Lion
I never expected the BBC to reach out to me about a lion documentary. But what an opportunity! I was embedded into a big team of camera people, guides and producers whose expert knowledge allowed me to dive deep into the savannah ecosystem. In total I’ve spent 180 days in the field over a three-year-period. The series tells the real life story of Kio, a lion baby who we accompanied into adulthood. A longterm project of the rarest kind.
Frozen Planet II
It was one of the most magical days in my life when we encountered two polar bears on the sea ice of Svalbard’s East Coast. The bears started playing immediately. When I filmed them finally “dancing” together, I honestly had this one thought on my mind: I need to capture this for the children of the world! Hopefully younger people and future generations will grow up perceiving polar bears as sentient beings who have moments where they simply enjoy life together, just like us.
Perfect Planet
Working with arctic wolves has been my biggest dream come true. But the challenge was huge: We went there in winter when temperature drop down to -50° Celsius. Nobody had ever filmed them hunting large groups of arctic hares. It wasn’t even in the script. So when it happened I hadn’t even imagined it beforehand. These type of surprises make wildlife filmmaking so incredibly fascinating.
Seven Worlds
It was a six week shoot but three weeks of our time we were occupied to sail to the remote archipelago of South Georgia and back. For a seasick person like me these crossings in stormy Antarctic seas have been an absolute nightmare. But filming a sequence about cheeky king penguin chicks compensated for the difficulties. On location we were surrounded by 500.000 penguins and countless elephant seals. A glimpse into one of the world’s last truly wild places far from cities and the rest of the human world.
