Cinematographer Toby Strong revealed the dangers of wildlife documentary filmmaking never subside, “You don’t really have a safety backup. You just got to get yourself out of the problem, but everywhere we went, you rely on the knowledge of other people.” However it’s all worth it just to film the, sadly, vanishing majesty of the elephants.
The “Secrets of the Elephants” director of photography, who has been filming elephants for nearly 25 years, recently spoke with Variety’s Katcy Stephan for “Doc Dreams,” presented by National Geographic. Strong and Stephan discuss how he and the “Secrets of the Elephants” crew traveled through Asia, the African Savannah, forests and deserts to capture the “truth about elephants.”
Throughout the conversation, Strong divulged the various intricacies of wildlife filmmaking, “Often with wildlife filmmaking, you may be struggling literally to survive in a situation, but you still got to produce beautiful shots.” These gorgeous images are produced for a purpose, not just to showcase the grandeur of the creatures, but to preserve the animals existence as well. “If [the film or series] can impassion children, young people to go ‘elephants are important’ and learn about elephants a bit. Then we care about them. Then money can go to preserving them.”
While Strong a seasoned documentarian had worked previously in wildlife filmmaking, “Secrets of the Elephants,” also had prolific filmmaker, James Cameron serving as a producer on the docu-series.
“You may be feeling knackered you may think well that’ll do. But then you think, ‘Oh James Cameron is going to be looking at this, we need to work a little bit harder — just to know that the eyes at the end of the line watching it are such an idol as him,” admitted Strong.
As Strong worked to produce content that met his expectations, as well as Cameron’s, the DP also was adamant about contributing and publicizing the message behind preserving the livelihood of the endangered desert species.
All episodes of “Secrets of the Elephants” are available to stream on Disney+.
Watch the full conversation above. Variety’s Doc Dreams is presented by National Geographic.
