Good News And Bad News

The good news is that Justine Evans has arrived* she has been out setting camera traps with the jaguar researcher Luis Fonseca Lopez who is working in the National Park.

The less good news is that we are encountering a lot of problems. Initially it was mainly mechanical problems with the remote-controlled cameras that we were working to overcome, but then catastrophe struck; you may remember that two crews came out in January and February to stretch a pair of cables high over the forest canopy so we could send dollies along them. It is very windy in the park and we had not accounted for the amount of loosening that would happening. Two days ago one of our cables collapsed and then the other one followed suit. We have spent the last two days pulling the cables back up and reinforcing our systems.

Despite the fact that filming has been hindered we have still got some very exciting footage of pumas and some extremely charming shots of tapirs.

We're hoping to send the overhead cameras out for a proper run tonight - cross your fingers for us please!


*camera woman par excellence.

Happy Birthday Santa Rosa

This is Ammonite's 6th project in the Santa Rosa National Park of Costa Rica. Our first visit here was in 1994.

Today Santa Rosa celebrates 40 years of existence, the park was established on the same date as a battle fought in 1856 - an epic battle that lasted all of fifteen minutes when troops of filibusters sent by William Walker, were surprised and repelled by the strength and bravery of the Tico troops. The historic value of this battle led directly to the establishment of Santa Rosa as a protected area.

Today's celebrations included two bands, lots of schoolchildren, dancing, speeches, some great music and a historical re-enactment of the famous battle.


* William Walker had at this point set himself up as President of Nicaragua, conducted fraudulent elections and launched Americanization programs which involved making every one speak English and reinstating slavery. Follow this link for more on this charming man

The Glamour Never Stops

As usual the Ammonite crew is located in sumptuous accommodation;

Our luxury kitchen benefits from flow-thru air conditioning and a resident teasmaid - this one even has an en suite bathroom


All rooms are multi-functional, here is a combined sleep/work space - this lucky occupant has a free room mate included in his special deal*


* snoring room mates an optional extra, please ask the sales team for availability


Laundry facilities provided in every room

Setting Up Home In The Tree House

Earlier in the year a crew were in Costa Rica rigging up cables over the forest canopy. At one end of the cables we have built a sort of tree house, an operations centre where we will control the remote cameras that will zip along these cables.

Crews will be working shifts in this tree house which will be full of monitors, computers - and our specially made detection devices. Before they start we have to kit it out with a worktop and chairs so they can make themselves comfy for the duration.

This is harder than one might imagine, furniture is quite expensive in Costa Rica, there are no secondhand stores near us and what furniture is available is not ideally suited to being hauled up through a gap in the floor.

We are going to make what we need ourselves, the photo shows Nick loading his atv with timber ready to assemble his workstation in situ.

Packed For Costa Rica

We've lost count of how many cases are going this time ... a lot.

The crew set off for Costa Rica in a few hours - will we see jaguars?

Fire Fighting At Ammonite

Three Ways Fire Prevention Services came to teach us how to be fire wardens, the extinguisher training was tackled with gusto:



Will - he's fighting the Dark Forces



Tom - getting in a lather




Laura - business-like as usual

Ostracod Spotting

We are in Belize filming bioluminescent marine creatures. The bit of Belize where we are doing this is an hour’s bumpy ride on a boat from Dangriga to South Water Caye, an island which measures about the size of a cruise ship. The lodge where we are staying and working is also a marine biology study centre. Professor Jim Morin is working with us and has set up a laboratory there so we can film the work that he is doing with bioluminescent animals.

One especially astonishing creature that he is studying is a bioluminescent Ostracod, an animal the size of a sesame seed which has the capacity to set itself ablaze in blue light in order to attract a girlfriend.

Every night after a full moon an extraordinary spectacle takes place; one night Jim took us to the marine mating grounds where we waited in the boat until sunset, then we slipped into the water and waited for the light show.

The beautiful prelude to ostracod action is the dance of the female marine worms who rise to the water’s surface spraying out their eggs in a mass of green light attracting hundreds of males who rush over to fertilise them, the water fizzes with action, it's like watching hundreds of tiny catherine wheels going off all over the water.

Ten minutes after the worms have got going, the ostracods start swimming upwards, slowly at first, we just see the odd line of vertical lights coming up among the corals and seaweeds, moving gently in the current. Each male ostracod gives off four dots to signal their presence to any females who might be around, then the lights become more and more until the water is pulsating with wavy lines of vertical blue dots all moving upwards.

Just when the water seems already full of light, the horizontal swimmers start, their trails of blue light spots fan out laterally, soon the ocean becomes an intense trippy matrix, it's mesmerising. Finally the lights fade away and we come up out of the water to make our way home, the night sky is indigo and massed with stars, we sit quietly in the boat on the way home because we can’t quite believe what we saw.

If you click on the Facebook button on the right you'll find an album of photos from Belize.

Emergency Supplies

I think there's a law that says 'if something can go wrong it will' - some crucial bits of metal got left behind in the packing room and are now heading with a personal courier to deliver them as fast as possible. The route to the island off Belize is long and once the two main plane journeys are completed there is a long bus ride and then a boat journey, it's a two-dayer.

Once there, there is no internet and very little electricity - paradise for those on holiday but when trying to arrange delivery of spare parts it gets problematic.



The good news is that this place is perfect for our filming, while waiting for the parts to arrive the crew have been filming in the ocean at night and our cameras and the sea life are behaving perfectly.

We are working in Belize with a scientist (more about him later) and the next phase of filming will involve a bit of work in a laboratory.

No more news from here for about a week, but hopefully there will soon be some pictures to show you.

Testing, Testing Squidcam

The Amazing Bioluminescence Film has been in pre-production for months. First we had to try and anticipate conditions that might occur at sea, then we constructed scaled-down models of the kit that we intended to make. The last phase is trying the models out in our testing tanks where we recreated an ocean in miniature.

One of the creatures that we are hoping to encounter on this odyssey is a giant squid and we have worked out a system for lowering a camera into the ocean from the deck of a boat. The camera will be connected to a computer back on deck and this gives us more problems to overcome along with issues of drag, turbulance and the possibility that the squid might appear but not exactly in the right spot.

Here is John Ruthven demonstrating a prototype model made of parts supplied by his children




The sound on this is not very clear so here’s a rough transcript:

John: We’ve got this attached to a computer - and once it’s attached to a computer, the bit that’s turning can’t be let in and out because it goes round and round and would turn the whole computer and it’s assembly would be going round and round as well.

So given that we can’t do that, we’ll have to put some slack on deck and carefully play it out.

And the thought is, that as we can see the image, say there was a squid here, that was slightly too high we could pull it up so we could see the squid (device spins) - hopefully it won’t rotate like that either, the fins should stabilise it.

What you can get in the water is jogging like that so we’ve got to stop that too.

The other issues is that most sea captains are not terribly happy when they’ve got 500 metres of cable dangling off the back of their ships and they’re near rocks and they need to manouvre

The Amazing Bioluminescence Film Begins

The Ammonite Testing Team has just returned from making the first mini-test-shoot for a brand new project and Ammonite’s 8th version of the starlight camera is producing some very extraordinary images.

Vieques, a small Island off the coast of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean has the perfect place - a lagoon that is so packed with tiny bioluminescent creatures that just touching the water makes it flash brightly. For fish trying to keep a low profile, it’s a nightmare - but it's magical for humans. The light is too dim for normal cameras, but Ammonite’s latest starlight camera can capture the spectacle in colour.

This unique place is surely one of the 7 wonders of the Earth - but not for much longer unless the Puerto Ricans tackle light pollution and excessive human traffic

Good News From The Camera Boy

Hey Guys!

2 cables are up and the tower is built like a brick shithouse - I can't make it wobble any more (which is good!). Caught an ocelot on trapcam last night, about 50 metres from dormitories :-) I've attached a pic of cables as requested


Cheers,
Howard

Notes From Our Very Own Superhero

For the last week a crack team has been working away in a very bitey-insect-infested part of Costa Rica to finish building the filming tower and rigging the dolly-sliding cables across the forest. The project has been fraught with problems, as you may already know from previous posts, the first attempt did not go well.

We have been getting regular progress reports about this latest activity from our Superhero-in-Chief Max Mackay:


01/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Hi Everyone,

Re cables. We have to take them up to full tension over the tower now. Failure to do that will mean finding those problems during filming time. Also the noise would be disruptive to the critters and that was really the point of getting out here to do it early. On the good side we saw deer and peccary today.

So the pressure is on and it's big damn hero time for us all tomorrow. Basically if we have a great day we get to strut around in tight fitting costumes with our underwear outside our trousers. If we don't,......., well, with that incentive we just can't fail.

Buenos noches.
Max

02/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Hi Everyone,

The wobble factor of the tower is down from a massive sway scaring everone who goes on it to a significant small wobble but I have high hopes that it will improve still further with tomorrows bracing.

So there you go. Not so much leaping tall buildings in a single bound as stepping over small obstacles in a dainty yet manly fashion.

Kind regards
Duncan (Max) McKay

03/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Greetings once again from the land of many stars. The story of the day goes like this :-

Tower wobble stopped. Stop.

First 9mm cable secured over valley and on tower. Stop.

Second cable anticipated installed tomorrow. Stop.

Much dancing in underwear. Must stop.

Yours very sincerely
Duncan (Max) McKay

04/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Lines and lines and lines

Dear all,

Having a positively spiffing time. Weather here top notch and the insects are delectably bitey.

Both lines are in, tensioned up and high as we can go. The tower is complete and not moving. Woohoo!

Cable 1 run sucks as it sits on trees over the entire bottom end but cable 2 is a real winner, sailing clear over the canopy.

We will be clearing out local branches tomorrow as best we can in advance of the dolly.

Hero pants firmly ensconced.

Sweet dreams
Duncan (Max) McKay

Cables Vs Trees

We knew this wasn’t going to be easy - so we shouldn’t be surprised that our first attempt at getting the cables across the forest wasn’t entirely successful. The problem is simple; cables, string and forests don’t mix. But then if it was easy, everyone would be doing it (or so we keep telling ourselves).

After two weeks of struggling we had to leave the cabling unfinished because we had booked another trip to go and test some new cameras in the bioluminescent waters of the Caribbean (more about that project to come). A second crew is on it's way to Costa Rica to pick up where we left off, strengthening the cable platform and finish threading the cables - and then the forest can return to normal before the filming starts in March.

Cascavel

Costa Rica is well known for having a rich variety of venomous snakes. Among the most famous / infamous is the rattle-less rattlesnake, the cascavel

Apparently common in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, this much feared snake is hardly ever actually seen. To find a beautiful specimen next to the cable platform we are building was a pleasant surprise - er - but a bit of a worry for the night watchman.

Using a couple of long sticks, we gently tried to persuade the snake to move on. The snake was calm and at first reluctant to move. Eventually we escorted it 50 metres down the hill, during which time, it didn’t strike once.

The next morning, the night watchman told us that as soon as we had gone, the snake simply returned to where we had first found it. Interesting

Meet Kathy Lee

This is Kathy Lee: photo by Fernando Campos


20 years ago I made my first film in Santa Rosa, Costa Rica, it was about Coatis but while making this film with Joel Seanz of the University of Heredia, I also met some dedicated scientists studying the resident monkey population - the Monkey People. At that time they were Linda Fedigan, Katie Mackinnon and Lisa Rose. The Monkey People told me about their study of various groups of white-faced capuchins in Santa Rosa and described fascinating stories of the forest.

To help describe the different monkeys, they give them all names - one little female, born in 1989 was called Kathy Lee

Six years later I returned to make my second film here, Lisa Rose was still there, trudging the forest trails and that's when I was introduced to Kathy Lee, just entering adulthood she was notable for her maleness and would often go squirrel-hunting with the boys. Her first attempts at sex play would result in her mounting a (confused) male.

Another two years went by and I was back to make my third film, this one about monkeys*, I was helped immeasurably by the Monkey People; Lisa Rose, Kathy Jack and Barbara Welker.

I was happy to see that Kathy Lee was now a mother.

Last week, I was back in Santa Rosa, the Monkey People have changed again, this time Claire Sheller and Mackenzie Bergstrom took me to meet the monkeys.

Guess who was the first monkey that I saw? Yup! it was Kathy Lee, now the alpha female and having a massive argument with the only mature male of the group, Cayenne.

Mackenzie had been the one watching the monkeys and had noticed that Cayenne had been having a bad day for a monkey: Firstly, at dawn, he failed to notice a puma under the sleeping tree. The puma followed the monkeys as they set off to forage.

If you're a male white-faced capuchin, your job is to look out for predators and warn the group. Cayenne failed badly. Perhaps that’s why Kathy Lee was so upset with him. He also later stole a grasshopper from her by biting her hand, and now Kathy Lee was really mad, gathering the whole group to threaten and shout at Cayenne. Not a proud moment in his career as an alpha male, but for me it was really nice to see Kathy Lee, now a grandmother - still feisty after all these years.

I suspect Cayenne’s tenure as alpha male is nearly over.

Martin Dohrn
*3 monkeys(BBC Natural World / Discovery)

Ticks and Vampires

Ticks. Yuck. Among the most unpleasant of all the bloodsuckers - they make mosquitos look like angels.

We are being plastered in ticks as we stumble through thick viney forest looking for the thin yellow lines left by the crossbow arrows. Eventually these lines will all be joined and we’ll be able to start the long process of pulling the big cable across the valley. If the ticks don’t suck all our blood before we can finish the job.

The presence of so many ticks isn’t as bad as it seems. It means there are plenty of animals around - which means that there will be predators such as the dry forest cats; jaguars, pumas, ocelots, margays and jaguarundis - one of the crew even saw a puma yesterday.

On the other hand, the vampire bats are missing. In a place where a year ago we filmed vampires sneaking up on deer with the thermal camera, now there are none. An evening’s wait revealed no more than a mouse and two rabbits (which of course in their own way are just as interesting.)

How To Fling Something Far: Plan B

The Crossbow Method:
The crew have arrived and discovered most things ready to go. There is a slight problem in that the trees are still leafy. We expected the dry season to be well under way by now but we are hoping that by the time we start filming the leaves will have detached themselves to give the camera a clear view through the trees to the ground below ... if we can get the cable up...

Some time was spent on catapult-making but that idea didn't really work out.

Luckily, We also took some crossbows with us to Costa Rica, one of the crew had the idea that we could shoot thinnish line across the trees and use that to draw a heavier cable through - this method is showing promise.

Night of the Hunt showing in USA

If you haven't already caught it, Night of the Hunt is showing on the National Geographic Channel in the US at the moment - next airing on Sunday.

How To Fling Something Far: Plan A

We have been racking our brains on the subject of how to get a very long cable across the top of the forest.

Plan A involves putting a camera boy attached to one end of the cable in the flinging bit of a big catapult

Bracing Ourselves

Ammonite has been busy preparing for the next trip to Costa Rica where among other things we are hoping to film jaguars. We have discussed many cunning plans for this project, jaguars are notoriously good at hiding. One of our schemes is to thread an immensely long cable through the forest and hoist it up above the canopy between two points so that various bits of kit can be set up to glide above the trees (a sort of death-slide for cameras), giving us a monkey’s eye view of the action taking place on the forest floor.

How will we achieve this very difficult task?

We're not quite sure yet - but we have sketched out some ideas that we will be telling you about, meanwhile if you have any brainwaves please let us know.

Happy Christmas Everyone

This was the face of Ammonite this morning, some of us went on to do a bit of all night dancing - a full album of the evening's activities are available on our Facebook page.


Have a great Christmas everyone - some sort of service will resume early in 2011

Love from Ammonite xxxxx

Getting In Training For Costa Rica

Ammonite will shortly be embarking on a search for the elusive jaguar. The first trip sets off next month, they are heading into inaccessible territory and one of the many challenges will be how to thread a cable high up through a large section of forest.

Part of the preparations involved a weekend recently with MTF, where Ian Shacklock taught the crew how to use an All Terrain Vehicle safely. That's Howard Bourne with the proof that he passed the course with flying colours

The Edit Marathon Begins

The indomitable Jimmy Taggart is back at Ammonite - currently turning reams of hyena footage into pure spun gold.... next up leopards!

Ammonite Loose In The Country

An Ammonite crew drove out east to meet Paul and Ryan Edwards yesterday. These two talented young cameramen have been filming the barn owls that live near their Suffolk home. If you are in the UK, catch Autumnwatch tonight on BBC2 at 8.30 to see what they've been up to.

Ants In Their Pants

Ants can be a pain - apparently

Hitting The Headlines

Martin Dohrn's stunning starlight images can be seen in online versions of Metro and The Daily Telegraph, they're also in today's Daily Mail,

Regal Monarchs

Ammonite sent a crew to Mexico and Wisconsin last March to film Monarch butterflies for the National Geographic series Great Migrations - it's finally on telly.

Ammonite Goes To Hollywood

It's finally ready and winging its way over the pond to star in a Hollywood feature film alongside a raft of Oscar winners...

For weeks we've been preparing a custom starlight rig for a super-sensitive, Mega-A-list film, an undercover operation so ultra-secret that if we reveal any names, large black-suited men will take us away and feed us to their pet piranhas.

Does My Bum Look Big In This?

The filming crew went back to Kenya three weeks ago and we haven't heard from them since - not so much as a tweet.

We hope the silence means that they are so busy filming exciting things (warthogs eating lions, crocodiles dancing on ice...) that they haven't the time to talk to us. They're supposed to be getting back at the weekend so we'll be posting news of the latest trip when we see the rushes.


Meanwhile the crew that stayed in the office got down to some needle craft - this is Elliot and Laura turning a baby-carrying backback into a computer-carrying backpack for the next field trip.

Settling Down

Still working out where to put everything but we're getting used to our new home...


The filming crew are all back home and the whole team are together for a brief week before the next leg of filming starts. While the boys were away, the home of Ammonite was moved from it's rather cramped quarters in Cotham to a fantastic building designed by one of the world's most astonishing men Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

The building has been neglected over recent decades this summer our offices looked a bit like this





and there was quite a lot of work to do to achieve first this



and then this



It's been an amazing project: in an attempt to be as green as possible our furniture and fittings have all come from salvaged/recycled/reclaimed sources with a minimal use of new timber. Planted right next to the railway station we will be arriving for work by bike, train, bus and Shank's pony and hoping that our visitors will do likewise. But most of all this is the most beautiful place to be, we're hoping that the spirit of one of the world's greatest inventors will inspire Ammonite to design equipment that will lead us to uncover even more of the wonders of the natural world ...