With the BBC series Mammalsairing this spring, the series producer reveals how the crew captured some of our favourite animals in a whole new light
BySCOTT ALEXANDER
MAMMALS●
Ask anyone what their favourite animal is and chances are it will be a mammal. Lions, whales, dolphins, tigers, chimps, bears – they are all iconic. So being asked to make a new six-part BBC series about this extraordinary group of animals was a complete gift, and it’s fantastic to have Sir David Attenborough on board as the narrator.
It’s been 20 years since he made Life of Mammals and the world has changed greatly since then.
Of course, the fact that mammals are so popular means they have featured in many natural history series in the interim. Our challenge – and it was a big one – was to find new and interesting stories that could surprise and entertain an audience that might think they have seen it all. And the fantastically talented Mammals team always came up trumps. Whether it involved spending weeks shivering in a hide, riding out ferocious ocean storms, getting sandblasted in the desert or being robbed by South American bandits, they pulled out all the stops to capture never-before-seen footage and bring fresh characters to our television screens.
Take the wolverine. For many, it’s a creature of myth, a Marvel Comics character with superpowers; for others it’s a gnarly and ferocious mustelid. But Mammals reveals the reality of the species and the rarely seen caring side of parents raising a kit. It turns out there was a good reason no-one had attempted to film a wolverine sequence before, though. They are notoriously elusive creatures and live in the coldest, harshest landscapes, such as the remote Alaskan tundra. I must admit, when producer Will Lawson suggested the idea, I wondered if he had lost his senses. But I also knew that this was exactly the type of challenge we should be taking on, despite the high risk of failure.
It took two shoots, more than 40 days in the field, multiple blizzards, many miles covered on snowmobiles, frozen equipment (and fingers) and endless days spent alone in a tiny hide before cameraman Neil Anderson at last managed to film the behaviour we were seeking – a male wolverine delivering pieces of caribou carcass to its young kit.
But we still hadn’t got the key shot we needed to complete the sequence. Having run out of time in the fie
