Behind the Lens with a Wildlife Cinematographer

[00:00:00] Alex Re: Hello. Welcome to On Wildlife. I'm your host Alex Re. On this podcast, we bring the wild to you. We take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week, and I guarantee you you're going to come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. Have you ever watched a nature documentary like Planet Earth or Our Planet?

[00:00:22] The videos that they get for those can be really amazing, and it can sometimes take years to get that perfect shot. Well, on today's episode, I got the chance to interview Jake Davis, whose job it is to film these amazing creatures. He's done work for Planet Earth, National Geographic, Disney, and Netflix.

[00:00:42] He specializes in filming grizzly bears and wild cats, like snow leopards and mountain lions. Today, he'll tell us about some of his experiences filming these animals, and give us a look into the life of what it's like to be a wildlife cinematographer. So let's get into the interview.

[00:01:16] Jake Davis: Hey Alex, stoked to be here.

[00:01:18] Alex Re: Great. I'm so glad that you're able to come on and teach us all about wildlife cinematography. Um, so you've worked as a cinematographer for a bunch of different companies, BBC, National Geographic, et cetera. Um, so can you just tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started in wildlife cinematography?

[00:01:38] Jake Davis: Sure. Yeah. Oh man, for me, it started back when I was a kid, my family would travel to Jackson, Wyoming every summer and spend a few months out there. Uh, which is kind of located in just outside of Yellowstone National Park. And so it's just full of, you know, incredible nature and lots of wildlife. And I just, from a really early age, I, it was just all I could think about was photographing animals.

[00:02:02] I think from about 10 or 12, it became my passion. And so, yeah, for me, it's just been, I've been really lucky that I've always just kind of known that there's this one thing I really enjoy doing. And it was kind of a very clear trajectory for me. And I started off doing stills photography and, uh, for about 10 years before I switched over to doing video work.

[00:02:21] And yeah, now I do, I do probably more cinematography than actual still photography from a work perspective, but yeah. Wow.

[00:02:29] Alex Re: That's awesome. And I wanted to talk about one of your more recent projects. So you spent five months in Mongolia filming snow leopards for planet earth. Can you talk about that experience and your day to day life when you were there?

[00:02:44] Jake Davis: Man, it was a dream. Uh, it, so I was in the South Gobi, which is like, I mean, just itself is like, it's a really crazy idea to think of snow leopards being in such a harsh desert environment. And, and that's where we were, and so I was living that whole time. Uh, in a gear, which is, it's basically a yurt, uh, that the local, the local herders live in those.

[00:03:06] And they're basically they're nomads. And so they move seasonally with their goats, you know, between winter and summer and, uh, yeah, so I got to pretty much live that lifestyle for five months. There's basically, you may have like one or two families around you, but other than that, it's just absolutely nothing.

[00:03:23] And, uh, yeah, every single day it was just either tracking snow leopards or trying to film them or setting up camera traps, one of those three things. Yeah, it was a really, just a really special experience to have that much time to kind of immerse yourself. Uh, in a particular ecosystem like that, you know, is not something you get to do every day.

[00:03:41] Alex Re: Yeah, that sounds like kind of a once in a lifetime thing that not a lot of people can say that they've done, which is really cool. And snow leopards are kind of known to be elusive animals. So what were some of the methods that you used to get the shots that you did?

[00:03:57] Jake Davis: Yeah, they're super elusive. You know, like all cats like that, they just kind of specialize in avoiding detection.

[00:04:03] And so what that means is, well, you either have to spend a ton of time sitting in one spot, hoping to see one, or you can use the type of technology that I utilize, which is camera traps. Uh, which is basically like a lot of people are familiar with, like, you know, trail cameras and stuff that maybe people would use on their property.

[00:04:21] Hunters use them kind of just to see what's moving through. And that's the basic idea of the technology that I'm using out there. It's just kind of a souped up version of it with fancier cameras and a lot of them. But you're basically just predicting to the best of your ability where the snow leopards might be in advance and then setting up a whole camera system or in my case, it might be, you know, four or five cameras in one spot with different lenses.

[00:04:45] And then I may spend two or three days setting up that system, and then I just leave it for probably about three months at a time. And if you're lucky in that time, a snow leopard will come through there if you pick the right spot. And sometimes they come through a couple times. That's really interesting.

[00:05:00] Yeah. Primarily camera traps out there and a little bit in person as well.

[00:05:04] Alex Re: Oh, cool. So it definitely takes a lot of patience.

[00:05:06] Jake Davis: A lot of patience. Yeah. Yeah. But if, you know, if you want it really bad, it's not like, I don't know if I consider myself an incredibly patient person, but it definitely very motivated for that, you know, for that shot or for that particular encounter.

[00:05:21] Alex Re: Yeah. I can, I can imagine that it's just worth every minute that you spend out there when you actually get to capture that. Yeah.

[00:05:30] Jake Davis: Totally. Yeah.

[00:05:32] Alex Re: What is one of your most memorable experiences working as a wildlife cinematographer?

[00:05:39] Jake Davis: That is a tough question because there are so many of them. I think definitely I had a shoot where it was just a series of events that was just like more adrenaline than I've ever experienced in my life and it was working with grizzly bears in Alaska and we probably don't have time to go into all the details of it, but it was filming a bear fight to these two, both of them probably about a thousand pound bears from about 30 yards away.

[00:06:03] And then subsequently being charged by another bear that really didn't like us probably about five times. And then after that, having a bear break into our, into our cabin and having to get her out. So it was, I think probably the bear breaking into the cabin was that, uh, yeah, the worst of all of it. But yeah, definitely memorable.

[00:06:23] Alex Re: Oh, absolutely. Wow. That, that must've been really, uh, really scary. Yeah,

[00:06:29] Jake Davis: it was, you know, it was, we were coming back to the cabin and she had already broken in the first time. And so we got, we were like, I was about to open the door. And I looked inside the window and, uh, and I could see that there was a grizzly bear inside and she was sitting on the sofa eating our apples and she looked at us and, and then went down and inhaled probably like five apples in one bite.

[00:06:49] And it's just like, the shock factor was crazy and, you know, they're big animals, but like, when you see them on your sofa, the sense of scale really sets in and you're like, wow. Yeah, it was, it was nuts. Yeah. She came back. We got her out and then she came back again the next morning. Because she had tasted the apples and I had to basically close the door on her head.

[00:07:09] Because she knew she was timid. She knew she was trespassing, you know, so it wasn't like She wasn't like barging in the second time, but she really wanted to come in and I just kind of had to push her head out with the door and it was, yeah. I had two nights after that in my hotel room, after we left that shoot, I woke up in the middle of the night in like, in a nightmare that there was a bear in my room.

[00:07:29] Alex Re: I mean, can you blame her? There's a good place to get apples.

[00:07:34] Jake Davis: Yeah. Not at all. Yeah.

[00:07:37] Alex Re: What has been your favorite and most challenging part of your work?

[00:07:45] Jake Davis: You know, I think my, my favorite part just about this work in general is the experiences you get. I mean, like the story I just mentioned in, and it's, you get an opportunity to like really immerse yourself in an environment and in a particular place or with a particular animal in ways that you just, You probably couldn't do on your own, you know, especially if you're working like with the BBC or Nat Geo, like they're going to get you access.

[00:08:10] That would be pretty hard for me just to go out and get on my own. And so those are like, yeah, I'm always pinching myself on shoot sometimes. Like, wow, this is just like, I can't believe I'm here getting to do this. And then, and there's like the teamwork aspect of it is quite cool as well. Cause you're working with, you know, it's really a whole team of people all working really hard to pull off these sequences and shows.

[00:08:30] And so that experience is just really cool because you're working with a bunch of people who are all really good at what they do and they all just love the same thing. So it's just a bunch of, a bunch of wildlife nerds. It's great.

[00:08:40] Alex Re: That does sound really amazing. Um, and is there a favorite animal that you like to film?

[00:08:49] Jake Davis: I really enjoy working with cats in general. And that's like, one of my specialties is, like we mentioned, camera traps with the snow leopards. And I think I've worked a lot with mountain lions, lynx, snow leopards, obviously. And there's just this, when you get a clip, there's just this magical feeling you get that's just different from other types of filming.

[00:09:10] You know, it's like you got a glimpse of, of something that you just maybe weren't really supposed to see. You know, because they're just so secretive. And so the footage always just feels so rare. It's a really addicting experience, at least for me.

[00:09:24] Alex Re: Wow, that's awesome. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

[00:09:28] Jake has seen some pretty cool stuff. And when we get back, we'll hear about some of his favorite parts of his job.

[00:09:48] Time for our trivia question. What animal is the closest living relative to a giraffe?

[00:10:03] The answer is An Okapi. Now let's get back to the interview.

[00:10:21] And how do you think wildlife cinematography can impact environmental conservation?

[00:10:28] Jake Davis: Ooh, it's a good question. You know, it may sound trite, but I really do believe in the power of storytelling to have a positive impact. And it is hard to measure, but I know the influence that it's had on my life since I was a kid.

[00:10:41] And it's, it creates awareness and interest and appreciation in the general public. And I think, you know, all approaches to conservation are, are important and they have their place and sometimes storytelling is, is kind of looked down upon maybe because it's not heavy hitting enough on some of those environmental points that are important to make, but, you know, telling people just how to think.

[00:11:02] And what they should care about is not always so effective. And I think that the reality is the more you try to overtly change somebody's views, the more they just dig in. And so you can really reach people with storytelling in a way that their defenses aren't up and they just kind of get to experience beauty and wonder from the natural world.

[00:11:18] And I think they connect with it on an emotional level and that, yeah, I really believe that does have a significant, maybe subtle, but significant way of shaping how audiences kind of are their mindsets to being a little bit more open and more caring about the world.

[00:11:33] Alex Re: Yeah, that was really well said. I completely agree with everything you said.

[00:11:38] Just from my own personal experience, growing up, watching these nature documentaries is what really got me interested in animals, wildlife conservation, and even though I wasn't really thinking about global warming when I was 10 years old, that love for animals continues throughout your life and then you kind of develop this This passion for conservation as well as you mature.

[00:12:07] Jake Davis: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. Yeah. And it is harder to measure. And, and, you know, sometimes I think we like to have really tangible goals and stuff like that to, to see the progress we're making with different causes and things we believe in, but. Yeah, I think you said that well, I agree.

[00:12:20] Alex Re: And is there anything that you've learned about animals and the environment as you've worked to film them?

[00:12:26] Jake Davis: Man, it's always, you always learn something on a shoot. And I think the thing that's really cool about it is like, so wildlife biology and science, you know, for example, is really focused on like the species as a whole. And working with maybe larger data sets and statistical analysis, which gives us really useful information.

[00:12:44] Like we use it on shoots as well. Yeah. But I think for me personally, what's really cool about this job is you get to become a student of an individual animal or a very like specific population in a particular region. And you're, you're uncovering like very specific behaviors or maybe preferences on the individual basis.

[00:13:04] And then you're using what you're finding to kind of inform, you know, maybe what patterns they have or inform how you might interact with that animal as you're filming it. And so I just really love that part of it. It's, it's the more like anecdotal individual level of understanding wildlife, but you're just there as an observer and you pick up all kinds of things.

[00:13:21] You know, I, every shoot I go on, I learn so much about so much more than I knew going in, you know,

[00:13:28] Alex Re: That's really cool. And I'm sure you are learning a lot more than you could ever read about in like a scientific journal or anything like that.

[00:13:37] Jake Davis: Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's just a very different type of knowledge. But you know, they are, all animals are very much individuals, right? Like they are, there's obviously things that are species wide, like cats are cats and they have particular things that they do, that cats do, but then like, they're, they're very much shaped by their experiences, just like we are. And so they have kind of, some of them have little quirks or like they have behaviors that other ones don't have. And that's the kind of stuff I just find really interesting. I think in a way it makes them more relatable.

[00:14:02] Alex Re: Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that I've always wondered while watching documentaries Is there ever a time when you faced any ethical concerns while filming, and how did you navigate that?

[00:14:16] Jake Davis: Yeah, in an ideal world, like, you never want to change their natural behavior, right? And especially in a way that might have a negative impact on them. And so, but then the reality of it is you are there, and you are having an impact, and they're, they are going to react to you. And so, that's always kind of a fine line to tread.

[00:14:34] You know, and there's sometimes like, for example, maybe you have a snow leper that just made a kill, you know, just kill an Ibex. And we've been waiting for weeks to get a shot. Right. And so like your impulse is like, we want to get on there. We want to get close and where we can get it. And, but then you're also having to realize, okay, this.

[00:14:49] This cat hasn't made a kill in a week. And if it's not comfortable with us getting too close, like what, like you're, so you're kind of always in those situations, really. You're having to decide how close can we get? Like, can we get a usable footage? And then also like, it's not worth it. Like at the cost of this cat, abandoning this meal after risking its life in many cases to make it, well, that's just not worth it.

[00:15:09] We don't feel good about that. So it's, I don't know. It's not a black and white thing, but it is, I guess like for me, it's just, you're, when you spend that much time working with any animal, you, you You develop a sense of respect for them and you want to feel good about the way you're interacting with them.

[00:15:25] So, yeah, I mean, I, I guess that maybe that's not a, maybe a clear cut answer, but it's, it isn't really black and white for me. It's just kind of case by case. Going by what feels right.

[00:15:35] Alex Re: No, I think it is very clear cut. I mean, it's clear cut that it's not clear cut when you're in the situation. And do you have any advice for aspiring wildlife cinematographers?

[00:15:50] Jake Davis: Sure. You know, I'd say there's, there are many different paths to get to a goal. For me, what has worked really well is just starting, just doing it. Like I, I worked on an independent project for years. Before I ever was able to kind of get into the industry and, and doing that for me, it, I developed my skillset and I also had a story that I developed, which had meant I had more value to add to the industry because there's a story shortage.

[00:16:17] Everybody, everyone wants stories. So, so if you can find, and ideally it, like, it doesn't, you don't have to travel far, look in your backyard because the most interesting stories are often going to come from places that you have unique access to. or unique knowledge of. And so I would say just like get curious around, about the areas around you and just start filming and just get out there and start doing it.

[00:16:39] Don't wait for somebody to give you an opportunity or to hire you kind of make those opportunities for yourself. And if you do that, you will start to get those other opportunities as well. And that's, that's generally the advice that I give to people who are looking to get into the industry.

[00:16:53] Alex Re: Yeah, I think that's great advice. And Luckily for people nowadays, you don't have to go out and buy a fancy camera to get a good shot. You you've got one right in your pocket. Most people. So you can-

[00:17:07] Jake Davis: totally

[00:17:07] Alex Re: start experimenting with that.

[00:17:09] Jake Davis: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the barrier to entry is lower than it's ever been as far as just, you know, fairly inexpensive cameras get really good quality footage now.

[00:17:18] Yeah, definitely. And, and do you have any exciting projects that are coming up? I am working on a few new shows. Unfortunately, they're all just tightly wrapped in NDAs. So I'm not able to talk about them right now, which is normally how it goes. I do have an independent film I'm working on. That's a few years out.

[00:17:33] That's actually that my original project that kind of got me into the industry. I'm working on a larger story there. So that's a lot of camera trapping and working with grizzly bears here in the Yellowstone ecosystem. So we can circle back on that maybe in a couple of years.

[00:17:46] Alex Re: Yeah. Awesome. And, uh, and how can people support you and where can we find your work?

[00:17:53] Jake Davis: Instagram is probably the best place for me. That's where I'm most active and that's at revealed in nature on Instagram or also on my website, which is jakedavis. tv. So there's prints and kind of my latest work and stuff like that will be on there.

[00:18:06] Alex Re: All right, great. Well, Jake, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:18:10] I learned so much about wildlife cinematography and I loved hearing all your stories. So I really appreciate you coming on and joining me on the podcast today.

[00:18:18] Jake Davis: Yeah, thanks, Alex. Really enjoyed it.

[00:18:21] Alex Re: Jake's experiences are definitely something that very few people on Earth have done and seen before. It was so great to have him on the show, and I hope he inspired some of you to get out there and start filming wildlife.

[00:18:35] Just remember to be safe and respectful of the nature around you. If you want to support Jake and his work, you should visit his website at jakedavis. tv. And since he told us about his work on snow leopards, I thought I'd give you some snow leopard organizations to check out. You should take a look at the Snow Leopard Trust and the Snow Leopard Conservancy to help with their conservation.

[00:19:01] Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of wildlife cinematography. You can find the sources that we used for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference at on wildlife. org. You can also email us with any questions at on wildlife. Podcast at gmail. com. And you could follow us on Instagram at on underscore wildlife or on TikTok at On Wildlife. And don't forget to tune in next month for another awesome episode. And that's On Wildlife.

[00:19:40] Jess Avellino: You've been listening to On Wildlife with Alex Re. On Wildlife provides general educational information on various topics as a public service, which should not be construed as professional, financial, real estate, tax, or legal advice. These are our personal opinions only. Please refer to our full disclaimer policy on our website for full details.