• Home
  • Buy
  • Author
  • Press
  • Video
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Cover Images
Eric is Awake

The Anonymous Citizen

Notes from a fleshy tube of chemicals in UK Inc.

Go Buy an Eric

Wildlife Documentaries - The Truth

8/26/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
There are few stories that can truly be described as genuine exclusives. All that is about to change as I reveal one of the best-kept secrets in television.

For years, wildlife documentaries have won countless awards for their stunning photography and for the proximity to some of the most dangerous and fascinating creatures in the world that many film-makers manage to achieve. Credits have been given to many, but it can now be revealed that the names listed as cameramen are merely pseudonyms. Most of these films were shot by a large mountain gorilla called Lionel.

I tracked him down to his dockland mansion on the Isle of Dogs and, at first, he denied everything. But after suitable blandishments had been offered, (one overripe banana and a female called Tatiana kidnapped from London Zoo), he agreed to give me an exclusive interview.

Q: Are you the only animal camera technician in existence?

A: Not any more, no. There are a few very promising antelope coming out of the Nyabingi Game Reserve Film School. I heard about a stick insect who set up his own company planning to specialise in insect shoots for David Attenborough. Sadly he was crushed by his camera on his first job and David refused to pay his expenses. I saw his widow the other day in Sainsburys. Stepped on her, in fact.

Q: Is the job well paid?

A: In animal terms, yes. I’ve got a few soft fruits stashed away, I don’t mind admitting it. But I had to fight for it I can tell you. In the early days on ‘Survival’ and ‘Wildlife on One’, I was paid peanuts which, let’s face it, is monkey fodder. A 450 pound gorilla just can’t live on that. But after a round-table discussion in which several things were tossed back and forth such as the producer’s gonads, we managed to come to an amicable agreement. Nowadays we’re talking mondo bananas. Cold-weather allowance for arctic shoots, dry-cleaning expenses for those productions that involve a certain amount of guano and, of course, axle-grease.

Q: Axle-grease?

A: It’s no picnic getting down some of those gopher holes you know.

Q: You have, of course, won many awards under various pseudonyms for your stunning photography. But much criticism was made of the extremely wobbly footage you shot of the lions mating for ‘Life on Earth’.

A: Yeah, well, there are always knockers. But what critics have to remember is, it was my mating season as well.

Now that his secret is out, Lionel has agreed to test the new Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 for a review in the next issue of ‘Wildlife Cameramamal’. Lionel’s initial reaction was lukewarm.

‘Full automatic shooting,  native 1920x1080 imager, including 10-bit, 4:2:2 full-raster recording is all very well’ he said, gnawing a bamboo shoot, ‘but can you crack coconuts with it?’



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    AuthorBot

    Dom Shaw is the author of 'Eric is Awake' and also a fleshy tube of chemicals working as a writer, scriptwriter and filmmaker in the UK. Was a boy, now a man. He lives.  

    Archives

    January 2024
    May 2020
    March 2019
    August 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    All The Years Of Trying
    Ana Mendieta Carl Andre Cliched Conversations Tate Gallery Quentin Crisp Modern Art Rome Stephen Geller
    Anti-apartheid Chris De Broglio Portman Court Hotel Breyten Breytenbach South Africa Sport Peter Hain Arthur Ashe Muhammad Ali
    Bradley Manning Hacktivists Ancient Rome Standing On Your Head Monetise
    Cabal
    Celebrities St James's Park Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt Heron Pelicans Russell Crowe Squirrels Entertainment Industry Paparazzi
    Chemical Weapons Convention Syria Obama John Kerry Putin Bismarck Realpolitik Germany Prussia Gas Russia Us
    CIA
    Comey
    Coronavirus
    Deep State
    Depression
    Drugs Legalisation Herion Nhs Mike Barton Durham Police Chief Transform Drug Policy Foundation
    FBI
    General Alexander James Clapper Nsa Gchq Mi5 Samuel Johnson Patriotism Gchq Math Orwellian Arithmetic Patriot Act Usa Uk Special Relationship
    George Orwell Isle Of Jura Barnhill 1984 Eric Blair Awake
    Harold Wilson
    Insurrection
    Iran Nowruz Huac Zero Mostel Mi5 Gchq
    Juvenal Fourth Estate David Miranda Glenn Greenwald Yochai Benkler Brendan O'neill Guardian Newspaper Hacking Scandal Leveson Fleet Street
    Lockdown
    MI5
    Miranda Censorship Journalism Snowden Milton Areopagitica Orwell Prention Of Literature Soviet Putin Bulgakov
    Mitt Romney Bain Capital Seamus Dog
    Nelson Mandela ANC Ruth First Church Street Bombing Ghandi Non-violence Umkhonto We Sizwe
    Nsa Mi5 Snowden Bletchley Park Surveillance Roman Empire Pax Romana
    Olympics Queen Sun City Mandela Apartheid Sports Boycott Stephen Fry Sebastian Coe Joe Ebrahim South Africa Dennis Brutus Tommie Smith John Carlos
    Orwell 1984 Brighton Writers Group Novel Us Tv
    Orwell 1984 Surveillance Nsa
    Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 Gorilla David Attenborough Wildlife Cameraman
    Patrik Fitzgerald Punk Poet Bob Geldof Boomtown Rats Roundhouse London Benjamin Zephaniah Everett True Rough Cut And Ready Dubbed
    Peter Wright
    Porlock Samuel Taylor Coleridge Inspiration Ideas Writers
    Public Sector Nhs Privatise Bbc John Birt Corpritization
    Red Things Rough Cut And Ready Dubbed Art Of The Critic Eric Is Awake Richard Dreyfus Close Encounters
    Retrospective Diagnosis Mentally Ill Lithium Orwell Christopher Hitchens Aspergers Fox Network Socialist
    Russell Brand Revolution Voting Is Dead Democracy Chartists Orwell Yeats Awake
    Russian Revolution Harry Young Lenin Comintern Bukharin Zinoviev Young Communist League Uk Cockney Commissar
    Scriptwriting
    Sedition
    Snowden Privacy Electronic Frontier Foundation Tor Network Reset The Net Julius Caesar Cryptography Encryption Mi5 Nsa Gchq Hello Kitty Google Metadata Intrusion
    Thoreau Walden Living Off The Grid Society Drop Out Self-sufficiency Nuisance Abatement Survivalists Living Off The Land
    Tony Blair David Cameron Syria War History Falklands Bosnia
    Tracey Emin Ivan Massow Conceptual Art Ica Critics Comedy Film
    Trump
    Writing

    RSS Feed