'Life on Our Planet', Cinematographer, Jamie McPherson

0:08Jawad MirYeah, so you're based out of London?

0:10Jamie McPhersonBristol.

0:11Jawad MirBristol. That's a nice little town.

0:14Jamie McPhersonYeah. Yeah. Well, just outside. We're just south of Bristol, so in the fields.

0:19Jawad MirGot it.

0:20Jamie McPhersonYeah.

0:20Jawad MirAnd how's the, how's the weather over there today?

0:24Jamie McPhersonRainy, cold. Well, today actually it's clear, but yeah, yesterday was just, yeah, the usual. Chucking it down with rain.

0:31Jawad MirWonderful. I…

0:31Jamie McPhersonNice and cold. I was in California a week ago, so it's a bit of a ch… change from that.

0:37Jawad MirYeah, California, I mean, especially, where I am at,.. I travel to California quite often too, so from going from winter in Toronto, Canada…

0:45Jamie McPhersonYeah

0:45Jawad Mir... To California, it's, I mean, now it's gonna be like more obvious than it was, yeah, all spring and summer.

0:51Jamie McPhersonYeah. See what you want to say in California.

0:54Jawad MirYeah. I like your shirt.

0:56Jamie McPhersonThank you. It's ILM merch.

1:01Jawad MirIt, that's not a Jurassic Park relevance, is there, or?

1:04Jamie McPhersonNo, it's, it's an, it's ILM VFX crew.

1:07Jawad MirOh, ILM. ILM.

1:08Jamie McPhersonIt's even rarer than an original Jurassic Park. I've got original Jurassic Park upstairs obviously, but…

1:13Jawad MirYeah. Are you a big Jurassic Park fan?

1:16Jamie McPhersonYeah, of course. Yeah.

1:17Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Wonderful.

1:18Jamie McPhersonOriginal and best. Yeah.

1:20Jawad MirAbsolutely. Nothing comes close to it to even this day.

1:22Jamie McPhersonNo, sadly. We're still trying to match it now, 25 years.

1:25Jawad MirYeah. Wonderful, man. Well, you know, I spoke to Sophie, one of the direct… co-direct… one of the directors who has worked with you, as well as Jonathan.

1:35Jamie McPhersonYeah.

1:35Jawad MirWas it Jonathan, the ILM VFX supervisor, I think?

1:38Jamie McPhersonYeah.

1:39Jawad MirAnd yeah, I mean, I saw the show, as I was telling them, literally on my flight, and I don't binge-watch. It's very rare. I think the only binge-watching I've ever done, is probably like Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad.

1:53Jamie McPhersonYeah.

1:53Jawad MirAnd with this, w… with this show, I'm a huge Spielberg fan, I'm a huge Jurassic Park fan. That's, that's the reason I became the filmmake... I became a filmmaker, 'cause Jurassic Park and I love dinosaurs.

2:04Jamie McPhersonYeah.

2:04Jawad MirAnd I had, I had seen a little bit of Prehistoric Planet on Apple with my kids.

2:09Jamie McPhersonYeah

2:09Jawad Mir... But this one, I think I was biased because, you know, from executive producer Steven Spielberg and ILM. So I decided watching it from Toronto to San Francisco, which is about five hours.

2:20Jamie McPhersonYeah.

2:20Jawad MirAnd I saw the whole series going there and then coming back, and…

2:25Jamie McPhersonCool.

2:25Jawad Mir... It was, it was really, it was really well done.

2:28Jamie McPhersonYeah.

2:28Jawad MirEspecially because it's not, it was not just about dinosaurs. It was about life and evolution a… and all that.

2:35Jamie McPhersonYeah.

2:35Jawad MirSo, and the cinematography, I mean, con… considering, you know, it's one thing to do great cinematography, but it's another thing to do cinematography with nothing in there and ju… just trying to make sure.

2:45Jamie McPhersonYeah.

2:45Jawad MirYou know, just to make sure that you're timing everything right and the dissolve…

2:49Jamie McPhersonYeah

2:49Jawad Mir... And the cuts and…

2:49Jamie McPhersonWell, I'm glad someone noticed.

2:53Jawad MirBut well done. Job well done.

2:55Jamie McPhersonThank you. Yeah. No, I'm really proud of it. I mean, I say that the cinematography, that's the thing that we talk about. A lot of people when I was going in were sort of saying, "Oh, filming a birthplace, it must be really boring." And it's like, well, it would be if you just filmed empty spaces in this sort of old walking with dinosaurs, a slow pan. But we tried to create a really involved style of cinematography that looked like the creatures were there, and we had all these layers and elements and was, you know, as high-end documentary cinematography as you could get, but with nothing there. So yeah, it's good that you thought that was good. 'Cause I think a lot of people just think, "Oh, that ILM did all that," and we just filmed the komodo…

3:30Jawad MirYeah

3:30Jamie McPherson... Dragons or other bits. But no, it's really good fun.

3:32Jawad MirYeah.

3:32Jamie McPhersonAnd it was good fun trying to figure out how we did that, 'cause we had no one had done that before in that way. So me and Jonathan, the VFX sup, and then the directors, we were all trying to figure it out as we went along as to how we would s… sort of craft those shots of, like the opening shot, the Smilodon, which is, that's about five or six layers of different elements that we put together with those tracks to put the, to put the creature behind all of those elements to make it feel like it was really embedded in the landscape. So it was great fun trying to figure it out.

4:01Jawad MirYeah. No, it was phenomenal. And I, and I mean, obviously, you know, you add the sound effects, you add Morgan Freeman's voice, then you... You know, everything, all the elements. It starts with s… you know, obviously with something small, and it just kind of adds up and mounts up to something much bigger.

4:19Jamie McPhersonYeah.

4:19Jawad MirAnd it, again, everything I thought was, you know, top-notch on and in considering, you know, small crews and documentaries, sometimes that's a worse thing, but sometime it's a good thing because you have less bureaucracy, less many, you know, too, not too much, too many voices telling you what to do on the set at least, you know?

4:40Jamie McPhersonYeah.

4:40Jawad MirSo it's, it's good in that sense.

4:42Jamie McPhersonYeah. Yeah. I mean, our set, our sets are really small and it's generally me, JP, the director, and then a few other, maybe two or three other people helping out. But we sort of, it's just, yeah, everyone gets involved and you just sort of make it work really.

4:55Jawad MirYeah.

4:55Jamie McPhersonAnd it makes it simpler. You can as quickly you can react and sort of craft something in the moment without having to sort of run it past anyone else. So yeah, it's a nice way…

5:04Jawad MirYeah

5:04Jamie McPherson... Of working.

5:05Jawad MirWould it be fair to say it was the most challenging project you had done because of the post visual effects that need to go in there from that standpoint?

5:13Jamie McPhersonOh, yeah. Yeah. No, definitely the most challenging thing we've ever done. 'Cause I mean, because of, it was, I mean, for the directors from their side, Sophie says it's like working on two or three things at the same time, 'cause you've got a natural history show, you've got a VFX show, and it's, it's a huge amount of work. And, but from my side, yeah, I mean, the main thing, the thing that excited me most of all was, A, the story, life from beginning to today, but also how would we, how would we create these VFX sequences in a really dynamic and exciting way? And yeah, I loved it. It's an amazing challenge. And I said with John, you know, the sort of standard way of doing VFX is you need, he's always joking that you wanna film it in a car park. So you want nothing between the camera and the creature, because anything you put in front, you have to rotoscope or you have to blue screen. And so… All the stuff I shoot previously, like when we were going into it, we were trying to use sequences I shot as reference for how we were gonna, how we'd film a T-Rex sequence. We don't have to film like a polar, you know, we don't have to film like a tiger in the jungle.

6:14Jamie McPhersonAnd my style of filming stuff is generally to shoot through as many layers of foliage and really look into their world. So we had to work out how do we, how do we put a CG creature in that sort of really complex environment? And yeah, figuring all that out was great fun, great challenge. Much hard, yeah, much, y… you know, now going to film a cheetah or a tiger, it's pretty easy. You just turn up, follow it around, and film what it does. So yeah, it was great fun.

6:41Jawad MirThat's amazing that you said that how doing something way more difficult makes the other job that you originally thought was difficult somewhat easier.

6:51Jamie McPhersonYeah. I mean, it's more exciting as well, because you've got to, you know, with between me and JP and the directors, we have to create the whole creature first. How is it gonna interact? What's it gonna do? We've got an idea of a scene. We've got, you know, a, we've got a group of Triceratops, a T-Rex in ambush. I mean, the, for me, the exciting thing, realizing that T-Rexes weren't, didn't chase their prey down. The big, the big ones, when they get to full grown, they're ambush hunters, so they're hiding. And where would... That for me was really exciting, the idea that you could be walking through a prehistoric forest and you'd turn around and there'd be a T-Rex just there waiting, looming in the bushes, waiting to jump out and grab something. So creating the scene with the Triceratops, but then you have to put yourself in that p… place, live in that world and think, "Well, how do we separate a Triceratops from the herd? What's, where's it going?" And then it at a certain point realizes it's being watched by a T-Rex that's about to jump out. And that, creating, telling those stories is really exciting, and that's something you don't get to do with natural history is have that amount of time beforehand to sort of craft the actual story and the characters and how they're gonna interact.

7:54Jamie McPhersonSo yeah, it's great. It's great fun.

7:58Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. You know, I'm just gonna kinda go back in time, not as far as prehistoric time, but more as in like y… your journey, right? What was the moment or the story that followed it that inspired you to become the cinematographer that you ha… yeah, you are, and that your journey, what has that been like?

8:20Jamie McPhersonYeah. Well, so I s… I started as an assistant. I was, I got a summer job assisting a cameraman and sound recordist. And they just seemed to be having a blast telling stories visually and c… and shooting stuff. And I worked with them a few times off and on in the summer, and I was just fascinated by that way of telling... I didn't know how TV worked. I've, I've been a, I'm a total TV addict, watched as many movies as possible, always have been, but I didn't know how that... You know, I watched all the behind the scenes I could, the making ofs on movies, on DVDs and VHS. But seeing somebody do it for real, like in my country where I was making a documentary, I found fascinating. So that sort of gave me the sort of start of this passion to wanna try and, you know, do that, to tell these stories visually and in artistic ways. And it kind of, for me, it combined so many different things that I was fascinated by: television, artistry, and then natural history. So I then just pursued that to get into Bristol to be at the BBC Natural History Unit, and I worked my way up from assistant to first camera and now being a, doing whatever I'm doing now, though I'm not sure what it is.

9:28Jawad MirI find it very similar to a lot of people that I speak to in the UK, for this podcast…

9:34Jamie McPhersonYeah

9:34Jawad Mir... Or even just people that I know. Majority of their route has been through BBC.

9:40Jamie McPhersonYeah.

9:40Jawad MirOr, you know, now I think, what is it, Sky. Sky is one of them as well. But mainly it's been BBC. And

9:48Jamie McPhersonYeah

9:48Jawad Mir... You know, they've made some great stuff, great shows, great series. They still are. But that's, that's, but what was that moment? Like, was there a film that you saw, or you saw some people working on a set that kinda gave you that, "This is what I wanna do," in some realm of production or post-production?

10:08Jamie McPhersonI think it was probably, I mean, the behind the scenes are quite famous in the UK of seeing how natural history crews capture the footage. And I remember seeing, a very famous cinematographer called Martin Colbert on a morning show when I was a kid, and being fascinated. He was telling how he'd been, you know, he was like a, you know, he was a sort of celebrity of being on this TV kids show in the morning talking about filming elephants for Planet Earth. Not, probably pre-Planet Earth, actually. Long before that. And it was just seeing that these are real people. And then when I was in Bristol, I got, I managed to work, one of my first jobs was assisting Martin Colbert, so I got to assist one of the guys who I'd respect, who was in the top of his game, and that just gave me a window into it. And then after that, as soon as I was on location once, then you can't not do it. It's just, it's an amazing life to be there, to be, have that access to the animals and the natural world, and then to be able to tell stories visually about it. And as soon as I'd seen in, like a glimpse through the door, it was then I knew that was something I had to do.

11:07Jawad MirLovely. And how long ago was that?

11:10Jamie McPhersonAbout 25 years ago.

11:12Jawad MirOkay. So it's been a long journey as…

11:14Jamie McPhersonYeah

11:14Jawad Mir... As it sh… as it should be because you have to take time to get to where you want to be, right? And it's still an…

11:19Jamie McPhersonYeah

11:19Jawad Mir... Ongoing journey. It never ends.

11:21Jamie McPhersonYeah. No, I'm still learning and doing. That's what I found very exciting about Life on Our Planet, was it was a whole new set of skills and a whole new set of challenges. So for me, it was a whole fresh sort of start, in a way, of trying to figure out new ways of telling stories.

11:36Jawad MirI wonder what Jurassic Park did for visual effects. I mean, I don't wanna give Jurassic Park the entire credit, but I think that kinda pushed it, because before that it was Terminator 2 and The Abyss. Again, the same people who were, you know, worked on Jurassic Park from an animatronics…

11:52Jamie McPhersonYeah

11:52Jawad Mir... Standpoint, from visual effect. I wonder if Life on Our Planet is gonna do that for documentary world, not just from the prehistoric creatures which already been cr… covered… But from historical standpoint of people like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great and…... You know, d… I wonder, I mean, in the future, I mean, you can always doc… do a docudrama, like, with actual people, but…

12:15Jamie McPhersonYeah

12:16Jawad Mir... You know, I wonder if that is down the road, and if this is gonna push the envelope not right away, but just, you know, over the next decade or maybe even earlier depend... Based on how things are going in terms of technology.

12:30Jamie McPhersonYeah, I hope so. I mean, I think it is really exciting that ability to blend real life and CG and bring it together in a documentary rather than in a feature. But I think it's just, it's gonna be down to money, and obviously technology's advancing so much quicker that hopefully…

12:43Jawad MirYeah

12:43Jamie McPherson... We'll be able to create. I don't think at the moment you can create humans and, you know, hominids, early stuff convincingly enough. I mean, mammals are very hard it feels from this. It's easier to create a dinosaur than it is to create a mammal.

12:55Jawad MirYeah.

12:56Jamie McPhersonYeah, it's exciting. And then I'm, and then you start to think of the stories you can tell and that, then it's, you know, really exciting where we could go with it.

13:04Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, we live in a very fascinating time. I mean, even between, you know, I think you and I are pretty much from the same time in terms of admiring movies and trying to follow our journeys is that the speed from Jurassic Park first up until I would say even, like, five years ago, that 20 years of span time, it feels like it ha… it's, it's gonna be covered in two years or it already is there the way the technology's moving and such a rapid speed. Like, you know, think about it. W… who had heard of ChatGPT? Like, I think people heard about it last November.

13:40Jamie McPhersonYeah.

13:41Jawad MirLike, that introduction of, to AI, and now look where we are in a year. Everything is becoming AI-based. It's crazy.

13:46Jamie McPhersonYeah. No, I think I've heard a lot of things about how the processing power will be sped up by that process and, like you say, the curve is just so steep that, yeah, who knows?

13:56Jawad MirYeah. What was the most challenging part to film as a cinematographer? Not necessarily from the standpoint of putting dinosaurs in place or trying to figure all that, but more from, you know, just technically whether it was equipment, whether it was lens use, lighting. You know, shooting underwater is always challenging.

14:20Jamie McPhersonYeah

14:21Jawad Mir... What was the, what was something that you can talk about that you felt was the most challenging thing to do?

14:26Jamie McPhersonI'd say there's a couple of... I mean, depends. There kind of, there's two, the whole series is split into natural history and then the VFX world. So I was filming quite a lot of natural history, sequences, and there a… you always try to raise the bar and bring a different style to how we film those things and immerse people in that world without encroaching on the creature. I'd say from that perspective, filming Komodo dragons was a real challenge because they live in dense rainforests. So, and I wanted to... The way people film it, either you film it on a tripod the old-fashioned way, or you use like a poor man's Steadicam, like a Ronin, so you get really close and you're in their face. But I don't really like that style of filming with live animals because it's kind of…

15:09Jawad MirYeah

15:09Jamie McPherson... How you would see it if you were crouched down next to it, and I don't, it doesn't feel like you're in, it feels like you're encroaching. So I built a buggie. What I really wanted to do was to be to get low and be with them moving through the forest. And then my favorite camera system to use is a, is a gyro-stabilized gimbal to a big lens, a Canon 50 mil to 100, 1,500 millimeter lens, and I ha… I wanted to get that into the rainforest. It's designed for helicopters. So I built a buggy, essentially a off-road rickshaw dolly that you pushed that had the, this huge GSS hanging off the front on a vertical isolator to smooth it out, and it allowed us... And it was a bit of a long shot whether it would actually work, but it allowed us to move a 1,500 millimeter lens through the forest alongside this, these Komodo dragons, which look like dinosaurs when you get an inch off the floor and you're looking through all that foliage. So for me, that was a great challenge to try and come up with a way of filming them. How do we get this system into the rainforest, and then how do we move with these monsters without being eaten and all those things? And so for me, and that came together really well.

16:11Jamie McPhersonLike, the world we created for those Komodos was, I found really exciting. Yeah, that was, that was great challenge.

16:19Jawad MirRight. And, you know, it is so true, like, even when you're f… wa… r… documentary as well just with human beings, you know, having the most minimalistic crew and equipment, is probably... And, I mean, I work like that, too. I like small crews, not because of any other reason other than the fact that the story that you're trying to tell are the people that are in it or the subject matter or the protagonist, are they gonna get intimidated? You wanna make them comfortable.

16:51Jamie McPhersonYeah.

16:51Jawad MirAnd it's even more, you know, with the animals because you don't wanna be in their space. You wanna capture the moment as it's, as it's happening. So yeah.

17:00Jamie McPhersonYeah. Yeah. It's exactly, it is that, it's exactly that same style of great... People who film people who do those obs/doc things to get a great, to get a great performance, as it were, out of people to be totally natural, they have to relax the subject and just be in their world, and that's the key I think with wildlife. It's something people don't really talk about, is the use of these sort of Steadicam Ronins and getting really close in. You're disturbing them even if you can't quite, you don't quite see. It's very subtle, their reactions to it, but you're not allowing them to behave normally because they can't with a massive, you know, primate…

17:33Jawad MirYeah

17:33Jamie McPherson... Standing next to them big with a shiny piece of metal. So I, the systems I use give you that space and give them, they relax. You're not in their space and they just go about their business and then you capture behaviors and interactions that you would never see any other way. So yeah.

17:48Jawad MirYeah.

17:48Jamie McPhersonIt's very exciting when it does, when you see those things play out without interference is great.

17:53Jawad MirHas there been any time, whether it was on this production or in general, where, despite the fact, I mean, obviously technology's improved, but maybe going back when it wasn't as it is right now, where you ha… you have been sort of come close to a contact with a dangerous animal or been in danger in any way?

18:14Jamie McPhersonYeah. Yeah, all the time.

18:15Jawad MirI'm sure.

18:15Jamie McPhersonI tell my partner, that I can't die. The proof of all of my interactions with animals is that I'm… I'm probably immortal. Yeah, I mean, I… I think we're filming for Our Planet, we were filming polar bears, and we were in a vehicle, so we built this system again, how do we add movement to polar bears walking on sea ice? So we built… we had a tracked vehicle that we… we put the GSS on, so it's hanging off the front, and you can move across the sea ice with them, and you get these beautiful tracking shots. But you're driving on sea ice, and sea ice can, the thickness of it can change without you being able to tell from the surface. And our vehicle unfortunately went through the sea ice with us in it, and we all managed to get out and everyone was okay. But I'd say that's probably, it wasn't the actual animal that was the danger, it was the thin sea ice that we accidentally had driven onto. That's really the closest I've been to, yeah, not making it. But, and apart from that, I've had lots of interactions. I know I've been bitten by a black bear on the bum, and I've had lots of close encounters with elephants and leopards and hippos and all those things.

19:15Jamie McPhersonBut yeah, I'd say going through sea ice is scarier than any of those, any of those other creatures.

19:21Jawad MirSo you ac… so you actually, the… the vehicle went into the water? Like it broke the ice.

19:24Jamie McPhersonYeah, the whole lot. It took about, we had been talking about it. I drilled the… we… you drill the ice to check the thickness and it… it…

19:29Jawad MirYeah

19:30Jamie McPherson... 25 centimeters where we'd parked, well, it, where I drilled, and then I got back in the vehicle and we were about to leave, and then there was this massive crack and it just, the front went through and then it tipped up and we managed to, I m… my door was below the ice, but I managed to, it was quite thin door, so I managed to break the door and everyone, pulled everyone out the vehicle and we jumped onto the ice. And then literally as we looked back, you know, to move and start, the thing upended and just disappeared and went into this perfect round hole that we'd made in the ice. And then nothing came up, so, and it was, you know, 100 meter deep water, so I think if we'd gone in then we'd probably be pretty lucky to have been able to get out, 'cause I think there's a current under the s… under the ice and…

20:07Jawad MirYeah

20:07Jamie McPherson... Yeah, it was all very exciting. And luckily the polar bear we were filming hadn't noticed and carried on walking away, so he didn't come back and check us out, 'cause that would've been probably a bit more hair-raising at that point.

20:18Jawad MirWell, the most important question I have in that, was the equipment salvageable?

20:22Jamie McPhersonWell, I can show you. It's, it's right there. That's the camera that came back up. I don't know if you can see that.

20:29Jawad MirNo, I can't.

20:31Jamie McPhersonThe lens sticking up there.

20:33Jawad MirOh, I see. I see, yes.

20:34Jamie McPhersonYeah. So that's a big gimbal system with a big 52,000 lens that was, that went under for about a month before they, in Svalbard where we were filming the polar bears, and they dredged it up and pulled the vehicle out. So now it's a little keepsake there in the s… the corner of my kitchen to remind me not to go on sea ice.

20:53Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's, sea ice is very deceptive. I mean, you know, especially in where, the areas that you've been to, because that's an area that majority of the people in the world ha… haven't discovered or haven't been to, right? And it's not…

21:07Jamie McPhersonYeah

21:07Jawad Mir... There's not much evidence to suggest what's, how things are moving or shifting. It kinda reminds me of, I mean, this is like a completely off example. I was just watching Napoleon last week, and there's a scene in there where Napoleon, which is in the trailer too, where he uses…

21:21Jamie McPhersonYeah

21:22Jawad Mir... The enemies to come on the ice and then, you know, he basically just shoots directly on the ice and they all…

21:28Jamie McPhersonI've heard it

21:28Jawad Mir... They all drown.

21:29Jamie McPhersonI haven't seen that yet. I've heard it's very good.

21:32Jawad MirYeah, it's a good movie. Yeah, so I… I guess o… one of the things that I always find fascinating, and I… I love nature myself, I'm a huge nature buff, and I think, you know, part of me, maybe another lifetime or if I ever get a chance, and it's… it's not something you do overnight, even if you're a narrative filmmaker or a documentary filmmaker, being able to survive or film in the world of nature for months is… is not an easy task, right? It's a, it's a totally different thing.

22:04Jamie McPhersonYeah.

22:04Jawad MirAnd it… I always appreciate all that you guys do. I mean, there's so many series out now. I haven't seen all of them. I probably will never see all of them because there's just so much stuff.

22:16Jamie McPhersonYeah.

22:16Jawad MirBut the amount of effort that goes into it, and a lot of people don't realize that, it's just mind-boggling. Like, it's just insane. You know, I… I… I gave this example, to somebody, I think it was maybe Sophie. I mean, not that it was surprising to her, that the first Planet Earth series, I think it was, the very first one that came out, I think that kind of started this whole, you know, rollercoaster of all these series after that. There was a scene in there, being in production I was still blown away. There was a scene in there where they… they filmed these plants kinda growing out of the ground, out of the tree branches and… and they did a whole 360 time lapse.

22:58Jamie McPhersonYeah.

22:58Jawad MirAnd then I was watching the making of, or I was reading it somewhere, that 10 to 12 second shot took them one year.

23:06Jamie McPhersonYeah.

23:06Jawad MirThe crew just sat there for a year. I'm like, that is, you know, another level of patience. And being in that environment which is not yours…

23:15Jamie McPhersonYeah

23:16Jawad Mir... With, you know, dealing with the weather, the wildlife. Amazing stuff that you guys do. I mean, cinematography is a huge part of it, so.

23:22Jamie McPhersonYeah.

23:23Jawad MirWhat cameras do you use, for Life on Our Planet or any of the series?

23:30Jamie McPhersonYeah. So cur… my main camera is a RED HELIUM, so 8K…

23:33Jawad MirYep

23:33Jamie McPherson... RED full frame sensor. And then I, we tend to use longer, I use longer lenses, so the Canon, there's a Canon fif… 50 millimeter to 1,500 millimeter, the CN 20, which is the best current bong lens for wildlife that gives you a big range so you can quickly cover a scene as it unfolds if it's a cheetah hunter or a tiger hunter, whatever it is. Yeah, that big zoom range gives you the best coverage to quickly cover…

23:59Jawad MirYeah

23:59Jamie McPherson... That action as it unfolds.

24:01Jawad MirNo, RED is a great camera. Have you, have you been, reading up on the new Sony, Burano?

24:07Jamie McPhersonYeah. It looks great. I mean, at the moment, the, yeah, the Sony, the Venice is really good. Yeah, there's some amazing other carry… cameras out there. The ARRI's really good. I just, my current, my current camera is integrated into my gimbal, which is the big stabilized system that I tend to… I find any excuse to use 'cause it's so d… you have so many, so many dynamic maneuvers and things you can do with it that I tend to, I tend to use that every chance I get.

24:32Jawad MirYou know, to run steady cams or gimbals or even just equipment, like cameras, you know, is, it requires obviously a lot of strength, you know? Like, it's nothing s… surprising about that. And one thing that, you know, a… as time passes by, I mean, you know, things become tougher for people, like, you know, in terms of age and all that.

24:54Jamie McPhersonYeah.

24:54Jawad MirYou have to be really, you have to really be in good shape and obviously be physically active to maintain yourself because it takes a real big toll on your back, on your, body.

25:03Jamie McPhersonYeah.

25:03Jawad MirHow do you keep up with that, like, just to push yourself even to this day?

25:08Jamie McPhersonYeah, well I make s… I've w… I've always been quite active. I work out every day, and it, so that sort of thing, it obviously gets harder as you get older. I'm now 47. But it's, yeah, you have to stay physically fit and mentally fit. But yeah, I think, well, I had this, I remember this thing when digital technology, everyone thought cameras were gonna get smaller and lighter, and they definitely haven't got smaller or lighter…... In my, in my experience.

25:29Jawad MirYeah. No, they haven't.

25:30Jamie McPhersonBut I just put things on vehicles and rig big cranes, so it's a, yeah, it's a lot of, a lot of moving of big grip equipment. I do a lot of grip work, so yeah, I think that'll, that'll keep you fit as well.

25:41Jawad MirYeah, no, I think…

25:42Jamie McPhersonAnd eventually I'll just try, I'll get my kids to assist me and maybe they can carry all my heavy bags.

25:47Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a, I mean, equipment, the thing is that when you're traveling with equipment, like, you know, you have a carnet and all that stuff, it's just become so much, you know, even, like, just collecting it from the, carousels…

25:59Jamie McPhersonOh

25:59Jawad Mir... And then putting it on the cart and getting a car rental, then driving to the hotel, then unloading it, and then take… You know how that goes.

26:07Jamie McPhersonYes. Yeah, that's the glamorous side of it where you just have to be very zen about, you're at the airport, you've got 50 cases, it's gonna take you four hours to get it all on. But then, like you say, you get it off, you put it in a van, you take it out of a van, you put it into a hotel elevator that takes two cases at a time, and you take it all up to a room to keep it all, and then you bring it all down the next day and, yeah.

26:27Jawad MirYeah.

26:27Jamie McPhersonIt's a, it's a, it's a big part of it, but yeah, not the most glamorous part.

26:31Jawad MirI love how you use the word glamorous because literally people think that we have glamorous lives. Not that we're complaining, but…... You know, that elem… and not that element of tagging the luggage along, I mean, it's, it's…

26:42Jamie McPhersonYeah

26:42Jawad Mir... It's crazy.

26:44Jamie McPhersonYeah.

26:44Jawad MirIt can become really daunting.

26:44Jamie McPhersonYeah. Well, that doesn't make it into the making of. The making of is you having a cup of tea in the Masai Mara at sunrise, and people think, "Oh my God, look at that. It's, it must be an amazing life." And so yeah, that's, that's a part of it. But even that is, then you've got 18 hours sat in that vehicle in the full sun waiting for a cheetah…

26:58Jawad MirYeah

26:58Jamie McPherson... To wake up, so yeah.

27:01Jawad MirI'm sure you have backup cameras just in case.

27:05Jamie McPhersonYeah.

27:05Jawad MirRight? Yeah.

27:06Jamie McPhersonYeah, we do. We often have, well, these days you often have two or three camera channels.

27:10Jawad MirYeah.

27:10Jamie McPhersonMaybe a spare camera body, a spare red body. But we've always got drones and yeah, all these other things, so it's very rare that you're on a single camera shoot these days.

27:18Jawad MirBut it, the reason I ask you that is because a lot of times in production, you know, I'm not talking about big productions, I'm talking, maybe some big productions, there is this element that we don't, I've seen some people, like, you, they don't take any backup. I mean, maybe I was guilty of that too, maybe even 10 years ago. But it's just so im… because the moment, when you have backup equipment, you don't need it. When you don't have it…... That's when things go wrong, and it's so important to have that on the set. Imagine in front of a, on a shoot, whether it's commercial, a film, corporate, whatever, just things not working, and it's so important for people to have that

27:57Jamie McPhersonYeah

27:57Jawad Mir... Whether it's in the form of multiple cameras.

28:00Jamie McPhersonYeah. I mean, that's a lot of the, a lot of, I use a, all my own kit where possible and yeah, maintenance of your kit and looking after it and yeah, protecting it from, yeah, from what, I mean, apart from occasionally things falling through sea ice, I've been pretty lucky that I haven't had many things fail. Normally it's really extreme cold is the, is the hardest place to keep cameras working. If it's minus 50 outside, everything becomes super brittle and you can't touch a cable 'cause it'll snap or any of those things. And you stick to anything if you touch it. But yeah, so far I've been quite lucky with not losing too many bits of kit.

28:34Jawad MirThat's great. Jumping back to Life on Our Planet, you know, you worked on it went through a process of visual effects, it got finished. What was your reaction when you saw it the first time, any of the episodes, based on how you guys filmed empty spaces and, you know, aside from the…... Li… aside from the wildlife that is obviously present now, not those scenes, but the other ones?

28:57Jamie McPhersonYeah. Yeah. I mean, I was, I mean, so the first time I saw the fully graded, finished element, I think it was probably episode three, I watched all through with my partner Sophie di… who directed it, and it gave me goosebumps. I was so excited when, you know, I think the opening to three is amazing with the lichen taking over the land. But when it, when we saw, I think the first thing I saw was Arthropleura, the giant millipede, and that model, man, it's just looks…

29:23Jamie McPherson... Amazing. It's such a great creature that they, that ILM created, and it beds in that, in that world that we shot. That was in Ireland actually, in a, in a tr… in a guy's, in a guy called Billy's garden in Ireland, and he's got these tree ferns. And seeing the world we tried to, we were trying to create, and Arthropleura in it, and he bed it into it so well that I was just, I had goosebumps. I was so excited. And then I wanted to watch, you know, watch all of the other VFX scenes and see the grade. 'Cause I see the, you see the process from, you know, obviously we shoot it, then you see grayscale models and it gets, eventually it gets more and more sophisticated as you go along. My screen's gone blank.

30:02Jawad MirCan you hear me?

30:03Jamie McPhersonI can still hear you. I think my screen saver's just come on.

30:09Jawad MirYeah. And I can see you fine. It's not…

30:12Jamie McPhersonReally? Oh, okay.

30:13Jawad MirYeah.

30:13Jamie McPhersonI've just got my iTunes, artwork has come up.

30:18Jawad MirOh, I see.

30:19Jamie McPhersonYeah, so yeah, so I was part of the process from obviously from before filming all the way through, but… There's, yeah, there's a, there was a big gap when you've s… last seen a grayscale creature, a gray Arthrura moving through, and then when you see the fully graded finished version and, yeah, it just blew me away. I was so excited. I mean, I kind of was sort of fanboying over my, over the work I'd s… working with ILM and seeing their, you know, how they created the Smilodon and how they brought the mammoths. The scene of the mammoths when they come over the hill in that, in that snow was just amazing. And yeah, I'm just really excited to see it. And yeah, loved watching it. Again, it's probably the most excited I've been about something I've worked on.

30:56Jawad MirYeah. Did you hear, I think Sophie was telling me that o… obviously because, you know, Spielberg's name is on it, and then he saw it and he pretty much gave it an approval with some notes. You know, nothing major. Did you know that he had seen it? And if so, hearing that he had seen something that you did, what was that feel like?

31:17Jamie McPhersonYeah, no, that, yeah, I mean, that's re… really insanely exciting. And knowing that we'd, we'd shot these plates and we'd come up with this way of, you know, all of that history of what we did aside, we shot a T-Rex scene, and then it gets sent to Spielberg to watch your T-Rex scene that we, you know, everything from the behavior and how they interacted, but then the cinematography and then the creature creation. So yeah, I think everyone was really excited and just waiting, you know, when we knew it had been sent and then was just sat there waiting. Is he gonna go, "Pfft, what are you guys, you idiots, what are you doing?" But he came, you know, having him come back and s… and say it was great and endorse it and he wanted to be a part of it was, yeah, the most exciting thing ever. Yeah, amazing feeling.

31:58Jawad MirYeah. I mean, not to take anything away from what you guys did, but I remember watching the trailer the first time. I didn't even know that there was another series being worked on, either by Netflix or by Amblin or Spielberg, and I'm like, "Okay, here we go, another dinosaur series." And then it came up, from executive producer Steven Spielberg, and that was it. Like, that was like, I gotta watch this now. The, you know, whatever. Even if, even if it's horrible, I have to see it. And I think his name just has that. And his name associated with dinosaurs, I mean, you can't go wrong, right? Like, he's created…

32:29Jamie McPhersonNo, exactly

32:30Jawad Mir... An…

32:31Jamie McPhersonYeah. No

32:31Jawad Mir... Amazing franchise.

32:34Jamie McPhersonYeah. No, completely. I mean, it's the most daunting thing in the world to know that he's gonna see it and whether he'll like it or not like it. But yeah, that, like you say, that endorsement of him being involved, it just, yeah, really exciting. And it adds a, you know, having his history of Jurassic being a part of it is just really exciting.

32:53Jawad MirRight. I'm sure you're busy and working on other projects, and I'm sure you can probably not talk about any one of them.

33:01Jamie McPhersonYeah.

33:02Jawad MirIs there something that really that you're working on that is probably different than what you may have done in the past, whether it's technically or story-wise or any way at all?

33:14Jamie McPhersonYeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I've, I've just, since we did, since, what, four and a half years ago, five years ago, we first started talking about doing this CG. I was a big, I'm a massive fan of Jurassic, massive fan of Walking With Dinosaurs and all those early BBC shows, and all the, anything about dinosaurs. I love it. So to have sort of stepped into that world and become a part of it, I'm obsessed with that world now, and I'm doing more VFX creature shows now and trying to get our own projects off the ground, and just honing those techniques of how do you, how do you create worlds in, from our world to create seed that we can put seed creatures into and tell those, tell those stories in the most engaging and exciting way. So yeah, I'm continuing the, this journey of CG blending with natural history and CG cre… you know, just pure CG stuff. 'cause I find it really, as a, as a filmmaker, it's so exciting. You know, the stories you can tell and where you can take it is almost endless, if you had the money.

34:14Jawad MirYeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, and, what is one thing that you would like to do that you have not done? And I'm sure you've done a lot, right? I was even looking through your IMDb, and you've done tons of stuff. What is one thing that you would wanna do that you probably haven't done yet?

34:37Jamie McPhersonI wanna do…

34:37Jawad MirWhat is loca… location based... Sorry, go on.

34:40Jamie McPhersonOh, location, but I don't know. I was gonna say I wanna, I wanna start doing more animation because I love, you know, I love animation and I love CG and so I'm person… I'm actually writing a lot of stuff and trying to move towards, you know, 2D and 3D animation and different styles of storytelling and, you know, I'm obsessed with the style of Spider-Verse and all those things. I think they're really…

34:58Jamie McPherson... Exciting ways of telling stories. So, as well as continuing doing natural history, I'm trying to think of ways of blending those two worlds and just telling those stories, in the most exciting way I can.

35:13Jawad MirThat sounds very exciting.

35:14Jamie McPhersonSo my bucket list, it, my bucket list has shifted from, I wanna go and film snow leopards, to I wanna tell this story in a, in a, you know, the opt… the sort of the world that's been opened up to me of animation and CG is so exciting that my bucket list is now all CG based.

35:30Jawad MirThat, seeing something like Spider-Verse or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the most recent, the one that came out.

35:38Jamie McPhersonYeah.

35:38Jawad MirIn that, and combining that what you do, with what you do, that's gonna be something special, I think. That's... I will watch it. I mean, that would look too dominant.

35:49Jamie McPhersonYeah. They're so creative and they're so, it's so fun and so engaging and just, yeah, I love it. So that, yeah, I'm sort of swerving that way now and I'll see where that takes me.

36:00Jawad MirWell, wishing you all the best in that, man. I hope you're successful in that because that sounds very exciting.

36:04Jamie McPhersonYeah.

36:06Jawad MirYeah, no, and you know, just to kind of wrap up, one thing that, I mean, w… you and I growing up in the age of '90s and the early 2000s, that was when film was kind of going away, eight millimeter, 16 millimeter. Digital was coming in. I mean, now everybody has a camera, right? Like even an iPhone 15, you can literally, like Apple did their entire event on iPhone 15 Pro Max.

36:32Jamie McPhersonYeah.

36:33Jawad MirYou know, obviously with, you… Everything else like proper lighting and equipment and all that. But the access that everybody has now, including people who may be starting in our age group…

36:47Jamie McPhersonYeah

36:47Jawad Mir... Compared to, you know, film or early digital age, what advice would you give to specifically cinematographers…

36:57Jamie McPhersonYeah

36:57Jawad Mir... Who are starting out or trying to get into this world, in terms of making what they want to make?

37:07Jamie McPhersonI'd say, I mean f… like when I started, it was film. I had a, I had to go and buy a Hi8 camera to film, to shoot my first, my first little movies and me practicing and trying to get a, work out what my style was. And I'd say whatever you've got now, it's this thing, which is ins… compared to my Hi8 camera, which is in the other room. And then I went to Super 8 and…

37:27Jawad MirYeah

37:28Jamie McPherson... I'd say whatever medium you use, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing that you have access to it and it's just finding your style and finding how you wanna tell stories visually and to practice it. And so now there's, you know, you can edit stuff just on the comput… on your phone you can edit it. My kids do it all the time. So I'd say prac… look at the, you know, the work out there that you admire and work out what style you'd wanna tell stories in and just practice and tell stories and doesn't matter what it is, shoot anything. Tell a story of someone making a cup of tea or whatever it is, and to find your style and your voice in that world, and then practice it. And then contact the people whose work you admire. Look at the credits on productions and films and TV shows, and get in touch with these people and talk to them. I did all, that's how I started, was just getting in touch with people and saying, "Can we meet up?" Or, "I love what you did." Even if it doesn't go anywhere, at least you've sort of reached out and I try and talk to anyone who gets in touch with me. I'll, I'll give them as much time as I possibly can. 'Cause that's, that's how I got started and I'd encourage everyone to do the same, really.

38:28Jawad MirYeah. I think one thing, one key thing that you said that I live by every single day is that when you meet somebody, whether it's someone at your level or some other level, don't expect anything to happen. Because that something might happen in five, six years from now. They might see you know, kinda evolving and something might come up. So always have that going in, try to learn, and don't expect anything coming out of the meeting other than just learning. And if…

38:59Jamie McPhersonYeah

38:59Jawad Mir... Something happens, great. If it doesn't happen, I believe 100% things do happen over time if you keep up your work ethic and if you keep working towards what you're working towards.

39:10Jamie McPhersonYeah. No, I think that's great advice. I think, and don't rush it. Take the time. You've gotta learn to, you've gotta evolve as a filmmaker and become a filmmaker, and it doesn't happen overnight. I spent years as an assistant and practicing and doing my own thing and you don't wanna jump into shooting stuff straight away…

39:25Jawad MirNo

39:25Jamie McPherson... 'cause you don't know where you are and haven't found your style or, and the skills require, it requires an hour, 10, you know, that whole 10,000 hours thing. It does take thousands of hours to hone the skills to be good at anything. And it's, you don't need to rush it, 'cause it's exciting learning. And as you go along the journey to get there is exciting. So yeah, don't rush it.

39:46Jawad MirYeah. Awesome, man. Thank you so much, Ben, for your time.

39:48Jamie McPhersonNo, pleasure.

39:50Jawad MirI appreciate it. I would love to talk to you again about some of your other work in the past. Obviously, whenever you can talk about the future stuff.

39:57Jamie McPhersonYeah

39:57Jawad Mir... You know, it's, it's always great to talk to people who do great work and are…

40:03Jamie McPhersonThank you

40:03Jawad Mir... Moving the world forward in terms of storytelling.

40:06Jamie McPhersonYeah, anytime. Love to do it again.

40:08Jawad MirPerfect, man. Thank you so much, buddy.

40:10Jamie McPhersonAll right. Thanks.

40:11Jawad MirAll right, bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.