FOXES LIVE : WILD IN THE CITY
Channel 4 & Windfall Films
Camera Operator
Whilst I was working as a camera op for Windfall films they came up with the some very creative natural history programmes. Foxes Live: Wild in the City was one of those, which launched a multi-platform campaign to educate the nation about foxes, and to track and follow foxes across the UK to find out more about this elusive creature. Presented by Mark Evans and drawing the expertise of Dr Dawn Scott, and Dr Phil Baker the campaign culminated in three live broadcasts across the country as the project explored whether this mischievous animal deserved its reputation as a devious creature of the night. For the live shows, we needed set up live cameras to film fox dens which would give us the most chance of seeing foxes and their behaviour during the live show. This was a huge challenge as rigging a fox den under the ground is very difficult. The foxes usually sniff out the cables and dig out the camera. We discovered that under garden sheds was the ideal place as foxes tend to use a natural hollow under the shed, rather than digging down, so cameras were easier to mount and had less chance of a pesky fox attack. So Mat Thompson and I set off all over the country asking random folk if they had foxes under their shed, as you can imagine most people were not impressed, but eventually we got lucky with garden sheds in Essex and London. We set up remote cameras and got to work recording the foxes as they started families and exploring their territories. There were some fantastic moments like the first glimpses of the cubs emerging and playing. It was a joy working closely with Mat Thompson on this project, he was a fantastic DoP, really lovely chap and I learnt a great deal from him. I also filmed various foxy VT's for the live broadcasts.
Projects | FOXES LIVE : WILD IN THE CITY