Chimpanzee Interview

Ahead of the theatrical release of the Disneynature movie Chimpanzee, life-long advocate of conservation efforts, Sir David Attenborough, and acclaimed natural history directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield took the round table in the Barbican Centre, to answer some questions.

Film-News:
How difficult was it to film in the African rain forest?

Linfield / Fothergill:
It was physically very difficult, but the people bearing the brunt of that were the cameramen. They were out day after day, struggling with the heat and with carrying the equipment. Alastair and I would give them a hand whenever, but they really did suffer! They would work for three days and then just had to take off to return to the camp and take a break, as their legs could barely move. The reason for that is that you have to start with the chimpanzees, actually, before the chimpanzees got out of bed, otherwise you lose them. Say they got up at 6am, but your camp is two hours walk away from where the chimps are, then you would need to leave the camp by 4am. Then you are with them all day, they are traveling 15 to 20 km through the forest, at the end of the day you make your way back to the camp again. Plus, it’s dark, and it’s particularly wet, and you never see a horizon while you are in the dense forest! It’s hard to explain what psychological effect this has on you, it becomes very oppressive.

I think for us as directors, it was particularly challenging, as often we would only get one shot per day. We know that this being a movie, the emphasis was on a strong story. A documentary doesn’t necessarily need to have such a strong narrative, so we were constantly working on getting the story together on film, and every few weeks we would re-edit and so on. We were on a satellite phone to a few of our other assistants every other day, and they would say “Should we stick with Oscar… what should we do know?” Our last shoot was actually cancelled due to a sudden war on the Ivory Coast.

FN:
Were you tempted to intervene after Oscar became an orphan?

Fothergill / Linfield / Attenborough:
Once we followed Oscar, all our money was on Oscar. And that’s because when he would have died, then we thought genuinely that is the end for our project. Disney didn’t have a script as such and didn’t tell us what kind of movie they wanted to make, but we knew that this being a Disneynature movie, people wanted a happy ending. It was a real worry for us at the time, asking ourselves “Should we intervene at all? There is nothing you can do. The only thing we could have done was take him to a zoo, but you would need to find a very good zoo for chimps to be happy. Even if you tried to, you could put yourself into grave danger. Fortunate for Oscar, and for us, a miracle happened and he was adopted by one of his own.

FN:
Was it difficult try not to get emotionally involved?

Sir David Attenborough:
Of course. I always do! You’d be less than human if you don’t. I mean, if you see a little fawn sitting there and you can see a leopard coming along about to take it, then if you don’t feel your heart run, then you are less than human. Poor little thing, but you know damn well that if you did try intervene, he’d got up! Well, whether the leopard would take any notice is another question. You would also scare the fawn, the fawn runs for it, the leopard goes after it or look for another fawn. Also, the fawn would be traumatised, the mother certainly would be, and in the end all would be far worse than if you’d allowed the natural thing to happen.

FN:
What about the happy-go-lucky soundtrack, was that chosen particularly to appeal to a younger audience?

Fothergill / Linfield:
Not particularly to a younger audience. If you are talking about the two jazz tracks, I mean, Marc and I were absolutely determined not to make a documentary for cinema. There have been natural history docus for cinema, like March Of The Penguins for example, and particularly in the UK and in Europe there are an awful lot of really good natural history programs on television – a lot of them of which David has been the heart of. But we thought “That isn’t the experience of cinema”. We want people to go see the film and get engaged with the chimpanzees, as if they were human beings. And we thought straight away that the jazz tracks are not what you would expect in a nature documentary. Also, we felt the music captured the spirit of chimpanzees. They are mischievous and fun-filled, engaging animals, particularly the younger ones. That jazz track immediately sets that mood, and that’s why we put it.

FN:
While you were filming, did you come across any instances of poaching?

Linfield / Fothergill:
We did actually several times during filming, and we heard some gunshots going off. The biggest worry we had along those lines when the war came into play, and it became very dangerous to film. When we decided to stay out there, the camp was effectively invaded by Europeans. But when the crew and villagers would leave the camp, then the poachers would know and continue with their work. The fact that the political situation became so instabile was real worrying because it means that during that time, you can’t protect the chimpanzees.

FN:
Was there a point when you were about to throw the towel, because of all the difficult conditions?

Fothergill / Linfield:
Actually, our cameraman, Martin, he later revealed in his diary that he thinks this (nightmare) is ever going to end. He was filming moments, not sequences, he couldn’t see this film coming together, he never had a project like this, which turned out to be a complete nightmare… That’s paraphrasing what he said, but it’s quite interesting.
In the end, it was worth it of course, because of the chimpanzees. They are such fantastic animals, and especially the moments when Freddy grooms Oscar, or Oscar falls asleep in the arms of Freddy, these are such powerful images that made it all worthwhile!