Here is a day in the life of a Cinematographer on TS Pelican of London, during Darwin200 2021. Written by Tom Dixon.
“On the 1st of June we were anchored beneath the cliffs of Lundy.
In this area it is known for birds called Manx Shearwaters to be dazzled and confused by deck lights on boats, this leads to them landing on the deck. These birds normally take flight from the tops of cliffs and therefore are unable to take off from a flat surface causing them to be stuck on the decks. My day began at around 2 am hoping to watch and capture this event. Unfortunately, this did not happen. There were plenty of birds around the boat but it seemed they had learnt their lessons. After around 2 hours of waiting it was back to bed.
Waking back up at around 7 it was time for breakfast which was briefly followed by a daily meeting to plan the events of the day. After this it was time to prepare the equipment needed to shoot the wildlife and landscape of Lundy. We quickly packed the kit and headed to the shoreline.
At the shoreline we were greeted by a seal who quickly disappeared. We then set off to explore the island. The first subjects of the day were cows, goats and deers. While not as exotic as the seals and puffins we were looking for they were still fun to film.
After walking a bit further we spotted another seal and quickly set up the camera before this one disappeared. From this position we also saw and filmed many species of birds.
We then walked to the other side of the island. Here we managed to spot a few puffins in the distance. To get as close as we could we had to clamber down the side of a steep hill to capture these amazing birds.
We finished off the day by filming some landscape shots to put what we have filmed into context.
Now all the filming for the day was finished we headed back to the boat to upload the footage, pack away the equipment, eat dinner then sleep.”
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