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Dave Salmoni and Savannah
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Assisted onstage at the Content Theater by Savannah, an 18-month old lion cub, producer, wildlife conservationist and large predator expert Dave Salmoni discussed the production of his latest project for Animal Planet.
"Case Study: "Walk the Lion" offered insight into the six-month video shoot within a wildlife preserve in Namibia, where Salmoni lived alongside a pride of "problem" lions who had been consigned to what he described as "Alcatraz for big cats."
"I strongly believe there are no 'problem' lions, only problematic environments," said Salmoni, a zoologist who has transitioned to hosting and producing documentaries. In an effort to acclimatize the lions to humans, so they could co-exist in a protected, "eco-tourist" animal preserve, Salmoni set up camp and worked to document the experiment. The resulting six-episode miniseries, "Walk the Lion," will air this fall.
In his presentation, Salmoni screened footage from the series, which utilized an innovative combination of acquisition devices, and then detailed the specifics of the production with the caveat that he knew "more about animal behavior than camera models."
With a diverse setup of equipment, including a POV "Sting Cam," three Panasonic HD tape cameras, a Panasonic P2 HVX-200 "diary" cam, motion-sensor and heat-sensor cameras for recording wildlife at night, and a Polecam for up-close shots, Salmoni and his crew recorded "many, many thousands of hours of footage."
Because of the remote location and his comfort level with tape, Salmoni was hesitant to move to a tapeless production environment, but he was pleased with the performance of the solid-state P2 HVX-200, which he used to record his first-person experiences during the shoot.
Because of the heat and the dusty environment, the primary production cameras required nightly disassembly and cleaning by Salmoni's crew, who worked a few miles outside of the preserve at a makeshift production studio. Although the crew logged footage in the field and did some editing while on location, they delivered 3,000 hours of footage to Discovery, where the post production was completed.