Earth Tales Interview

Wildlife Cinematographer - Alex Vail

Welcome to EARTH TALES! A series of interviews and ‘Tales from the Earth’ from inspirational people whom are making a stance in the travel, sports and animal kingdom. We’ll be interviewing poignant people from travel & wildlife photographers, film and documentary makers, explorers, conservationists, biologists and adventurers.

In our 6th EARTH TALES wildlife Interview - we are delighted to be speaking to wildlife cinematographer - Alex Vail.

Alex has worked on many groundbreaking documentaries. Most recently BBC Seven World’s One Planet. As well as notching up an array of widely acclaimed programs such as ‘Blue Planet 2’ and ‘Our Planet’.

Growing up around marine biologists and on remote Lizard Island in Northern Great Barrier Reef, Alex tells us all about his colourful life, filming some of the most intriguing animals on earth, his travels across the globe and how he loves to learn about the animal mind….

Sit back, relax and enjoy his inspiring tales from the earth!

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BornWild: Alex, it’s a pleasure to be interviewing you for our 6th Earth Tales Sessions! Tell us how you started out in the business and what attracted you to start filming underwater?

Alex Vail: Thanks so much for having me! I started out in filming through my previous work as a marine biologist and zoologist. I guess marine biology was in my blood since I was little, as I was so fortunate to grow up on the remote Lizard Island Research Station on the northern Great Barrier Reef, where my parents are still the directors (they've been there for 30 years!). As I grew up around marine biologists, to me if you loved animals and the outdoors you became a field biologist, so that's the way I went. I did my undergrad at JCU in northern Australia, and was fortunate enough to be awarded a Gates scholarship to study my PhD at Cambridge in the UK. There were many aspects I loved about science but there were plenty that were just not for me, so after my PhD I decided to change tack a little.

I had always been interested in photography, and was teaching myself how to make videos. I wanted to make a documentary on fish intelligence and figured (naively!) that if I was going to do this with next to no budget then I'd have to try and teach myself as many of the aspects as I could. I guess I really gravitated towards the cinematography side because I really like the hands on technical side of it, and the fact it allows me to spend long periods watching animals do what they do. I did a few short contracts that got me started in the business and kept my head above water financially, but my big break came when Jonathan Smith, one of the producers of Blue Planet II, took a punt on an pretty unknown camera guy and gave me have a crack at filming the cooperative hunting interaction I'd done my PhD on. As well as learning a heck of a lot in this time, I guess I must have done a reasonable job as Jonathan and one of the other producers, Kathryn Jeffs, gave me more and more to film on the series. In the end I worked on around 11 sequences on Blue Planet II, and by the end got to shoot some whole sequences myself. It was a steep learning curve and I had to keep pinching myself that it was actually happening!

I’ve diversified quite bit from my initial underwater days and now also film topside about half the time, using technologies such as gimbal stabilised cameras, drones, and more traditional long lense. I always love a new challenge and helping to work out the best way to film a piece of behaviour or an environment.

BW: You studied Animal Behaviour at university, what enticed you to study this subject and was there a particular animal that interested you?

AV: I've always been super interested in what animals do and why they do it. I actually love to sit and stare for hours at an animal to work out what on earth it's up to and get into the details of how it goes about it's life (yes, perhaps I am mildly insane!). This was coupled with my interest in phycology and how human and animal minds work. I was offered a PhD on cooperative hunting in fish by one of my childhood heroes, Professor Redouan Bshary, and to this day I still can't think of a project I would have liked to do more for my PhD. How it works it that groupers are fast predators up above the reef, but they're too big to get into crevices when one of their small prey fish escapes into one (which happens pretty regularly). However, their hunting buddies, moray eels and octopi, can get into these small crevices (but they're not fast in the open like groupers). Groupers and their partners have worked out that they can benefit from each other, and have developed a communication system that allows them to coordinate their hunts.

Our work showed that groupers (and probably many other fish) are much smarter than they’ve been given credit for. They actually understand (to a degree) what they're doing when they’re commutating with their partners, i.e. they’re not just scaly little robots that automatically react to one thing with another – they’re thinking!

BW: You have worked on some of the best documentaries the world has seen, Blue Planet 2, Our Planet and most recent hit Seven Worlds One Planet. Tell us what it was like working on such incredible episodes and what has been your most memorable experience so far?

AV: It has been an absolute privilege getting to work on these series and I still pinch myself that I get to do it.

It is really special getting to work on the big series from the BBC, Netflix and others, because they really focus on time in the field, which is one of the key things that allows you to capture these really special (and often rare) behaviours. I guess this is maybe why my personality fits in with these series, as I really love spending long periods waiting for an animal to do that one thing were trying to film, or as is often the case - just sitting and in nature waiting for it to appear.

Another thing I like about working on landmark series is that they run for quite a long time, which means you often get to work with the same team of people several times. You spend so much time working in such close proximity to each other particularly in the field but also in the organising stage leading up to it. These people really become your little shoot family and I’ve made some great friends through these experiences.

We do work pretty hard on these shoots, it’s not uncommon to work around 16 hours each day, and there’s usually not much free time for anything apart from eating and sleeping when on location. It also takes you away from your family and friends for the majority of each yea which can be a little tough. However, I wouldn’t swap it for anything in the world, I absolutely love it. This work has taken me all over the globe and I’ve filmed on every continent - it’s such is an immense privilege.

Oooh most memorable experience, that’s a tricky one as there’s been a few!

I’d have to say it’s been filming leopard seals hunting Gentoo penguins down in the Antarctic Peninsula. That place is just absolutely breathtaking and I love Gentoo penguins! On this shoot there were three of us camera ops covering the behaviour from various different angles, which made the cinematography pretty interesting. I also spent quite a lot of time with one of the legends of long lens camera work, John Atchison, who is also one of the nicest humans I know, so that was pretty special. Then the shoot concluded with a 10 day trip home across the notorious drake’s passage in a small sail boat with my good mate Michael Becker. All in all pretty memorable!

BW: You filmed in Antarctica for Seven Worlds One Planet. What was it like filming in such extreme conditions away from civilization for that amount of time?

AV: Antarctica is my favourite place in the world (apart from home!). Being in Antarctica for me is something that sorts of grows on you, it seeps into your bones (a little like the cold). The views themselves can be breathtaking, but it's the sense of isolation and wildness that I think makes it so special. By then end of my nearly 3 months down there on the first two shoots I didn't really want to leave!

The animals are also super special. I’ve mostly filmed penguins down there, and they are just such plucky, determined, and downright hilarious little creatures. They use their tiny little legs to get up into the most unlikely places (like up to the top of rocky mountain I find a challenge with legs 10 times longer than theirs). They fall down quite a lot, but they just pick themselves up, give a little shake (looking a bit like they’re hoping no-one saw) and waddle on! They also are super curious of anything unfamiliar, including just about all of their camera gear. Their one main down side - they smell rather a lot (and so did I after 3 months in penguin colonies).

BW: How does it feel being connected so closely to wildlife when you film them?

AV: I absolutely love get extended periods with certain animals on shoots and really know their behavior. I’d say its one of if not my favorite part of the job. I recently filmed elephants for a few weeks and we got to know two in particular really well. It’s amazing what individual personalities animals have.

BW: When you were growing up, was there anyone in particular that inspired you to get into film?

AV: There wasn’t so much a particular person, but I remember watching the "making of" for the mountains episode of Planet Earth I (my favourite programme of the series). I remember thinking how cool it would be to be one of those camera people, but strangely dismissing this as something that other people did. I say strangely because I'm usually a person who thinks just about most things are possible if you give it everything you've got. But then after about 10 years of studying and working in science that dream that had been ticking away in the background became a reality, and now I actually get to be one of those camera people (I've never done a snow leopard shoot but would love to!).

BW: What has been the most poignant story you have encountered so far filming an animal?

AV: There’s been a couple, and it’s hard to choose so I’ll tell you about both!

One is particularly close to my heart, which is the recent coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef which I filmed for both BBC Blue Planet II and Our Planet Netflix. I was lucky enough to grow up on The Lizard Island Research Station on the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, so know it’s reefs pretty intimately. In 2016 and 2017 it bleached hard. It still brings a tear to my eye to think about this, up to 80% of the branching corals in many areas gone, just like that. And the saddest thing is we have done this, people have done this, through climate change. There is a little ray of hope in that the reefs around Lizard are recovering at a rapid rate, and it just shows how quickly nature can come back if it is just given a chance. However, sadly it would be somewhat of a miracle if the reef did not bleach again in the coming years, and each year we just hope it is not this one.

The second was filming the Southern Right Whale for the Antarctica programme of Seven Worlds One Planet. These gentle giants simply took my breath away (luckily not quite literally). They can get up to 80 tonnes, yet are so gentle and curious, especially the sub-adults (which are still around the size of a small bus). Having 6 of these guys circling all around me is something I’ll never forget. Sometimes they get a little frisky and then you need to be a bit more careful, but in general they are just so careful not to whack you when they come up to check you out.

The shocking part is that these gentle giants have been nearly hunted to extinction in the past, with their population of 35,000 being reduced down to just 35 females by whaling. But this is a good news story, and with bans on commercial whaling the population I filmed has bounced back to 2000. I really hope we can manage similar success stories with a lot of other species and ecosystems.

BW: With today’s current climate issues, where would you direct our readers to make the biggest change?

AV: This is something that’s really close to my heart. Our planet is warming at an alarming rate due to human greenhouse gas emissions.

I think there’s a huge benefit of people doing what they can in their own lives, such as trying to cut down on energy consumption (from fossil fuels), eating a more plant based diet, and doing things like recycling. These actions not only have direct benefits but can encourage others to do the same. It is this groundswell of the population towards activities that can help save the planet that I think can make the really big difference, as I think the biggest changes need to come from top down. That is, governments focusing on implementing renewable energy, conserving the remaining wild places we have (especially as they’re usually full of CO2 sucking trees) and planting new forests to replace ones we’ve lost. It’s only once the majority of our society is onboard that I think we can start making big differences, and this requires as many people to get behind this way of life as possible. Tell your local politicians what you think, go on peaceful protests, sign petitions, and above all support these with your day to day actions. These things that will help us save this beautiful planet of ours that is so desperately in need of our help.

BW: Lastly, if you could choose any animal to be stuck on a desert island with - what would it be and why?

AV: Hahaha well I've recently been filming baby elephants and I'd have to say these little ones would be right up there. They're about the right size that they wouldn't crush you (yet), and they have so much personality – they love to play around have a great time. Plus they have a trunk - who else has a trunk! Yep I think me and the baby elephants would be good mates. And a caracal, I freaking love them.

Main Image: Michael Becker

EARTH TALES: Alex Vail

Earth Tales Interview

Wildlife Cinematographer - Alex Vail

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