Filming in Madagascar

Shooting Life Force in Madagascar

By Masahiro Hayakawa - Producer/Director Life Force: Madagascar

When NHK executive producer Shin Murata asked me if I was interested in making a program in Madagascar, I couldn't say no. It's every wildlife producer's dream to make a show about Madagascar as it's full of interesting plants and creatures - baobab trees, lemurs and chameleons to name just a few.

In addition, this was part of a big international co-production between NHNZ and NHK - two companies that have been co-producing series successfully for over 10 years now.

THE CHALLENGE

The expectations were high. Madagascar has been the subject of many wildlife films before and Shin made it clear he wanted this production to be different. “Visuals never seen before; animal behavior never filmed before and a new story,” he said. 

How does one find a “new story” when the story has been told so many times before? 

But as my research progressed, I realized that there were many questions about Madagascar's wildlife that still needed answers. Why were there so many endemic species? Why did Madagascar have such a diverse environment? Why were there nearly 100 species of lemurs?  Why was the middle finger of the aye-aye so long?  So I started looking for answers that would reveal all the mysteries of Madagascar. 

I thoroughly researched the plants... the animals and their DNA, geology, and paleo-climatology... and eventually the puzzle pieces started falling in place. It was like a detective story and bit by bit I found the clues. Soon I could start telling the story about why there were so many lemur species.

Once I wrote the script, I realized that every sequence would be a challenge to film: the aye-aye hunting grubs in trees with its long middle finger; the Indri and sifakas with their jumping movements; the mouse lemur's hibernation period; three bamboo lemur species eating different parts of one bamboo. None of these sequences could be dropped and with limited time there were only a few opportunities to film each of these.  If one shoot didn't go as planned all our plans and schedules would tumble down like a house of cards.

ONE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

One of the most challenging animals to film was the fossa - a mongoose type predator that lives a solitary life and is very hard to find. We were told that there was only one window of opportunity - a ten day period during which they would come out to mate. If we missed this chance, our story could fail.

Travelling for over 1,000 kilometers with 800 kilograms of equipment from our previous Life Force shoot to the Kirindy forest, we rushed to stick to our schedule. Our local guide had good news. The mating season hadn't started yet, but it could happen any day. However, our relief was short-lived when we found out that the tree on which researchers had been observing fossas mating every year, was occupied by another film crew! I was miserable, but our guide thought of another possible mating tree. We headed for the “new” tree, located about an hour's drive from our camp and another hour's walking in heat of 40 °C (104 °F). After confirming there were fossa footprints around, we went back to our camp.

We were woken up at 4am the next morning by our guide who informed us that the fossas were gathering. Two of the locals whom we had met the previous day had come all the way in the darkness on foot to tell us the good news.
 
We hurried to the site. When we got there a female fossa was sitting in the baobab tree, the rising sun shining behind her. I will never forget that sight!
 
We were told that once mating started it would last at least three days, and all this would happen in the middle of the night. So we set up camp near the “mating tree”. 

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY

With limited access to the site we couldn't bring in our generators and lights; not that it mattered because the sound of the generator would have been sure to scare them away. This was the chance to make the best of the high-sensitivity/low light camera developed for us by NHK's technical division. This camera allowed us to film in color with only the light of the moon to guide us. Thanks to this camera we could film the entire sequence of the fossas' mating behavior, which, in the end, lasted five nights!

More luck was to follow. Later during the dry season, we filmed many animals gathering at a waterhole. Among them was a fossa that had come to hunt lemurs! This allowed us to film everything we needed for our story. And what's more, we succeeded in filming scenes never filmed before - such as a new-born mouse lemur and an aquatic tenrec hunting crabs in the water.

I have no doubt that the Madagascar episode of Life Force will guide audiences into the unknown, revealing the evolutionary mysteries of this Island of lemurs through footage never seen before.