer-
ence work for the genre.
Planet Earth was the first major nature documentary to be filmed
in high-definition video, and it used cinematography to create a look
that hitherto was more typical of feature films. Series producer Alastair
Fothergill — also a former head of the BBC NHU — instructed the 40
camera operators who were sent to 200 locations around the world to
aim for long, lingering shots. The series included extended sequences
of birds-of-paradise doing their colorful mating dances, wolves chasing
32 / SEPTEMBER 2022
caribou over the Arctic tundra, Bactrian camels walking slowly atop sand
dunes at dawn, and a snow leopard patiently hunting mountain goats on
steep, rocky slopes. When the series was done, Fothergill said, “I showed
it to the bosses at the BBC, and they said, ‘It is very slow.’ I said, ‘Yes, there
are half the number of cuts as normal, but every one is a Rembrandt!’ I
wanted every image to be exquisite.”
The most significant technical innovation deployed on Planet Earth
was the Cineflex, a laser-gyrostabilized camera system that allowed
stable, long-lens footage of animals to be filmed from helicopters —
and could accommodate contemporary compact HD cameras. “You can
shoot polar bears with a long lens from the ground,” says Fothergill, who
is now a partner in Silverback Films with Scholey, “but you can only un-
derstand their lives if you pull out and film the whole expanse of ice and
snow, and show how these animals deal with those challenges.”
Wildstar Films’ Linfield adds that the Cineflex could be perceived as
the wildlife equivalent of putting a camera on rails or on a Technocrane
on a Hollywood set.
Planet Earth was a huge hit around the world, including in the Unit-
ed States, where it was distributed by Discovery Channel. Atkins, who
“It’s about being able to make people shot several sequences for the series, notes, “Planet Earth came out just
feel emotionally involved with nature.” as Blu-rays and widescreen televisions were reaching consumers, and it
was enormous.” Atkins’ contributions to the show included manta rays
at night in Hawaii, and dolphins and sea lions herding schools of fish in
Patagonia.
34 / SEPTEMBER 2022
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Evoking Emotion
As the market has become more sophisticated, producers and directors
have become more demanding. “Increasingly, we’re going into the field
with storyboards, and it wasn’t that way 20 years ago,” says Roger Hor-
rocks, the South African cinematographer who shot My Octopus Teacher
with protagonist Craig Foster. “Our job as a DoP is to serve that story,
and that requires coverage skills and the ability to evoke emotion.”
Though some scientists push back on the idea that animals experi-
ence emotions — and warn against anthropomorphizing non-human
creatures — wildlife filmmakers tend to see it differently. “It is all about
eliciting emotion,” says Darlington. “It’s about being able to make people
feel emotionally involved with nature. Loads of people stopped eating
octopus because of My Octopus Teacher, even though the film doesn’t
ever say anything about that. Beauty is the sharpest tool in the box.”
36 / SEPTEMBER 2022
Sometimes it is also the most poignant. Joubert and his wife, Beverly,
who have lived in Botswana’s Okavango Delta since the 1980s, were fol-
lowing a lioness and her cubs for The Last Lions (2011) when one of the
cubs was trampled by a buffalo. The cub’s back was broken, paralyzing
his hindquarters. The Jouberts knew the lioness would abandon the cub
because he could not possibly survive in the wild.
Dereck recalls, “The question dawned on us, ‘Now what do we do?
Drive off? Stay there and cover it? Or use it as an exercise in what I hope
will be some of my best cinematography? We understood the cub had a
broken back and was going to die. What did I want the audience to come
away with? My goodness, that lionesses feel sadness, too! So I put the
cub in the background, slightly out of focus, and the lioness in focus. She
moans, and then has a very slow blink. At that point, the story was about
the mother and the decision she had to make to move on. Using the art
of the lens — there [you see] an individual going through great pain. And
by the way, that individual is a lioness.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 / 37
Top: Atkins with another undersea predator. Middle: Erin Ranney on the
job in Alaska. Bottom: Escobar in full camouflage.
“For me, filming starts with respect for the animals,” says Darlington.
“If you want to film animal behavior, you don’t want them to be aware
of the camera. There has been a drive toward reality-TV style filming,
which, in my mind, is not respectful. I don’t like seeing an animal snarl-
ing at a camera because that means you have upset it. It takes real craft
to use equipment without interfering with the behavior.”
It also takes some skill to shoot enough footage to build entire se-
quences. “The best wildlife cinematographers have also been in the cut-
ting room — they know how to build a story,” says Fothergill. “Often
you will only get about 70 percent of what you aimed for, so you need to
know how to shoot so you will still have enough for a story.”
Wildlife cinematographer Erin Ranney (Natural World, Seven Worlds
One Planet), who grew up on Alaska’s Bristol Bay, says she has learned
to think days ahead. “If you’re trying to catch an animal’s behavior, you
will probably have to shoot over multiple days, but you need to make it
look like it all happened in five minutes, so you are often shooting the
same behavior in multiple lights and multiple weather conditions. For
example, when shooting a mother bear fishing for salmon with her cubs,
one morning it’s drizzly and overcast, and then you have a morning with
glorious sunlight — so you have to start over and build it out so you
have created the sequences the editor can cut in whatever conditions
they want.”
TOP IMAGE COURTESY OF PAUL ATKINS, ASC. MIDDLE IMAGE BY WILL NICHOLLS,
As the footage has become increasingly spectacular, concern about the
38 / SEPTEMBER 2022
interested in learning about the environment. “By now,” she adds, “you
IMAGE COURTESY OF SOPHIE DARLINGTON.
AirFLOOR-V1 AirMAG-R
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40 / SEPTEMBER 2022
D
irector of photography Edward Roqueta says shoot-
ing the wildlife documentary Tigre Gente amounted to
much more than making a movie: “It felt like a huge
adventure chapter in the story of my life.”
He spent more than four years working with first-
time director Elizabeth Unger on the project, which
chronicles the illegal international trade of jaguar
fangs, skulls and pelts that threatens the big cat’s population, chiefly lo-
cated in the Amazon basin. China and Myanmar are believed to be the
biggest buyers of jaguar teeth, which are regarded as magical totems,
medicinal cures, and symbols of wealth and status.
SEPTEMBER 2022 / 41
Unger, Roqueta and Chor are all National Geographic Young Explor-
ers, but they had never met before their collaboration on Tigre Gente.
Unger approached Roqueta about the project in 2015 after seeing some
of his work, including the documentary short Silencing the Thunder,
which he’d directed — and for which he’d won the Television Academy’s
College Television Award. The pair spoke regularly by phone about Tigre
Gente but didn’t meet in person until the following year, when they ar-
rived at La Paz Airport to begin production. Visitor visas enabled them to
spend three months per year in Bolivia; they often divided this time into
two- and three-week intervals.
Chor met Unger and Roqueta in 2016, when the filmmakers present-
ed some of their footage at a Nat Geo Young Explorers symposium, but
she didn’t become an integral part of the film until 2018. At that time,
Unger had not decided what direction the story would take, and she re-
calls a lot of the process as “just Eddie and I spending years in Bolivia,
being ready with our cameras and backpacks, trying to just be present
when something happened. At the time, the press was focused on rhino
horns and elephant tusks, and I realized that nobody was aware of the
42 / SEPTEMBER 2022
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