Into the dream….Here we go….Here I am!!

17.06.10 – 20h30 – Sabi Sand Game Reserve

I am sorry for the silence on my blog but I didn’t feel like writing these past months.

I have been busy working on and off as a field assistant for Africa Wildlife Films in March and April. They were making a documentary about Great White Sharks and Seals in Capetown. The documentary is called ‘Swimming Scared’ and National Geographic should release it in July/August this year. I gained a bit of experience on this project but not much as the bosses were a couple of assholes and it was actually a nightmare to work for them! I won’t go into details now….and anyway I rather remember the fun parts like going out to sea in False Bay at 5h30 in the morning and getting a feeding frenzy with thousands of dolphins, Bryde Whales, sharks, seals and Cape Ganets!! I did put a text and some pics on my blog about this a few month ago….See below actually.

Other fun stuff was that day when we pulled a balloon behind the boat to get some aerial shots of seals and seal island. We pumped up the balloon with Helium and attached a 360 degrees camera (like those security cameras) beneath it….Pretty cool!!
Anyway, being out there and helping out was fun and interesting, the only difficult part was to go along well with these two pricks!

After that I went on a 3 weeks Tour for Sunway Safaris from Capetown to Vic Falls. 5500 km in 3 weeks!! Amazing! I was employed as a Tour Guide/translator for 7 French people. We went through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia to end up in Vic Falls, camping most of the time. Namibia and Botswana are a paradise for pictures….I took a few pretty shots and I will put some of them on the blog ASAP.
When I came back from my tour, I had an email in my box from Wild Earth TV telling me that a position had came up for me….They broadcast on live content on an internet channel called Safari Channel. If you go on Wild Earth website, you will get the link for safari channel. What they do is that they go on safari early morning (a camera man and a game ranger who acts as a presenter) and they broadcast on live the safari (usually 3 hours long). The same in the afternoon. So if you go on Safari Channel you can see the safari on live twice a day, every day. They also broadcast to other small channels all over the world, in America, Australia and Asia for example. And soon they might be broadcasting for a French TV channel called “Free”…..which explains why they need me! In the mean time they want me to assist the editor on site (Alex) to edit some non live content. My job or shall I say my internship for now, is going to edit 6 hours of safaris (2 safari a day of 3 hours each) into 3 mn (yes, THREE MINUTES!!) every day for the website and also for some TV channels (not sure yet about their names).
But I will also be trained on camera work and directing.
After 3 month trial they will either keep me or send me back to Capetown….Either way, the amount of experience I will gain during these 3 month is going to be phenomenal!! The cherry on top is that they have invested in 3D gear…..They are going to be the first internet channel in the world to broadcast on live content in 3D!!! BBC (the news channel) is coming in July to interview them about it! Therefore from 1st of july I will be also trained on filming and editing in 3D!!! 
People, get a pair of 3D glasses and get ready in front of Safari Channel every day from 5h30 till 09h00 and from 15h00 till 18h00!! Or watch my three minutes safari Best Of the day every day….I’ll tell you where you can find them on the net as soon as I know!
I arrived in the Bushcamp today. We are situated in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve (next to Kruger National Park) and I had a glimpse at this afternoon safari…I was on the directing side, behind the computers. This post is called “Final Control”. Patrick was in charge this afternoon and the job is to let the game ranger knows if some people ask some questions via the chat room on the website or via email or even via facebook. Remember, it’s on live so if you send us a question during the safari you will get an answer within a few minutes! Pretty cool hey?! And this afternoon safari was quite something with a huge herd of buffalos, some elephants and some leopards right at the end! A female leopard with two of her cubs. Her cubs are now old enough to live by themselves so mummy kind of show them her teeth tonight to say…’go now my boys! Stop following me and go live your life!!” Not easy to leave mummy tho….but they don’t have a choice! She will even bite them one day if they don’t leave her alone from now on!

Another duty in the Final Control room is to make sure that we are not losing signal. Some parts of the reserve don’t have good internet coverage so it happens sometimes to not see what the camera man is filming. In that case, we switch to a camera which is hidden next a waterhole 24h/24 so that the audience doesn’t have a black screen in front of them…It usually lasts for a few seconds only and then we can switch back to what the camera man is filming.
Lots of fun in the Final Control room!! I loved it! It asks for quite a lot of concentration but it’s nice to look at a safari from this point of view!

Accommodation wise I am staying 20 mn away from our Bushcamp in a two bedrooms house with a couple (also working for Wild Earth). This is just until mid July and then I will have my own room at the camp. Where I am staying now is ok, it’s just not really practical as we have to drive 20 mn in the reserve to get to the camp in the morning and 20 mn to get back in the evening….but it’s still better than 20 mn of metro for sure ;)!! The house we are staying in is actually a private house….yes some people can afford to have a private house in the Sabi Sand!!! Wild Earth is renting it at the moment for 3 of us and then by mid July our rooms in the camp will be ready. I am looking forward to stay at the camp I must say….
The camp is quite small but big enough for the ten of us. We have two land rovers and quite a lot of equipment (cameras, tripods, computers, modems etc..) Everyone seems cool and passionate! The rangers seem to have a lot of knowledge about the bush which is good.

Tomorrow Alex will show me more about editing in 3mn 6 hours of safaris….Actually today as I am writing from “home” now and there is no internet here. Therefore I will publish this text only tomorrow morning when I have a minute….from my new office…in the middle of the bush!!

Some people say “you can’t live from your dreams”….well I tend to disagree!!