Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
ON THE MOVE FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET
When producer Rosie Thomas arrived on location in Senegal, West Africa, she was really surprised by how dry the habitat was. ‘I knew these chimps didn’t live in the usual kind of dense jungle where I’d filmed them before, but I wasn’t expecting it to be anything like as dry as this – every step we took, we kicked up clouds of dust.
‘It was also very hot in the jungle, so the chimps would spend hours in the middle of the day asleep in a thick cluster of vines, often taking the only piece of shade available – it was not uncommon for us to have to wait several hours for them to emerge once again.’
But while the crew weren’t used to coping with the intense heat, with temperatures often above 40°C, the apes were. And they often left their human followers straggling far behind. ‘Chimps are one of the toughest subjects in the natural world to film,’ wildlife cameraman Mark MacEwen explains, ‘because, despite the intense heat, they’d often walk many kilometres in a day, starting at 4am and finishing at nightfall, when they finally go to rest. It became a battle of our physical and mental resources just to keep up with them.’
Filming chimps, as with any wild animal, requires a healthy dose of respect for the creatures’ power, strength and intellect. The crew knew they must always keep at a safe distance, never make sudden movements or loud noises – and if it became clear the chimps didn’t want people around, to beat a retreat.
Once the chimps had sized up the situation, they made sure they were dominant. The camera crew were tolerated, but never allowed to forget their place. ‘On the first day of every trip, David would come and walk really close by us – just letting us know that he knew we were there,’ says Rosie Thomas. ‘It was almost as if he was reminding us he was the one in charge – which of course he was. After that, he’d let us follow him, most of the time, for the rest of every trip. But when he didn’t want us around, there was no chance of keeping up with him. We had to accept that some days he wanted to be alone.’
David was the character who inspired the whole Dynasties series, reveals executive producer Mike Gunton. ‘I had covered the same troop for the BBC series Life Story, which aired in 2014, so I knew the characters,’ he says. ‘I’d seen some interesting power plays and that gave me the confidence to go ahead and pitch the idea of Dynasties to BBC commissioners. These chimps live right at the edge of the chimps’ range, and they were stressed.’
Most chimps live in equatorial rainforests in Central and Eastern Africa, where the climate remains more or less the same all year, providing a reliable supply of food. But there in the far west, David and his group face huge seasonal changes, which pushes them to the limits of endurance. ‘I knew we’d definitely see things happen,’ says Mike, ‘but the drama that played out was amazing. It’s a better story than you could ever have written.’