Emmy-award winning cinematographer Colin Stafford-Johnson returns to Irish screens on Tuesday, May 4th in G Marsh TV's wildlife series for RTÉ, ‘Living the Wildlife’. Today he talks to IFTN about bellowing toads, his sentimentality for film cameras and how nature rules his life.
In 2006, Colin Stafford-Johnson was awarded a Cinematography Emmy for his work on the documentary ‘Mississippi — Tales of the Last River Rat’. The Dubliner has also worked with acclaimed broadcaster Sir David Attenborough on the BBC series ‘Planet Earth’. With upcoming series with, ‘Living the Wildlife’, Colin travels all over Ireland filming a variety of wildlife including bellowing toads in the sand dunes of Kerry, hedgehogs in Cork and sea trout in mountain streams in the depths of winter. IFTN caught up with the cameraman to discuss his career thus far.
A science student in Maynooth college, inspiration hit Colin at the age of 22 in a quintessentially Irish manner: in the pub.
“I was sitting in the bar, watching Attenborough’s ‘Living Planet,” he says, “and I suddenly thought ‘What am I doing here?’ – so I decided I’d much rather find out by way of travelling and fruit-picking than by staying in college. So I left.” What ensued was three years of travelling and adventure. Upon his return to Ireland Colin was told by Irish universities that he was too old to study and so headed to the UK to study Biology and Filmmaking. Colin explains that one of the most important things about the course was his lecturer’s contacts. “Half of it is contacts,” he explains, “it’s not how good you are it’s how good others say you are. Then you’re in the door.”
In his early career Colin worked with independent producers and as an occasional sequence cameraman for the BBC. He talks wistfully about the filming apparatus then in use: “I started on film and it was fantastic and is, I think, still unbeatable.” However he does concede that our technological progress has allowed for a more relaxed state of mind: “Shooting with film did mean messing around with ten minute strips of film though, so shooting on digital does have its advantages. You can see your results straight away as opposed to the process taking two or three months. I used to go off filming for several months and then come back to watch my films and just hope to god they turned out ok. If nothing else, digital is a reassuring way to film.”
The life of a natural history cameraman is governed by nature’s moods. Colin recently spent 600 days filming a tigress called Machali and her family which lead to the lauded documentary, ‘Broken Tail’s Last Journey’. Colin confesses that filming means he is at the mercy of the natural world, even during the festive season: “Machali met her man at 10am on Christmas morning. She had started acting funny so I had to call home and tell them I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Then just a few days ago I got a text at 5am to say that the toads were spawning so an hour later I was in the van. The natural world does really run your life, it’s a bit of a pain in the neck.”
As to the new series of ‘Living the Wildlife’, Colin tells us the programme will look to show people the natural opportunities they are missing out on. “We’ve all seen spawn but the thing to do is to get there before the spawn happens when all the males are croaking – it’s madness! Anything that we film, there’s no big secret to it. We just go and film what people can easily see themselves. If you want to see the Natterjacks spawning all you have to do is go to the sand dunes in Kerry on a warm night in April. And we’ve been so lucky – we have shots of a certain female frog and there’s a dozen male frogs all trying to jump on top of her. It’s very cool to watch and slightly more interesting than the resulting spawn.”
Does Colin think his presence affects the behaviour of his subjects at all? “It certainly shouldn’t,” he replies. “If one’s presence is affecting their behaviour then you can’t film them. The whole thing about being a wildlife cameraman is that you do not interfere with what you are shooting. Otherwise you can’t succeed in doing what you want to do.”
And the camera equipment used to film the series? “We use HD Panasonic VariCams 3700,” Colin tells us, “they’re the same ones we used on the ‘Planet Earth’ series. We used the Panasonic VariCam for the land-based footage and then Sony HD cameras for aerial sequences for ‘Planet Earth’ - I used them bobbing out of helicopters getting shots. So I bought the Panasonic ones at the end of that series and used it for this one.” Furthermore Colin described the lenses used to capture the featured creatures in their natural habitat, “we’ve a decent range of lenses, from the basic wide angle zoom to medium and then a 600mm lens also.”
- ‘Living the Wildlife’ is directed by Colin and shot himself and Domenico Pontillo (Surgeons). The series is produced by Stephen Smith and will start on Tuesday, May 4th at 7.00pm on RTÉ1.
