Into the Wild

Jouberts Shoot Documentary on Wild Lions in Botswana

Among the highest echelon of international wildlife cinematographers, Dereck Joubert and producer wife Beverly Joubert, both Explorers-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, are currently in production shooting a feature film on lions in the wilds of Botswana.

The Jouberts are acclaimed filmmakers, photographers, writers and conservationists who count an Emmy, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and Jules Verne Festival honors among scores of accolades. Working with National Geographic and based out of Botswana, the Jouberts have influenced policy and people’s perceptions of the wild for more than 25 years. Through their films (for example, Living with Big Cats and Eye of the Leopard, which both aired on the National Geographic Channel), largely on the big cats of Africa, they show a side of the natural world that is often hidden and explore the relevance of the natural world to humanity. 

“We believe our project will show lions for the first time as they truly are, probably as you will never be allowed to see them on television,” says Dereck Joubert. “It is raw and gritty and wild. We are following one pride of lions and showing their conflict with one herd of about 1,000 buffalo. But this war doesn’t always go the expected way.”  

Joubert is shooting in run-and-gun style on location in Botswana’s Duba Plains. The as-yet-untitled feature film, slated for theatrical release next year, is being shot with two AJ-HPX3000 native 1080P one-piece Panasonic P2 HD camcorders. Joubert, an HPX3000 owner, is shooting in AVC-Intra 100.
 
The filmmaker had previously worked with the Panasonic VariCam HD Cinema camera on television projects and, after testing as many cameras as possible, he decided on the HPX3000 for its quality and ease-of-use.
 
“We have worked in terrible conditions with the cameras,” says Joubert. “At the onset, it rained solidly for two months while we were following lions, getting bogged in, getting drenched, and generally fighting the elements. This is an electronic camera, and yet I have felt more confident with it, not less, because of its tapeless mechanics. The fewer moving parts to take on moisture the better. When it isn’t raining, it is 120 degrees in the shade. If any camera really and truly wanted a test, these would be the conditions to do that in. The HPX3000s have held up very well.”
 
In terms of location workflow, Joubert says he downloads the AVC-Intra files and mirrors them on two 1TB RAID hard drives.

“If there is something I want to review, I do it from the P2 card either before or after transferring to the hard drive and before reformatting,” he says. The feature will be edited in Final Cut Pro and finished online on an Avid system for digital intermediates. “The HPX3000 bridges the divide between film and video partisans,” he says. “I expose the same way as with film, I use short depths of field because I think we see in shorter depths of field, and movie audiences expect that.”
 
The upcoming feature film is a joint production of National Geographic Films and the Jouberts’ company, Wildlife Films.

Wildlife Films http://wildlifeconservationfilms.com