Filming

Secrets of Wild India – telecast dates in India

Secrets of Wild India – telecast dates in India

Many of you already know, but during most of last year, I worked on a series for National Geographic Channel called ‘The Secrets of Wild India’ along with Sara and Mandanna. The films is finally ready and will air early the coming week in India. It has already aired in the UK. Its a 3-part episode and the first part was filmed by Sandesh in Kaziranga and we shot the second two parts in Tadoba and Gujarat. It has been a privilege to work on this production, especially the fact that David Attenborough has narrated it. Do catch the show…

Starting Wild India

A new year and a new wildlife production. This time, we are working on two of the three part series named Wild India for National Geographic. The theme is to showcase India’s diversity along with how wildlife copes with extreme conditions. One episode deals with the annual flood in Kaziranga, one on prey-predator dynamics at drying waterholes in central India and the last one is on extereme heat of Gujarat, highlighting lions and animals of the arid region of Kutch. Just landed in Ahmeadabad and pigged out on amazing Gujarati food. Our first stop is Kutch and hope to give…

Living with elephants

In case you were wondering, I’m still alive and kicking. It just has been hectic last the few months and have not had time to write things down. I’m currently working on a small documentary film with Anand Kumar on elephants and conflict in a plantation landscape (Anamalais) in the Western Ghats. Elephants use this landscape–the tea estates, the coffee, the swamps and riverine vegetation, and the remnant forests–as part of their annual ranges. However, every year, between September and February, these elephants spend a substantial part of their time out of the surrounding reserves and in the plantations. The…

Sidewinding

The last few weeks have been very exciting as we have been traveling to almost all the extreme corners of the country, photographing and filming snakes. From Pit vipers in northeast India to Sind Kraits and Saw-scaled vipers in Rajasthan and to more snakes in the Western Ghats. Saw-scaled viper sidewinding in the desert This photograph is one of my favorites from the whole trip and something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a while now. It was a lot tougher than I thought. I wanted to capture the snake with a wide lens, to shoot the landscape behind…

Snake Bites Production

I’m off on a month-long assignment to film snakes at the Madras Crocodile Bank. Its an Icon Films production for the BBC. 
What’s the film about ? World Health Organization estimates suggest that over one million people are bitten by snakes in India each year; between 20,000 and 50,000 of these prove fatal, as many as the rest of the world combined. Although shocking, these statistics are still just estimates and as such sadly hold diminished weight. There is presently no conclusive data that confirms exactly what the situation is. But this is all set to change later this year…

Expedition Monsoon : End

4 weeks, 12 locations, 4200 km, 380GB of footage/photos and a big pile of stinky and wet clothes. What an amazing journey it was. The monsoon rains hit us a lot harder than we had anticipated. We missed out on some wildlife (Paul specifically came down for the Purple frog), but we made that up by capturing some amazing stories and meeting some wonderful people across the Western Ghats who are doing great conservation work. Paul has been diligent enough to write a lot during the expedition. Over the next few weeks, we will start putting the stories together and…

Escaping the Monsoon

Well not really, but if you have been following the news, this is the situation in central Karnataka where we have been hoping to film. We just got back to Mysore from two lovely days at BR hills. It’s always nice to be back in my home town and on this trip, we were greeted by an amazing, hour-long bonanza of a small herd of elephants. The plan is to head up to Agumbe/Jog/Sirsi from here but with these rains it will mean we might not make it till our destination at all and even if we did, the rain…

Expedition Monsoon : The Water Monster

We are back in town for a day to dry up, and have managed to put together a quick clip of our tryst with a mugger crocodile at Ranganthittu. This is the clip where Paul has for the first time in his life seen and even got this close to a big Croc. He was in for quite a surprise when this happened. Presentation: Paul Williams, Direction: Kalyan Varma, Camera: David Heath, Production Manager/Sound: Mandana Dilan. Lot more stories coming up soon. We are heading to the more familiar jungles of BR hills and Nagarahole for the big wildlife and…

Wet and Cold

The last few days have been tough. Tough not because we could not find what we wanted to film, but because it has been raining almost non-stop and because of the high altitudes, it has been bloody cold too. To make matters worse, our cameras froze up – both my still camera and the Sony XDCAM video camera. Both the cameras could not take the continuous 98% humidity, wetness, and I guess, partly the cold. Both of them are back in order now, but not up to their full capacity. We are going ahead, but these things slow you down…

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