The secret behind the Meerkat Superstars - with writer director Caroline Hawkins

This conversation tells the tale behind the meerkat soap opera superstars, a venture that started as a documentary idea and blossomed into a series with a massive following (fans include Tom Cruise and Robert Redford). The series creator Caroline Hawkins takes us from conception to realization, involving a  trip to Cambridge University, convincing a meerkat expert, and the challenges of shooting in the wild. This is an insight into the reality of the creator's journey.

We also discuss how natural history filmmaking is often bound by convention, and the challenges of attemption to push the boundaries. You'll uncover the importance of risk-taking in this industry and the incredible impact of drama composers in this realm. During production of the natural history thriller Fatal Attractions, hear about how we coped with the pressure during filming, drawing inspiration from renowned directors like David Fincher and Steven Spielberg to deliver what was promised.

As filmmakers, it's a constant battle to create something meaningful that resonates deeply with the audience. This episode is packed with insights into the importance of understanding your audience and designing stories to deliver a greater meaning. Discover the struggle of finding succinctly expressed stories and how making a documentary can sometimes become a passion project. 

We wrap the episode by revealing the critical role of risk-taking in the industry and how to make the most important stories - that talk about the problems in the world - into compelling and meaningful narratives. Not everything has to be feel-good, when the storytelling is done right.

Whether you're an aspiring filmmaker or an everyday person looking for an inspiring behind-the-scenes story, this episode promises a wealth of insights and inspiration.

Are you interested in joining the DocFix program and working with Nigel?

Get started with our complimentary case study that shows you how the method is used in high-profile documentaries and to see if you are a good fit for what we do and how we work.

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Incidental music composed by Birger Clausen

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nigel: You probably know about meerkats. They're those funny little mammals that stand up on their hind legs. Look very cute and have fascinating adventures. You may even have seen them advertising insurance on British TV. But the thing is meerkats

[00:00:14] weren't always so interesting. And it was down to the storytelling of my next guest Caroline Hawkins, who took their lives out of the Kalahari desert in South Africa and turned them into animals superstars. We also talk about how she's taken her storytelling skills into [00:00:30] areas way beyond natural history into a hugely successful sports documentary. And the great challenge of being able to tell stories about subjects that have previously been seen as off limits for being too much of a downer. Such as conservation. And how to turn them into a must-watch. And as always. Please do subscribe. 

[00:00:50] If you want to know when the next episode is going to emerge. And if you want to find out more about me and how I work with people on their documentary, storytelling skills. You can find out [00:01:00] more at apply.thedocfix.com. That's apply.thedocfix.com. And there are also details in the show notes at the end of the podcast. 

[00:01:10] All that said. Here. is my conversation with a hugely creative producer and director Caroline Hawkins.

[00:01:18] Nigel: I'm here in the conference room and, uh, we can see all the award, award posters and nominations. The first thing that I've noticed that most people would know that you're involved [00:01:30] with are meerkats. There's a big poster for Meerkat Manor.

[00:01:34] Nigel: So, why don't we start with the meerkats? Because it was an amazing idea turning meerkats into a kind of soap opera. Where did that come from? 

[00:01:47] Caroline: Where did that come from? Well, um, I was actually new to Oxford Scientific Films relatively at that stage and it sort of, it was given to me as a, as a challenge in a way.

[00:01:59] Caroline: Um, [00:02:00] we'd been tasked with coming up with, some kind of animal long running series. Um, And I think somebody said, can you do a soap opera? And I immediately thought of a documentary that I'd seen presented by Simon King, which was about meerkats, and I'd been quite emotionally drawn into it, and I thought these meerkats were just incredible, and they had really, um, little animals with really big [00:02:30] stories.

[00:02:30] Caroline: But I didn't know anything about them. So I, um, asked a friend, who had a great understanding of natural history and great contacts. And I said to him, if I want to do something about meerkats, who would I need to talk to? Who's the expert? And there is only one expert and that is professor Tim Cluttenbrock Cambridge University.

[00:02:49] Caroline: So off I trotted down to Cambridge and sat in this what can only be described as a, it was like a film set. It was of a professor's office. It was surrounded by [00:03:00] Books and papers and it was tiny office. It was all chaos. And I sat in the middle of all this chaos with Professor Tim and said, tell me about meerkats.

[00:03:09] Caroline: And he told me about their social structures and family lives and how they interact and the sort of things that they've been witnessing with the research group, the wild meerkats that they'd been following for decades. And it was just so obvious during that conversation that there was a lot of story and.

[00:03:29] Caroline: [00:03:30] Um, the next challenge was convincing him that having a camera crew hanging around his scientist was a good idea. So I asked him if it, if they could tolerate that and he seemed to think that they probably could if we help them perhaps with their, um, supporting their studies. And so I came back and managed to get this thing commissioned as 13 half hours.

[00:03:52] Caroline: And then had a few sleepless nights, wondering if... It's always awful, 

[00:03:55] Nigel: isn't it, when they actually say yes, now go and make it. Yes, 

[00:03:58] Caroline: and then, then it's all [00:04:00] in your lap, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness., Funnily enough, enough, the person who'd introduced me to Professor Tim said, Oh, you'd be lucky to get half an hour out of meerkats, never mind 13 half hours.

[00:04:13] Caroline: Um, but luckily he I proved him wrong. 

[00:04:16] Nigel: But the idea of having it as a, a kind of, uh... It's not sitcom, what's the word? Soap opera. Yeah. To present it in that way, uh, was amazing. It was amazingly successful and it, it just massively [00:04:30] popular. There were loads of celebrity names you said they'd never missed. Was it Noel Gallagher or someone?

[00:04:35] Caroline: Oh, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, Whippy Goldberg. I mean, honestly, there were loads of them. And it particularly was a huge hit in America. Um. 

[00:04:42] Nigel: But that storytelling as a, as that kind of... dramatic narrative. How hard was it to get that to work? It wasn't hard. 

[00:04:51] Caroline: I don't remember it being hard. I remember it being fun.

[00:04:53] Caroline: I remember that, other than having to deliver 13 and a half hours, [00:05:00] there wasn't really any pressure. I can remember thinking, nobody, it had a very low budget and it was very below the radar and we were left very much to our own devices to make it work. And, from those, those first meetings with Tim and understanding what meerkats did, it was just a question of then cutting that together.

[00:05:22] Caroline: So those stories came out and it found its rhythm and it seemed natural and it, and I [00:05:30]knew in my heart how I wanted it to be. And in fact, recently I went back and looked at the first treatment that I wrote, the pitch treatment, and actually what we made was exactly what I pitched. It was, it was characters.

[00:05:42] Caroline: It was, it was human life, but in a way, it's families, but you just transcribe it to the animal world. And you were at 

[00:05:51] Nigel: the same time completely honest, because you're a proper natural history filmmaker, so you're honest about animal behavior. You know, there was a series of Disney [00:06:00] films when I was a kid, and I remember it would tell stories of animals and you'd, they'd project onto them.

[00:06:07] Nigel: You know, memories and behavior. All things that couldn't have been going on in those animals lives, but they made good stories. 

[00:06:13] Caroline: Yeah, we couldn't do that. I mean, we, we, I didn't want to anyway. I mean, first of all, Oxford Scientific Films is a very well respected natural history production company and you can't start making up stories.

[00:06:26] Caroline: That wouldn't be right for us. So that was the first thing. [00:06:30] It wouldn't have been right for Tim Cluttenbrook either. He would, he was a consultant on the series and he said you can say everything anything you like as long as it's true. So, whenever we over slightly overstep the mark and perhaps over dramatize something he would say no that wouldn't happen and then we change it.

[00:06:47] Caroline: So we were really stuck to making sure that everything was scientifically correct and and I'm quite proud of that because it'd be very easy to say oh it's just [00:07:00] anthropomorphic. But it isn't, it's actually, I never, we never say to you they're feeling this or they're doing this because, they want to get their revenge or anything like that.

[00:07:10] Caroline: We, we set up the situation so you might, that we might suggest that and you can enjoy that and see the parallels between what they're doing and what you might have experienced in the human world. But we never, we never did, we never made anything up. So it's one of 

[00:07:27] Nigel: those wonderful thoughts you had where it just [00:07:30] worked, you just got it right, you felt from the original conception, yes this is going to work and it 

[00:07:35] Caroline: did.

[00:07:35] Caroline: Yeah I think so, but we didn't realise what a hit it was going to be, I think we put it out there, we made it and we said this is what we said we were going to make and we've made it and what do you think? And um, nobody was more surprised than we were who made it, that it had such a following and people got so emotionally involved in it.

[00:07:55] Caroline: And obviously that was really gratifying, but it wasn't, we had no sense [00:08:00] that that was going to happen. 

[00:08:01] Nigel: I felt a lot of responsibility because I came on years later when the David Attenborough Meerkat film that I worked on. And I remember, I knew I was kind of following in your example of what these animals needed to be.

[00:08:16] Nigel: And for me, I think the great, the thing that made it easier for me was realising they had names. As soon as they were called Squirt and Weenie, it made it so much easier to kind of construct a narrative [00:08:30] around them as a family. Yeah. Squirt and Weenie and the children, or the kids, or whatever you want to call them.

[00:08:36] Nigel: But there wasn't a problem with the truth, actually. It was never an issue, because meerkats are very special, they do kind of behave in ways that are very familial. 

[00:08:47] Caroline: Yeah, they totally do, and there aren't many species. that lend themselves so beautifully to that treatment. And I know many people have tried since to apply it to other species.

[00:08:58] Caroline: And I always say there ain't [00:09:00] nothing better than a meerkat for those kind of stories. But, um, but I would say that other species have similar relationships. It's just, we choose not to observe them. We not, not recognize them. No, that, that kind of, um, animals feel, Emotion, I'm sure of it, and um, and they have the same feelings towards each other and towards loss and those sort of things that we do, but, but because they don't speak, we, we [00:09:30] tend to think they don't, they don't have that sophisticated level, sophisticated level of communication and, and emotion.

[00:09:37] Nigel: I remember probably one of the most exciting moments in my career was when we were both in the commentary record. with Sir David Attenborough. And I, and I wrote in this script, I found the way it worked was I had to record it as a guide, the whole thing, and he watches the video of the whole thing and then he comes in and records it.

[00:09:56] Nigel: And I just remember him saying, meet Squirt and Weenie, but in that [00:10:00] voice of his. And the hairs stood up in the back of my neck. 

[00:10:02] Caroline: Um, that was a very special day and I think we all, we were all slightly in awe in a way that perhaps we aren't normally with people we work with. But, um...

[00:10:11] Nigel: He wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been honest and true and a good science 

[00:10:14] Caroline: story. No, I absolutely wouldn't. And he vets every script he had, as I remember, he had it three weeks before the record. Yeah. And he would send us questions about things 

[00:10:23] Nigel: and, and funnily enough, he was in the film as well, but it's like kind of 30 years earlier because he made the [00:10:30] original film with Professor Tim.

[00:10:32] Nigel: About the meerkats. That was what the difficulty was in making the film. The challenge was these multiple storylines going on. Yeah. And that's why it wasn't quite working. But we got it to work. But I do remember he wasn't just reading a script. It was kind of his own story he was telling. It was really interesting.

[00:10:47] Nigel: we did Fatal Attractions. . And, uh, I remember, you were very important because you gave me the chance to do kind of what I wanted to do with it.?

[00:10:58] Nigel: Um, another kind [00:11:00] of natural history filmmaking. Where they allowed us to really tell stories in an interesting way. Because we talked about this earlier at lunch, and there was a kind of convention. about style 

[00:11:13] Caroline: in telly, wasn't there? There really was. And I think, you know, if you want to make your mark, you want to lead, you don't want to follow.

[00:11:20] Caroline: And it's very easy in this industry, especially when you've got to make money, um, to fall into line and make things [00:11:30] in the, in the style or in the image of something else. And I've always found, I've always had the most fun, for one thing, doing something different or flying in the face of what's perceived to be the accepted norm and I think we delivered them something that they didn't know they wanted until they saw it.

[00:11:49] Caroline: Yeah. And we took a bit of a risk. I know we were both terrified, weren't we? We 

[00:11:52] Nigel: sent the first cut to the, to the commissioning editors and I'd done loads of mood boards and cuts and everything.[00:12:00] Because..., I, I, I planned it as like a horror film. That was a genre, a kind of genre I was going with. And you don't see the antagonist in a horror film.

[00:12:07] Nigel: You just build up the threat. And there's a style of keeping shots very long and moody and suspense. And making a natural history film and not seeing the animal that is the antagonist in the film. It was about people. Why people live with animals that could 

[00:12:22] Caroline: kill us. Yes, I think now you've just hit on the difference though.

[00:12:25] Caroline: It wasn't really, it wasn't a natural history film. It was about animals, but [00:12:30] really what it was about was human psychology. 

[00:12:33] Nigel: That was my intention I think. It's because I'd never even had a pet. So I wasn't an animal person, I was a story person. And maybe that's why you thought I could do something interesting with the film.

[00:12:44] Nigel: Definitely. It was, there were loads of animals in it, and every story was massively animal based, but that made it, the 

[00:12:49] Caroline: relationship between... It would have been totally different if we'd had a team of natural history filmmakers, it wouldn't have worked. As is so often the case, you bring drama to it.

[00:12:58] Caroline: You, so you need people [00:13:00] who are rooted in drama, have an affinity with cinema. , that's when it gets interesting. And the same with, it's not just the directors and the writers, it's about composers. I love bringing drama composers to natural history because they'll, they'll, again, they'll bring something different.

[00:13:16] Caroline: They won't follow the well trodden path. Yeah, I 

[00:13:19] Nigel: just spoke to Birger about that, Birger Clausen, the composer, he did such moody, atmospheric music. 

[00:13:25] Caroline: He really did. I mean, that was really what, what embellished what you'd done. I [00:13:30] mean, you were taking drama tropes, you were taking, I remember you said, This is, the influence I'm drawing on here is from Seven.

[00:13:38] Caroline: And I remember thinking, oh my god, that's really dark. David Fincher, yeah. Bring it on, bring it on. I 

[00:13:45] Nigel: had in my mood board, it was Fincher, it was, uh, Darren Aronofsky. Yes. From Requiem for a Dream. Requiem for a Dream. Which is possibly the darkest film. He said, well, he makes dark films. And that was kind of scary and weird.

[00:13:56] Nigel: And then, uh, it was Spielberg. Yeah. And so I just went from, [00:14:00] these are the, this is the style we're going to shoot in with no money. And this is, this is what we're promising to the broadcasters. And I remember I went out to shoot and because it's such a specific style, I couldn't, , shoot around that. I just had to go for it.

[00:14:16] Nigel: Uh, because we were shooting so quickly on so little money. So I didn't leave a lot of room to cut it another way. There's a self preservation aspect thinking I've gone as far as I would go without actually destroying my career because I believe in it.

[00:14:29] Nigel: And we came back and [00:14:30] we delivered what we said we would deliver. But I remember we were both sitting around the phone, weren't we? And we'd sent it to... And we were waiting for the reaction. New York. And we were both like, oh my god, they're calling, what do they think? What do they think? And, uh, they didn't say, but they're very quick and said, we love it!

[00:14:44] Nigel: And we went, oh my god, we love it! But then I thought, they still might want to change it. And they actually said, no, we love it, and we want to keep it like this. 

[00:14:52] Caroline: Yes, that's true, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief, I think, at that point. And then, yeah, [00:15:00] I mean, it was very, very clever, because what we did, reconstruction in documentary, is notoriously hard to pull off.

[00:15:09] Caroline: Firstly because we don't have the money ever that drama has. And so your lighting budget and your time and everything, everything's smaller. And secondly because, , usually directors who are good at making natural history, their skills are different from those that make drama, so they don't come from that kind of background.

[00:15:26] Caroline: So you, if you're not very careful, you can end up with something [00:15:30] that looks a little bit cheesy, or a little bit cheap, or just doesn't quite... Um, it just doesn't quite work and, and it pulls you out of the story rather than pulling you in, which is what you want to happen. and so I think it needs very, very careful planning and you were very good at that.

[00:15:48] Caroline: And also Chloe Campbell, who I've just worked with on Murder in the Pacific, which you can see on iPlayer. Um, which is about the sinking of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior. We did a lot of drama reconstruction in that. [00:16:00] We left it all right at the end of the edit, so we constructed the rest of the film.

[00:16:04] Caroline: And then we said, right, what are the bits we need to illustrate? And we did that with, uh, again, just as you had done, very well planned out, storyboarded, consistent, consistently lit. Um, scenes. We, we, we designed the look of it and then we went to shot those and you shot really, you have to shoot 'em really tightly.

[00:16:25] Caroline: 'cause you don't have the time, you don't have the money. You've gotta know what you've gotta get. You don't overshoot, you [00:16:30] don't have time. And uh, and, and then if you're lucky, if all those things come together, um, you have something quite wonderful at the end of it. 

[00:16:38] Nigel: Let's talk about natural history films because that these were fatal attractions wasn't strictly a natural history film.

[00:16:44] Nigel: Meerkat Manor was, but was done in a very different way. But there are conventions, I mean, I can be very critical of natural history because the storytelling, in my opinion, the storytelling often isn't there, and it just depends on the wow factor. So, [00:17:00] the beauty of the imagery, and we're seeing something amazing, but it's not really saying anything.

[00:17:06] Nigel: How have you dealt with that fact, that existence, you work in natural history, you're very ambitious to tell great stories, what's your feeling about natural history, without picking one? up on anyone, but that lack of storytelling, is it a real 

[00:17:20] Caroline: thing? No, you're absolutely right. I think that is something, a criticism that could be levelled at a lot of high end natural history in that [00:17:30] there's a broad theme, possibly for each episode, um, but it might be mountains or arctic or, you know, water or sea.

[00:17:40] Caroline: Um, and that's really, it doesn't go much further than that. It's partly because a lot of people, the majority of people who make natural history programs are scientists. They're not storytellers, first and foremost. It doesn't come naturally to them. And because they make such beautiful behavior sequences [00:18:00] that viewers around the world appreciate, and will always sell, then there's not really any incentive for them to do anything difFerent....

[00:18:09] Caroline: Whereas for those of us who are, um, I would say get crumbs from the table, but who, who aren't, who perhaps, um, have to work harder to get commissions in natural history. , right from the outset, we have to really think hard about what we're trying to say and how we're saying it. And so [00:18:30] story, especially for us at OSF is a big thing and we pride ourselves on having really good storylines.

[00:18:37] Caroline: And I think, , most importantly of all, having something to say, conveying something. So your film, your film ultimately you want people to absolutely enjoy it. But you want them to, it needs to be more than that. They need to have an emotional connection and learn something from it. 

[00:18:56] Nigel: It's absolutely true. I mean, and that is when I'm working with people, because I [00:19:00] work with a lot of people, People who, who go out and make their films, I mean, it's an absolute classic thing where they, they always start shooting their film to find the film, which if there's a difference between professional and kind of semi professional people who are discovering how to make a film, you just would never do that as a professional..

[00:19:18] Nigel: We can't afford to waste that money and amazingly people who don't have much money, they do something that's wasting a huge amount of money and they haven't got the money to spend. So that preparation, that thought about [00:19:30] what are you trying to say with it, I call it meaning because it was just, well lots of people call it meaning, but it's um, I was obsessed with what does this film mean because if you go to the absolute extreme, the way I see it is you use the material to say something, it's not about what the film's about, ultimately, do you know what I mean, it's not about Like, the meerkat films aren't really about meerkats, they're about relationships.

[00:19:57] Caroline: Yes, and family. And family, you know, 

[00:19:59] Nigel: and [00:20:00] that's what it's about. And, you know, Fatal Attractions is about the projection of emotion. Yeah. And how you feel, how dangerous it is. And compulsion. Yeah, to project emotional things. 

[00:20:12] Nigel: So that thing about... Having it mean something 

[00:20:16] Caroline: is, I think, I mean, the hardest thing. I can understand why people go and shoot things and think, well, I'll, you know, I can create this in the edit or it'll all come clear as I go along. And maybe to some degree it does, but I think to get the [00:20:30] best out of your, your commitment, you need to really have some kind of vision.

[00:20:36] Caroline: You need to know what it is, as you say, what it is you're trying to say. And also... Think about your audience. I think that's one of the best pieces of guidance I can give. I often say to our development team, when they're developing something, What would the Gogglebox audience say about this? 

[00:20:53] Nigel: We have to say for, for American people who are listening to this.

[00:20:57] Nigel: Yep. Gogglebox is a [00:21:00] British, uh, a very, very successful British... Is it specialist factual? It's basically... Factual... Factual entertainment. Factual entertainment. It's people watching... It's cameras in homes watching people watch TV. And commenting on it. And commenting 

[00:21:13] Caroline: as you do at home. And being shocked and surprised and horrified.

[00:21:17] Nigel: So let's just establish that's the audience you're talking about. But like, what you're actually saying is real people at home. 

[00:21:21] Caroline: Real people. You need to think what... And, and it's fun actually. Again, going back to Meerkat Manor, I knew there were certain things, there were certain things that would appear in the [00:21:30] rushes, in the footage, you know.

[00:21:31] Caroline: And we'd go, that looks like that, We'll exploit that because we know that the audience will latch on to that. It might be about a delinquent teenage daughter, for example. Somebody who's gone a bit off the rails. And we say, we can really play to that. And mothers across the country, across the world, will be able to relate to it.

[00:21:51] Caroline: Um, so thinking about your audience and what they're going to get from it. And, and how, how you're going to tell the story for their enjoyment. [00:22:00] And if you want to convey . something thoughtful to them, that's really important that you, you plan it. And you can do that on paper, it's cheap. Yeah, it's cheap.

[00:22:08] Caroline: In fact, it's, yeah, exactly. And it'll give you more confidence, I think. You'll know what you're after, and you'll know when you've got it. And when you haven't. 

[00:22:17] Nigel: Like you said, you have to be able to describe your program in a few sentences. Because then you've got the essence of it, and maybe a page.

[00:22:24] Nigel: It's really just, this is the essence of the idea, this is why 

[00:22:27] Caroline: it matters. It's a good test that, you could say to [00:22:30] yourself, what, what is this film about? If I can't sum it up in three lines, perhaps I need to go back and think about it again. It's challenging, 

[00:22:38] Nigel: but it's, you should learn to enjoy that. Yeah.

[00:22:42] Nigel: Because it's a real joy. And get good at it. Yeah. And it, 

[00:22:45] Caroline: isn't it? It is. It's like, it. And I wouldn't say it's an easy, just, I wouldn't say it's something you crack. It, it's a, it's a new challenge every time you have to do it. It doesn't get any easier, necessarily. 

[00:22:55] We'll be back with Caroline in a moment. But I just want to jump in [00:23:00] and remind you about the doc fix storytelling program, which is the reason why I'm recording these interviews with great storytellers. If you want to find out more about the program. Which is there to help anyone. Who's struggling to turn an idea into a great documentary story. You can go to apply dot the doc, fix.com. And I'll send you a case study. In it, I go over exactly the process I use when working on documentary series and films. Including the ones I made with Caroline. Such as the natural history, thriller fatal attractions, [00:23:30] and of course, mere cats as well as F1 drive to survive and many others. 

[00:23:35] And if you get in touch with any questions at all, I'd be happy to help. And now back to Caroline. Well, we talk about the documentary storytelling issues. She tackled in subjects, very different from a usual area of natural history. But you don't 

[00:23:51] Nigel: just make natural history films.

[00:23:54] Nigel: You've got loads of, uh, literally, uh, nominations, BAFTAs.

[00:23:59] Nigel: [00:24:00] You've just, you did a film the Billy Munger story. 

[00:24:02] Caroline: Yes, it was sort of Formula Four, Formula Three. Racing. Motorsport. 

[00:24:06] Nigel: That's got nothing to do with natural history. So clearly your love of storytelling,, expands beyond natural 

[00:24:12] Caroline: history. Yes, totally. And in fact, I would say probably now in the, sort of, in the latter years of my career, I'm drawn more to documentary.

[00:24:23] Caroline: Because I think natural history is wonderful. But... You always want to find [00:24:30] some new stories, and there's a tendency with natural history, if you're not very careful, to be going back over very similar ground all the time. , and with documentary, really the stories are endless. It's just a question of pinpointing them, finding them.

[00:24:42] Caroline: And, um, in the case of Billy, it was quite simply that I saw him being interviewed shortly after his accident in a hospital. And he was... talking about having just received a letter from, , Lewis Hamilton [00:25:00] and how, and how he was feeling about that. Just to say, 

[00:25:03] Nigel: he lost his, did he lose both his legs? Both legs.

[00:25:05] Nigel: He was 

[00:25:05] Caroline: 17 years old and he had a horrific, um, accident on, on the racetrack. A car failed in front of him round a bend, stopped dead, and he ploughed into the back a bit, and he very nearly died, but in the end he had both legs. above the knee. And, um, what was so incredibly captivating. And I think there's an element of like you, you [00:25:30]know, I have a boy, a son of his, a similar age to Billy and, , so on immediately it struck a chord emotionally, but he was just so brave.

[00:25:40] Caroline: He was just so, Not what you would expect someone of his age or anybody who just lost their legs in a, sitting in a hospital with their legs still bandaged after the amputation. His attitude was just so incredible that , his human spirit just shone out and I thought this lad is going to do something incredible.

[00:25:59] Caroline: He's got, I don't know what it [00:26:00] is, but he's going to do something incredible. This is not normal for him to be so positive. I want to follow and see what that is. , And it became what, what I, what we tend to call a passion project and I'm sure a lot of your, um, people who subscribe to this have passion projects, I'm sure all of them have.

[00:26:20] Caroline: , and it can be a bit of a bugbear because you can't let it go. You know you've got to make this film. Um, the question is how? Where do you get the funding? Who's going to take it from you? [00:26:30] Um, 

[00:26:31] Nigel: and it

[00:26:35] Nigel: The storytelling is the thing that's going to make it possible. I mean, you can have other ways in. You know, you'll introduce them to the characters and you just might find money that likes your idea. But ultimately, you've got to show that you can tell it. Especially if you're new to this. Because you can do the same idea very badly.

[00:26:55] Nigel: Yes, you absolutely can. Or you can do it incredibly well. So there's no guarantee. You [00:27:00]know, it's like when you meet people and they discover you're a documentary maker and they often say, I've got this idea for a documentary about, 

[00:27:06] Caroline: and it's a subject. That's not a 

[00:27:08] Nigel: story that's a subject. Exactly. 

[00:27:10] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:27:10] Caroline: What's the story? Who are the people? I think the documentary particularly, and I think it's wonderful 'cause I'm still learning. I've honestly, I, every, every film I make, I think is a masterclass in, in some aspect of filmmaking, um, for me to learn something. Um, but, um, I would [00:27:30] say the one thing that unifies a documentary is having people speaking out.

[00:27:34] Caroline: You want testimony from people, that's what makes a documentary. You can't just make a film about a subject, it'll just be boring. You've got to have a take on it, an angle, a person, somebody to take you into it. I call 

[00:27:48] Nigel: it, well, for the people I work with, they have to become the author of their film. So you'll talk about what's in the film, I'm talking about when I'm working with a new director or a producer.

[00:27:58] Nigel: They have to take [00:28:00] responsibility for the telling of it. Yeah. So they've got to have an authorial voice. Now, strangely, a lot of people, when they come to me, they think they are in the film. Do you know, it's so interesting because they, they don't know exactly how to tell the story. They know they're interested in the story.

[00:28:17] Nigel: And they think, can I be the main character? You know, I'll film myself talking about it. And you go, no, that's almost the obvious thing that most people do when they don't know how to tell a story. Yeah, they put themselves. Right. Do [00:28:30] you see what I mean? Yes. And it's like you have to kind of, you know, you have to take yourself out of it.

[00:28:33] Nigel: You have to be 

[00:28:34] Caroline: objective. And you have to say, whose story is it? Yeah, you have to make some choices. Whose story am I wanting, whose story do I want to tell? Well, in, in the Billy Munger case, that was really easy. Um, what was more difficult was, how do you string it all together? And in a way, Charlie Russell's director, very brilliant director, and I, what we hit on in the end was let him tell it himself.

[00:28:55] Caroline: Let him narrate his own film and tell it as his story, [00:29:00] and how he was feeling. Um, which is very similar to the fashion now of not having any narration at all. Which, um, Which is challenging. Which is another, which is another layer of challenge. 

[00:29:12] Nigel: Yeah, it was very old fashioned. I mean, I think that used to happen.

[00:29:15] Nigel: Like, I can't remember. It feels like people harking back to something. But, you know, everything goes through styles of fashion, doesn't it? Yeah. You know, you can have lots of presenter led, presenter led things is one style. Masses of voiceover. I mean, to me, I like, um, I, [00:29:30] it's absolutely fine not having a voiceover, but I don't mind a voiceover as long as you've done everything else.

[00:29:35] Nigel: I won't rule it out. You just have to ignore it at first to get the very best out of it. And if you need a voiceover or the other version that's cheating slightly is captioning. Yeah. That can help. Yeah. So you don't feel this obtrusive voice, you just see on the screen. Just some little 

[00:29:53] Caroline: pointers to get you.

[00:29:54] Caroline: Yeah, you need to guide, guide you. To fill in the blanks for people. 

[00:29:57] Nigel: Exactly. I mean we talked about [00:30:00] the technique, I mean I'm sure it's been used before, but I used it on the sports docs I worked on of getting voices that were giving you exposition that were just, that felt like they were part of the film anyway.

[00:30:13] Nigel: Which is the football, the commentary of the sport. So I got, um. Football commentators back in to record new commentary. As if it was live. As if it was live, but just to take you around a storytelling corner that didn't quite exist. So completely honest to the [00:30:30] action. And in Formula One as well, it was just using a voice that just helps clarify.

[00:30:36] Nigel: Because clarity is so important, 

[00:30:38] Caroline: isn't it? Totally, yeah, totally. And you, I mean, you've used an audio device there to do that. We, similarly in Rainbow Warrior, we were worried because We weren't making the film as a chronology. We had, we wanted, because it was a documentary that we were telling like a thriller.

[00:30:53] Caroline: It was unfolding like a thriller, which is another device. And to do that successfully, you really wanted to leap about on [00:31:00] the timeline. You didn't want to do everything chronologically. You wanted a flashback, and then you were flashing forward to somebody else, and then flashback. That can get terribly complicated for an audience if you're not very careful.

[00:31:11] Caroline: And, um, and Chloe came up with this device, which I was unsure of at first, but I think really helps, which was like, um, at the bottom of the screen. It was a digital calendar, if you like, that just moves to the right when we're jumping forward and moves to the left. A [00:31:30] ruler with a gauge on it. And jump and go to the left when we're going back.

[00:31:34] Caroline: And it goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then the date at the top. And it just helps you understand whether we're, oh, we're going to tell you something now that happened five days prior to that, or ten days later. 

[00:31:44] Nigel: I think there's a problem that people have with chronology. Again, this is something I've been working through as I work on story, is that chronology is inherently meaningless.

[00:31:53] Nigel: It doesn't, there's no story in chronology. So again, it's, it's, you have to accept the truth of that and say, okay, what do I do now? [00:32:00] And it's about, you have to be able to design a story that is non chronological. Because you've got this greater meaning that you want to deliver. It's like when you know what you want to say.

[00:32:09] Caroline: Chronology can get in the way of the story. 

[00:32:11] Nigel: Totally. So you have to be, you have to have the skills to be able to deliver this meaning. And then there was someone who came to me with this story and there were so many fantastic events and we have to include this. And this woman's amazing. Her ideas were fizzing.

[00:32:27] Nigel: And I said, look, she said, I want to include [00:32:30] this, I want to include that. I said to her, when you know what the story is. And you're really committed and it feels right. You won't 

[00:32:36] Caroline: want those sequences. They won't matter to you anymore. They become superfluous, yes. And they'll actually stop you telling the story.

[00:32:41] Caroline: If they're not working, you've got to be ruthless. You've got to take them out. 

[00:32:45] Nigel: So a big piece of advice would be really... Think and prepare as much as you can about the storytelling. There's a lot of edits in the professional world that are in trouble.

[00:32:56] Caroline: They've lost the storyline. They don't quite know what they're doing. So it 

[00:32:59] Nigel: can [00:33:00] happen. It's hard enough making a documentary, even with all the preparation 

[00:33:03] Caroline: that you do.

[00:33:03] Caroline: It really is. And you're nothing more, there's nothing you can do about that, really. You are going to come up against problems in the edit. And it's just the ingenuity with which you solve it. I mean, I remember in, um, the Billy Munger story, which looks like a very, very simple film when you watch it. You think, oh, well it starts with a, Starts with him losing his legs and it ends up with something wonderful happening at the end and it's about a year in his life.

[00:33:29] Caroline: But you [00:33:30] know, what was really hard was working out where you put his car crash. It didn't belong at the beginning because you wanted to know who this young man was. So where does it come? And we agitated so long about that and we moved it around all over the place. And you, you, so sometimes what you think is obvious, The obvious place to start, it really isn't.

[00:33:53] Caroline: And you have to throw all your cards in the air and think, no, it starts somewhere else. 

[00:33:59] Nigel: So many people have [00:34:00] told me, and shared my experience, that you're in an edit, you've been working at it, working at it, and then you solve it, and it seems so 

[00:34:07] Caroline: obvious now. Yes, and if it looks obvious, if when you finish the whole thing looks simple, I feel like you've probably done something right.

[00:34:15] Caroline: And in fact, going back to Makeup Manor, if you were to ask me about the one... Overriding feeling I have about it is whenever I have dipped back into previous episodes of that, I'm absolutely struck by how [00:34:30]simple it looks. And I think, but I know that it isn't and I know what we had to do to get the three, you know, the three story strands in every film, what was the premise of every episode.

[00:34:43] Caroline: I know how much hard work went into it, never mind dredging through hundreds and hundreds of hours of rushes to find the, the right reaction shots and the right, you know, the, to get exactly the right imagery we needed. So, yes, if it looks, if it looks, if it's good and it looks simple, you've [00:35:00] probably cracked it.

[00:35:01] Nigel: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. There's just the frustration of thinking, why did it take me three weeks to do the obvious? And it's just, because it can take that long to get there, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. So natural history filmmaking is, let's talk about it a little bit more because there's quite a few people who love those kind of stories.

[00:35:20] Nigel: What is the future? Is there a future for it? That, that can engage with the big problems in the world. , natural history filmmaking is now about the environment pretty much, isn't it? [00:35:30] Because we're facing so many environmental 

[00:35:32] Caroline: issues. Which incidentally was always, or conservation was a dirty word, not very long ago in television.

[00:35:36] Caroline: You just did not mention that word because you wouldn't get your film made. It was considered a massive turn off. So we have made some advances in that we can now make environmental films. So we're making 

[00:35:48] Nigel: environmental films and we want to get people to, Change. Change their belief, change their behavior.

[00:35:57] Nigel: That's a tricky thing to do, isn't 

[00:35:59] Caroline: it? It [00:36:00] is, because nobody wants to be shown , because nobody wants a doom laden, be sat in front of a, an hour for a, sat in front of a TV for an hour watching a doom fest, do they? I mean, nobody does. So, , generally. The way broadcasters say is, can you put a positive spin on it?

[00:36:18] Caroline: And you can only go so far with that, in my view. You can show the remedial action being taken to, for example, prevent plastic pollution in rivers. You can show some of the ingenious [00:36:30] devices that have been invented to stop plastic going into the sea. But they're very small scale. And I think..., it's quite limited what you can do.

[00:36:40] Caroline: So the challenge is how do you, , create natural history that in that encourages behavior change. And um, a lot of it is to make people care. And I think to make people care, they've got to be emotionally engaged. And that comes down to the quality of the storytelling. And it comes back to 

[00:36:57] Nigel: storytelling because I've seen over [00:37:00] the years, uh, you know, uh, let's just say the big blue chip.

[00:37:05] Nigel: natural history films that tack on at the end a message which is basically saying wow isn't all this incredible but by the way yeah and you'll lose all this if you don't do something about it and and you think what a lost opportunity because nothing in how you've told that story supports That notion.

[00:37:26] Nigel: Yeah. You've just shown something amazing. 

[00:37:28] Caroline: It's like, you've shown [00:37:30] something pristine that looks like how we'd all imagine and love the natural world to be and perhaps how it was several decades ago. And I think that's a bit disingenuous because then at the end you say, well, obviously it's not all like that.

[00:37:43] Caroline: And, and we've got these problems. It's very unsatisfactory for me. If you were to talk about habitat loss and the plight of elephants, There's one shot that could sum that up, and it would be, and I've seen it, it's [00:38:00] a shot of an elephant or a rhino or whatever, walking through the tundra and the backdrop is a city.

[00:38:07] Caroline: Now how much more powerful that is, that tells you about human encroachment on the natural world, than either A, giving me a sob story, or B... telling me at the end, Oh, by the way, everything we just showed you, this isn't really like, you know, there are some problems in it. 

[00:38:25] Nigel: So do you think natural history should or will go towards putting animals in context?[00:38:30]

[00:38:30] Nigel: Because I spoke to a natural history cinematographer and he was literally saying how, if you move the camera 90 degrees, you would get a completely different story because you'd suddenly see behind you. You know, you have to, you have to, um, block out all the stuff that takes away from a 

[00:38:46] Caroline: wonderful animal behavior.

[00:38:48] Caroline: Well, they, and they have done that for many years, and it's been, it's, it's been, um, disgraceful really. I just don't, I just don't think it's being honest. I think people want to be told on honest [00:39:00] stories. And, um, in fact in my most recent series for Disney Plus 'Secrets of the Elephants', we, uh, we, um, we didn't shy away from it.

[00:39:09] Caroline: We showed elephants. on palm oil plantations alongside bulldozers. We filmed that. We filmed the bulldozers chopping down the trees and the elephants eating the debris , around them. And it's shocking. It's really shocking footage, but there's a message of hope in it because the elephants are actually[00:39:30] getting really good nutrition from those fallen trees.

[00:39:32] Caroline: And some of these palm oil plantations, not all by, I have not all by any means, but some of them have. Um, have worked out a sort of symbiotic relationship with the elephants where the elephants are given space and, food and, they're not troubled by the loggers, um, and the loggers are getting their, the palm oil and whatever.

[00:39:55] Caroline: And there's some things working out between them that is fairly hopeful. [00:40:00] And it's a good way of doing it, that's, that's the point. But we don't hide from the fact that elsewhere in that forest, orangutans are, numbers are plummeting and, you know, , and we should all think seriously about eating ice cream and biscuits with palm oil in it.

[00:40:16] Caroline: You know, I hope that message gets across. I 

[00:40:18] Nigel: think, I think it, again, the value of storytelling there is so huge because, , you have to, Be able to tell stories that aren't just optimistic, triumphant stories. Because [00:40:30] there are tragedies, or semi tragedies, or hope tinged with regret. And you know, in the world of drama, they're amazing.

[00:40:38] Nigel: But I think because of the lack of storytelling knowledge in natural history and other areas, they think, how can you tell a downer story that's a success? And you think, so Hamlet? You know, they're 

[00:40:50] Caroline: amazing. Romeo and Juliet. 

[00:40:53] Nigel: Structurally, they're tragedies or versions of tragedies. So if you have the confidence as a storyteller to say, this is [00:41:00] going to be so compelling, that's all you want.

[00:41:02] Nigel: You don't want to make people leap happily around the room. Especially when you, they know. But you're being dishonest. Yes, 

[00:41:12] Caroline: I think you have to respect their 

[00:41:13] Nigel: intelligence. In order to tell the film that you've showed them, part of them knows this isn't the truth. Yeah. And the only way you can fix that disconnect between the reality and making them [00:41:30] compelled to watch it is with the storytelling

[00:41:32] Nigel: , thanks so much. It's been really, it's been lovely coming back into the offices and, and speaking with you. And, and seeing that you're doing so well because that Elephant film, that's got a couple of Emmy nominations as 

[00:41:44] Caroline: well.

[00:41:44] Caroline: Yes, it has. It's got, um, an Emmy nomination for cinematography and one for best documentary series. So, um. You're doing something right. We're doing something right, yeah. Yeah, we are. And, uh. It's a joy to do it and I [00:42:00] hope all your subscribers really love their film making because it is a wonderful thing to do.

[00:42:06] Nigel: Caroline, thanks so much. It was lovely seeing you again soon. Yep.

[00:42:14] I hope you enjoyed that conversation and found it useful. If you're interested in working with me and the doc fix all the links you need or in the notes below. There's a case study you could sign up for that goes into some detail on how the system has been used in some of the TV shows and documentaries I've been [00:42:30] involved with. 

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