Into the wild: production workflow & wildlife filmmaking with Ember Films
Emmy Award Winning production company Ember Films are devoted to creating visually stunning content for broadcast, cinema and the web. Most recently they were involved with BBC’s Planet Earth II, which has been a viral sensation. We had a chat with Jonathan Jones, director and cinematographer in Ember, about their production workflow, shooting in the wild and the main challenges as a business.
George Olver: So welcome to another episode of Movidiam podcast, I’m talking to Jonathan Jones from Ember Films. Ember Films has a remarkable catalogue of natural history productions and corporate pieces. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast.
Jonathan Jones: Hi there, how are you doing?
George: Good, very well. It’s a very interesting moment sort of in history — the world really — and also for natural history filmmaking. There’s a lot of viral work going on in that space. I don’t know whether it intends to be when it’s first set is recorded or broadcast. But there’s a few unique projects in the domain, out on broadcast at the moment. What’s your take on this?
Jonathan: Well I mean, from our end, it’s great to be involved in them; obviously most people have heard of Planet Earth II that aired this week. So yeah, it’s a great time for natural history. There’s amazing projects happening, have happened, and are on the horizon.
George: You know, it’s interesting. How did you as a business, kind of struggle with the natural history and this sort of corporate filmmaking side of things?
Jonathan: It’s been interesting because natural history is probably most of our business, and what it’s allowed us to do is a business we know. We go away on location for long periods of time and with quite advanced equipment, and this kind of workflow has allowed us to basically purchase and own all of our gear. So we own all the cameras, all the cranes, everything that it takes to make a film. And what that’s allowed us to have is a really unique position when it comes to corporate or brand work: that basically we’re all under one roof. We have all the gear, most of the advanced cameras there is, and we are able to offer a good price; and we have the knowledge and skill set to really deliver. It sort of happens hand in hand really, even though the genres are so different.
George: That’s very interesting. I’d imagine that there’s a lot of armchair filmmakers that see the natural history work, then go to work and think, well gosh, we need a brand film with this production value. How do we achieve it?
Jonathan: Yeah, the reality is, the way that the industry’s gone, is that there used to have corporate, then you’d have TV, and then you’d have features. Well the reality is, that certainly from an equipment point of view, an approach as those worlds have never been closer together. The fact that you can make your corporate film with the same camera than The Hobbit, or another A list feature film was made with was previously unheard of, now it’s kind of every day.
George: Sure, so there’s a sort of democratization of the equipment, which means the high spec nature of the image is more accessible.
Jonathan: Yeah, I mean there’s really no excuse for anything not to be really high standard now, because the cost of equipment has plummeted. And the reality is if budgets of projects stay the same, then with the equipment dropping in cost then their should be only better projects airing on TV or online because you know it’s cheaper to make films than it ever has been if you look at the actual acquisition cost. So it’s an exciting time. The challenge we have as a business is making sure that there’s new cameras in the industry who perhaps have access to some of this equipment with very little overheads and probably more time on their hands, don’t outshine us and we’re able to keep on and keep pushing the boundaries.
George: Sure, it’s interesting traditionally, in terms of my background, I actually briefly worked in the natural history unit getting work, experience in the University then I progressed to the nature picture library then I hung on to the coat tails of Doug Allen for a period of time and how the industry and how the institutions, such as National Institute at Bristol have been well funded by license fees, etc. Is that changing? Is the funding landscape changing now as well?
Jonathan: I think it is, to be honest, unfortunately the reality is, is that in my opinion, and this is only my opinion, is that the way people view television obviously is so different. And in our company, we have quite a series of kind of young guys and girls who work here, who don’t view TV as perhaps I did, do, and my parents for example. That kind of in and out, we’ll watch what we want when we’re gonna watch it, is great for online viewing, but it’s really bad for terrestrial viewing.
So I think in that sense things will change because gone are the days perhaps where people will sit down at a certain time and choose to watch a program because that’s when its broadcast. That said though, to completely challenge that point. Planet Earth II, had the best viewing figures of a natural history show for the last 15 years of 10 million, and that was people sitting down at eight o’clock on Sunday watching it, that doesn’t include online. So that completely throws the spanner in the works in terms of my theory.
George: It’s a very big brand though, isn’t it?
Jonathan: Exactly. It’s like the election. It’s the whatever. It’s the thing that if you’re gonna get anyone to sit, put their buns on the seats it’s gonna be something like that. So going back in terms of the way people view, I think certainly in the way that feeds in with license fee payers is the point is that at what point where the license fee be obligatory or will it be like a Netflix that you choose to opt in to it, that’s really where it’s going I think.
George: Sure. I mean I think the two thoughts I have about this is the shared experience the next morning by the water cooler in the office and people aren’t aligned. So there’s a long tell to the way that content is received now basically. And that does actually have probably more of an impact on society and culture as well, inadvertently.
Jonathan: Well I mean it could be, definitely. One of the downsides to the kind of online culture of Netflix, Amazon, whatever it is, is that there’s actually too much content to watch. It’s actually impossible. So, whether you’re in an office place, talking to people who are watching series of episodes, Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, or whatever it is they’re into, you’ll always have people who are in certain different genres or whatever, and there’s actually too much content to view. The great thing about something like Planet Earth, you’re talking about six one hours, or at least the first episode which is an hour and it’s kind of manageable. People would probably change their schedules, their diaries to sit and watch it. And then you can have that kind of, as you said, water cooler conversations. Because we’ve all experienced it, where otherwise, it’s almost like an all you can eat buffet, and it’s just too much choice.
George: Yeah. It’s actually very interesting. The thought just came to mind, just thinking about Planet Earth II and it’s ridiculous 10 million bumps on seat’s success. And also at the other end of the spectrum, we have the baby iguana running from the snakes. Being a viral and a giffy animated sensation on Twitter and the social media channel. So actually, there is a piece of content, be it how long it’s taking to make the production ready behind it. But it’s both winning on terrestrial television and winning in social media. So again, it comes back to the quality of the narrative. The quality of the filmmaking perhaps behind it.
Jonathan: Well, I think, you know I think with anything that you watch, whether it be, racer snakes chasing iguanas, or aliens landing, the point is that people whoever are viewers will always want unique and unparalleled content, whatever that is. So yeah, when you have a sequence like the iguanas, the point is that nobody’s ever seen that before, so what’s it gonna do? It’s gonna go viral because it’s so visually striking and it’s still sitting on the edge of your seats kind of sequencing. And then yeah, if that didn’t get picked up it would be alarming, really.
George: And people can draw so many analogies with that once piece of imagery as well. You know it’s life and death, it’s strength and weakness. It’s the start-up world, there’s a lot of visual analogies, whatever walk of life you come from.
Jonathan: Definitely, and also, from people who are even slightly interested in the natural world. After seeing those marine iguanas, it was something new and different, even in something that’s actually been seen quite a lot in terms of animals, but not in terms of behavior. So, it’s just really interesting. And even the Komodo dragons, they’ve been filmed so many times, but their battle, the strike, it’s all quite powerful, and the great thing about Planet Earth, not to sort of go unnoticed, is the score. Hans Zimmer wrote the music and it’s like, if there’s anyone who can bring music to life, and emotion, and the feeling, it’s that person who’s writing the Interstellar scores, and those kinda really big, big stuff. If you watch that sequence mute, it has a very different feel.
George: Completely, I remember very famously when Motown came out with two different film schools, it was a very different film. And interestingly, Planet Earth II has obviously been a major part of your production existence. How involved were you with this recent series?
Jonathan: Yes, we were involved in every episode, except for the jungles film, and that was only because we couldn’t do it. So yes, we’ve been heavily involved the last three and a half years. So obviously, we’re working on loads of other projects as well. But it’s kinda nice for us as a company, because often when we meet new people, and we talk to people, it’s nice to have something that most people can at least acknowledge or understand what it is you’re working on. One of the challenges when you’re working with brands, as good as it is, if nobody knows the brands, then you might as well not make anything in a sense when it comes to the conversations, because they don’t know what it is you’re talking about. But when you sort of name drop, if you will, Planet Earth II, or some of the IMAX films that we’ve made over the last few years, it’s “wow, okay”, and that’s kind of been one of our biggest assets.
George: Yeah, that’s very interesting, a selling point. So this leads me on nicely to how you sort of build teams and find the right time as you sort of move around the globe, whether it’s on wildlife, or whether it’s on brand work. Is there a team of best fit? Do briefs come in which require sort of different geographies and different skills sets? Are animations and 3D animations, or even 3D for IMAX, a totally different skill set required? How do you go about from working that out from your network today?
Jonathan: Well, our business model is really different to a lot of others. So we’ve pushed really hard to have it all in-house under one roof. And one of the main reasons we’ve been able to do that is that everyone in the business is a doer. So we don’t have kind of account handlers, or sales people, that go out and sell, that are so disconnected from what it is we’re making.The point is that our business, the people that do it are the people you talk to. So when we have a conversation with somebody, for example, we’ve done a lot of stereo 3D filming, as you mentioned. If somebody has an idea, and they wanna bring it to life, the point is they talk to the people who know how to make stereo 3D. We know what we’re doing, and we progress like that.
So what we’ve done with the business, and honestly, in our company as well, we run all the post suites and graphic suites and all those kind of things. It’s about getting that clear communication to be able to have the head of graphics talking to the DP, who’s working with the director, and that’s kind of how the communication is. There’s no third-parties, there’s no real agencies involved, unless you’re looking for an agency. So it’s that kind of very short communication that hopefully makes it really productive. And then, there’s not a lot between us, if I’m honest, without sounding kind of big headed or anything, that we don’t know how to do, or at least how to turn our hand to.
George: Sure, it makes a lot of sense. And in terms of, on a huge project, there’s a lot of assets you’re moving around. There’s a lot of potentially storyboarding. Drafting of scripts, etc. Do you organize, I know Movidiam, for example, has a project manager suite which, very effectively, puts the content and materials that you’re working with at an arm’s length, very team-wide across geographical boundaries. Are you using a bunch of tools like this, or various different tools?
Jonathan: Sure, I mean, the interesting thing for us is that every project is different. And the approach of how we might run it does vary, but either way, to have a central place that you can hold your key documents, and be able to make people come together as a community is priceless.
George: I just think what we saw, as we had 25 years odd experience of making corporate films, brand films, commercials, etc, we saw that as the distribution changed, and the quality of equipment came onto the market, a growing number of entrepreneurial film makers entered the scene. And actually, demand going up for businesses. Businesses need to create more films of all different varieties to satisfy the Google algorithms and the SEO, to satisfy the sort of learning requirements that their businesses need to put out. So when more films need to be made, and quality is an essential thing, looking at the global community of filmmakers is a more accessible way to kind of make effective films with a small footprint.
Jonathan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, there’s no question that, as you already said, SEO and everything, Google, film is working, and film is what everyone needs to be doing. The challenge is with companies. We’ve had fixed costs to a degree about how much things should cost, and what way we should work. And the challenge is is making sure that people who suddenly require this content understand that every piece of content is unique, and the processes which you go to, to create it. It’s just making sure that they understand the costing structure. Yes, you can buy it cheap, but also, most people want sort of very high end results, but not always have the budget to cover it. So our biggest challenge as a company, setting the brand work, is kind of leveling expectations and trying to work out how best to apply our resources to the given budget. I don’t know if I answered your question.
George: Yeah, sure. It does, it’s very interesting.
Jonathan: It’s tricky, because the reality is that although, it’s like anything. To use an analogy of a cook, for example, anyone can go and buy the ingredients, but it takes a cook to make a dish. And it’s so true, because although the camera costs and some of the editing suites, and all those things have come down in price, well, that’s great as a capital expenditure. But in terms of the skill set, in terms of bringing something to life, and cutting something in a way that inspires, that’s a skill. And that requires years of training. On one hand, great, there’s a plethora of startup companies who boast that they have a 8k red, or whatever it is they’ve got. But the reality is, is can they get the best out of it? Possibly, they can. But the fundamental difference between established companies and those newer ones is that if we had a storyboard or something in front of us, we would make that happen in a day, for example, where some of the other startups, potentially, might take them a lot longer. And then the question is is being effective with your budget, it’s all those sorts of things.
George: Absolutely, as a very experienced man, to sort of weighing things up there, I completely understand that. And I think as well, how sort of new styles of communication, and how brands, I mean, do you come under any pressure from brands that say, we’d love you to produce this for us. We want to put it out on Snapchat. Or we want to put it out on these new distribution methods sort of arriving on the scene. And again Potentially brand marketers getting confused about do we get audience, or do we get quality content, or do we get distribution? How do we get the distribution on this piece of content? We would like a viral.
Jonathan: You’d be amazed how many times they ask for a viral. The irony about viral is, for it to be successful most brands need to step away from the brand that they are and that’s how it becomes viral. So you sort of look at yourself and mock yourself, and then you might have a chance of being viral. Which most brands nine times out of ten don’t want to do.
George: Sure, but it’s really just the different sorts of distribution and how people, they feel they might have a network of a million on Instagram or a network of a million on Snapchat. Therefore they need to produce the content for that. I think it is a challenge that established producers are gonna come up against as resources shift to distribution.
Jonathan: There’s no question that if you want to make a 30 second Instagram edit, yes, you could argue that, it’s only 30 seconds, it doesn’t matter. But actually you could also argue that you’ve got a much better captive audience on Instagram that’s right hitting your demographics of your brand. Well then, you better make it really good. We always tend to try and work with the fact of if you can make a longer form thing, that might be a web-based or TV-based thing that you can then very comfortably generate a series perhaps of Instagram edits, or SnapChat films, whatever you want from that. And obviously as long as the original source is good, then obviously anything subsequently is good.
George: Again, this comes back to the Planet Earth II concept, create this original several hours of programming. And then take elements of it for the marketing, take elements for the Twitter, take elements for these various things. I mean, that’s actually a fundamental sort of marketing strategy is, build one and then create lots of different options from it.
Jonathan: Completely, and also doubling that, they’ve created an audience. Build it’s leverage of brands. So they’ve obviously got Planet Earth, what would you do if you were making the biggest Natural History series next? Why not call it Planet Earth II? You’ve already got an audience. Yes, generate a very compelling program which will be obviously six programs. And once you’ve got that audience, then yeah, drip little contents and it’s sort of a no brainer, really.
George: Can we just briefly dial in on to the sort of sequence like the iguana sequence. What sort of human resource goes into planning? And how many people are involved with a sequence and an arrangement like that?
Jonathan: Well, in terms of a lot on the ground in terms of filming, actually very few. Maybe two camera people covering one probably on a long lens, one on some sort of crane or gimbal. But it’s actually the pre-shoot work that is really so demanding. And I know the people who obviously plan all those shoots. And they work tirelessly in the office in Bristol in the BBC with commissions, and access, and safety, and there’s so much work that goes into it in terms of logistics and the fixes on the ground. And being in the right place at the right time with the right weather, it’s really tough. And it’s not something you turn up and you happen to go, there it is, let’s just film it. It’s watching and waiting, and learning and seeing, and being in the right place, and going there repeatedly day after day after day, be in the right place. And then finally, and usually it does happen in the last week as maybe a month shoot or something. But you actually worked out where you need to be and when the light is in the right position and then you capture it.
George: Yeah, fascinating, everything takes about a month [LAUGHS] .
Jonathan: Usually, as rule of thumb for about a five minute sequence in blue chip it’s at least a month of filming.
George: Yeah, those filming ratios are big. I think the famous ratios in TopGear as well, which I know it’s a totally different type of work. But they have a huge cutting amount of material on the cutting room floor.
Jonathan: Yeah, and it would be the same for Natural History. The thing is, with certain sequences that you film, and certain animals, it’s not unheard of to go for four, five weeks and not see the subjects at all. And the challenge is, is that you still got the camera people, the cast, the cameras, the logistics, the flights, the hotels, or camping or whatever it is you’re doing. But you actually come back with probably some nice sunsets or something.
George: So tell me, when you’re on that location and you are with that one or two camera people there. Is it evident, at that moment that, that is remarkable piece of footage? And that you should earmark that for the editor’s attention or the director and editor’s attention? Or is it actually the genius of the foley and the sound and the editing and the direction at the later stage that that becomes a valuable piece of content?
Jonathan: No, I think if you get a piece of behavior, you know that you’ve captured something. And often nine times out of ten you’re really gunning for whatever it is you’re trying to capture. And it will have taken you weeks probably to try and get it. So there’s an amazing feeling when you quickly check that you’re actually recording when you’re seeing something through the viewfinder. But also on most shoots, and I think the marine iguanas was also the case that they weren’t actually there to film that. So it’s also keeping it an eye on what’s around you. And sometimes you could film a piece of behavior or something that’s happening to the side of you, which has nothing to do with what you were there to film. And you capture it, and then you really think quite creatively, on the shoot, well, actually this is really strong. I think actually we should make a sequence around this piece of behavior because actually, this could be stronger than what we actually came to do.
Just to build on that, nine times out of ten on Natural History shoots it’s one camera person. It’s one camera person with either the producer of the show or a researcher who’s found the story, if you will. And that camera person is responsible for every piece of equipment that’s there. So whether that be a crane or a drone or something else, there are no camera systems. There are no dolly grips or anything like that. It is that person gets on with it and does the lot. Which is why, again, from us from a company’s point of view, with our company being based in Natural History, we’ve had a sort of foundation of basically getting on with it. Our guys are all multi-skilled who can run a camera, run a crane, do a tracking vehicle or whatever it is and it’s really interesting to have that foundation.
George: It’s certainly very interesting as some of these larger production companies and larger agencies that have huge resources for some of these commercials. As budgets are squeezed, they perhaps look more to a firm like Ember Films who have that sort of SAS style of training on a film set.
Jonathan: Well, it’s funny you’d say that. We’ve actually called ourselves on many times the SAS of filmmaking, so we’re on the same page.
George: [LAUGHS] Very good.
Jonathan: But the thing is, if you’re doing a big commercial there are reasons why you have a big crew. And the reality is, is that even when you’ve got certainly famous people or big brands or whatever it is, is that you have to get so much done, and often in a day or two days if you’re lucky. So your point is that everyone is there to make it just work like clockwork. And having worked on those big commercials, you will see why things cost what they do. The difference is though, is if you’re working with different brands where perhaps time isn’t the absolute factor, you’re not trying to make a campaign for a product that has some celebrity endorsing it. And you’ve only got them for a few hours. You can sort of be a bit more creative, then yeah, I think our sort of company is really well established to kind of work very closely with the client, build a concept, tell a story, hopefully make it look really great.
George: And do you work with agencies and have agents bring in directors at all or do you have. Firstly, start off, do you work with agencies?
Jonathan: Yeah, we love working with agencies. Yeah, but by no means is, we sort of work in lots of different ways. So we Yes, we’ll work with agencies, we’ll work with direct-to-brand, we’ll offer a service, a particular service, so it might just be the filming, it might just be the post-production. It also might just be the concepting. But no, what we try and do with our agency clients is, but we like to get in early. If we can, rather than just deliver us, here, this is what we’ve got to do, we’d rather sort of work with them with the budget and go okay, well this is great, but actually if we did this, this could make your budget go so much further.
And actually, it’s not really changing the idea too much, because we’re quite techy savvy. We had one recently where, unfortunately, the clients had sold in a particular style of filming and it was actually, it was impossible to deliver. You couldn’t actually do it because physics wouldn’t allow. And so, in one hand, it’s great on a pitch document but it’s another thing, practically. And again, we’re working with them to just get involved that little bit earlier so that an idea isn’t sold that is not deliverable.
George: Sure, makes sense. It makes good sense, I know that challenge. So just briefly, I know we’ve had you on the phone for a while now, but briefly the sort of concept of Movidiam, and what drew you to building a profile, and interacting there. How do you see a product like Movidiam sort of assisting or streamlining, making more efficient your process?
Jonathan: Well I think, as a business, when you’ve got multiple projects running, whether that be internationally, locally, across different genres with different crews or different whatever, the challenge is trying to keep that organized and a clear communication. And what we are always looking for is some kind of thing, whatever it may be, to sort of centralize everything. To keep the paperwork, to keep the edits. To keep, basically to keep our head space sane so that nobody drops the ball.
George: Yeah, especially so when you’re not working with a huge team, yeah, exactly it makes sense. So just assets stored safely and yeah, streamlined. Which I think a good piece of cloud software can very much do in a remarkable way.
Jonathan: Yeah, completely. And it’s having, without a doubt, as soon as you become unorganized and you do drop a ball, that’s when you lose your budget. You overrun, and obviously we’re always committed to, but luckily it doesn’t happen very often at all. If it does, it’s certainly out of our control. But the whole point is you wanna keep, you want to deliver. Delivering is everything. And no matter what you do, as long as you deliver, that’s key. So keeping something that’s organized, on track, everyone can dip in and out, they know where it is, very centralized, can only help you deliver on time, on budget, and that’s it. Some projects don’t have the margin of error.
George: Sure. No, I completely agree in terms of the talent side of it, as well. You mentioned earlier that you have much of the skill set and the resources internally, but a particular style or aesthetic of 2D or 3D animation from a particular artist that might be in California or Sao Paulo, or Hong Kong. You can reach out to and interact with and engage with on the platform, and potentially do a couple of seconds for an element inside one of your projects.
Jonathan: No, completely. And when I said before about us having everything in-house, what we have is heads of departments in-house. So the point is that if, for example, we’re running a series of post-works, but there’s an editor in, as you say, Sao Paulo who has this most amazing creative cutting style, one of our heads of departments will be in communication with them about doing a sequence, or whatever it is. We’re really open collaboration of any sort. We’d always welcome anyone to get in touch. The point is that it’s still managed. So if we are doing something with the effects that is an area that we can’t handle ourselves, there’s always somebody in our team who’s responsible for the absolute smooth running of that.
George: Point of contact in managing it.
Jonathan: Exactly. And then, that’s absolutely great. It would be amazing if we could have hundreds of staff in-house that could do anything, but we can’t. But yeah, open collaboration is brilliant. Movidiam’s really great at bringing people together. But from our end, as long as we know that our core team, the heads of the departments, can seamlessly manage whoever is their employee, then that’s brilliant.
George: Brilliant. Well look, Jonathan, thanks so much for your time on the Movidiam podcast here. And for our listeners, do go ahead and check out the Ember Films profile. It’s a rather remarkable mix of extremely high-quality work. And thanks so much again for your time, Jonathan. We’ll be in touch further down the line.
Jonathan: That’s a pleasure. It was great talking to you.
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