Use of New Technology
By Brant Backlund  - Producer/Director Life Force: New Zealand

During the course of filming for the Production “Life Force”  NHNZ and NHK were faced with the challenge of employing innovative technology to capture particular scenes.  Here are a few examples from the different episodes.

AUSTRALIA

The hero of the Australia evolution story is the Kangaroo.  A key to its success is its unique locomotion...its hop.  We wanted to capture this in greater detail than had ever been recorded before, so we employed a new camera called the “Phantom.” This camera is able to shoot full high definition at 1000 frames per second, or slow the hopping action by 40 times for later analysis.  We wanted to capture this slow motion hopping from a moving perspective to give viewers the sensation that they were travelling along with the kangaroo.  To do this, we suspended this hugely expensive, state of the art camera from a simple shock cord in the back of our vehicle.  As we drove around the Australian desert, occasionally a kangaroo would hop along next to the vehicle...giving us the opportunity to capture its movement.  In the end, it provided stunning footage that beautifully illustrated just how perfectly adapted they were to this incredibly hostile environment.

In Australia, we knew we would need a lot of aerials to portray the vastly different landscapes of this huge Continent.  A helicopter would be too restrictive in terms of covering the large distances between filming locations.  So we had to come up with an alternative strategy.  The answer was to use a fixed wing aircraft and fly to all the locations relevant to our story in as short a time as possible. One of the most significant developments in camera technology in recent years has been miniaturization. Nowadays we can film in full high definition with a camera the size of a match box carrying a lens as big as a thimble. After exhaustive testing, we decided to shoot the aerials with a tiny Iconix camera from the wing of a Cessna. With this setup, we flew the 10,000 kilometers in two frenetic weeks.

MADAGASCAR

The crew in Madagascar wanted to capture the very rare mating ritual of the Fossa.  The challenge was that this only happened at night.  We were hoping to witness this in colour, which ruled out traditional infrared camera technology.  Also, Fossas mate high up in trees and are secretive, so there was no chance to rig any lighting.  To achieve the best image quality possible, the NHK technical division developed an ultra sensitive low light camera.  This new camera allowed us to film in colour with only the moon as the light source. 

AFRICA RIFT VALLEY

The female Kampango catfish has a strange behaviour of laying unfertilized eggs specifically to feed her babies.  This has never been witnessed before. They are also extremely wary of humans and the mother would leave at the slightest sign of anyone approaching.  We wanted to film this amazing child rearing tactic so we used a high definition underwater remote control camera that NHK developed for filming Olympic swimming. It took a crew of 4 people an entire day to set up the camera which weighed over 200kg with a cable of 200m in length. Then we had to wait for a while until the Kampango got used to it. After almost a month’s struggle, we finally were able to capture the decisive moment.

In Lake Tanganyika, we filmed the cichlids feeding on scales of other fish using an underwater high speed camera. The attack of a scale eater is so rapid, that with the human eye, it just looks like a simple body attack.  Since there is no full-fledged underwater high-speed camera on the market, we had to develop one especially for this project.  Capable of shooting 500 frames per second, the very moment of the attack, shot by the high speed camera, was really astonishing. Although it seemed like a simple hit, the scale eater twisted its body a few times in order to bite off scales from the prey. This motion was also new to scientists, and we were able to film it for the first time in the world.

NEW ZEALAND

In order to film tracking shots that manoeuvre through the forest as well as get unique angles on animals, we decided to use an iconix camera mounted on the end of a polecam jib arm.  The camera itself is tiny and creates a sense of seeing the world through a small animal’s perspective.  The polecam allows the camera operator to pan and tilt the tiny camera while doing a jib-arm movement.  This became a standard part of our filming kit as we found many different uses for it.  With a waterproof housing, we could do interesting moves like emerging from underwater as a scientist in a kayak paddles past.  We used it to give a sense of entering a small burrow in the forest.  We even used it to hang out over a cliff to film a waterfall below.