Six different time zones, across five diverse continents, in seven locations
“Our location in Ely, Minnesota, had been filmed recently for BBC2’s The Bear Family and Me, and the producer on that series was able to offer his time and expertise in arranging filming once again,” states Senior Producer, Colin Jackson. “It was a similar tale for the meerkat location and the
where the shows were presented, a Fly-away kit supplied by Presteigne Charter was employed, while in the US, a scanner provided by local supplier PSSI Global Services was used. IP kits were the choice for South Africa, Sri Lanka and California locations. It meant the programme had
“For example, if the Kenya
feed was to be lost due to heavy rain or technical failure, we were able to call on the US team to pick up. In addition, as we had the material sent from Kenya to Bristol earlier in the day, we were still able to report on those stories while they fixed their problem. This would also
When it came to shooting more traditional wildlife material, the choice was Panasonic P2 Varicam cameras shooting AVC-I 100. “This is the workhorse camera for most recent Natural History Unit epics”
macaques in Sri Lanka. And while this helps with the potential animal stories and access to the locations, we did need to reccie the areas to locate suitable places for the live infrastructure.”
Locations via IP A mixture of traditional OB facilities was used to provide the live coverage. In Kenya, from
live facilities at six different sites at any one time. “The live programmes were ‘compiled’ from a UK base in BBC Bristol,” says Jackson. “Here, we were able to manage the incoming mixed-feed from US and Kenya, and also to play in the material sent from the other locations via IP. Having a Bristol TX base also gave a further degree of resilience to the broadcast.
TVBEurope 27 The Workflow
Colin Jackson
have been true if the US had gone off air for any reason.” He adds, “Thankfully, it never came to using our emergency plan — but it was there all the same. A further benefit of the Bristol base was the ability to use the NHU’s extensive archive, if required, to help tell a breaking story in the field.” On a project of this scale, one of the major problems
Cameraman Toby Strong makes a good look out point for a meerkat in the Kalahari, South Africa