Wheels to reels
Wildlife filmmaker on how skills were honed at the skate park
Growing up hooked on the thrill of skateboarding, BMX, and rollerblading, Libby Penman fell in love with filmmaking while shooting the tricks of her twin sister Pip at their local skatepark.
But after a few broken bones and several operations to fix them, the 27-year-old from Kirkcaldy found a new passion that also combines fast-paced action and extreme environments – wildlife cinematography.
Having worked with the BBC, produced her own documentaries and found a friend in fellow Fifer and world-renowned filmmaker Doug Allan, Penman has just won an award at a leading international wildlife film festival.
And she reckons those long days spent on the ramps at Beveridge Park were what put her on the path to success.
“It’s the strangest link to where my career’s gone but it’s the root of it all,” she said. “I found that I had the skill-set to film animals because you’re following fastmoving subjects and it requires a lot of patience.
“When someone’s not landing the trick, you might have to do a few takes and it’s the same with wildlife. The animal doesn’t just come up and do what you want it to do!”
Very much an outdoors person, Penman has worked hard over the past couple of years to make what seemed like an impossible career route into a reality.
“Those behind-the-scenes snippets at the end of Frozen Planet seemed a million miles away from what you could do as a job,” she said. “It’s almost too perfect to be real.
“But after doing a masters course and refining my skills, it all fell into place and
I feel like I can actually do this as a career. It’s been a long journey of building up a film-making skill-set and then specialising over the years into wildlife.
“The skating is definitely more of a casual hobby now. Rollerblading was my main thing, but I don’t do any crazy stuff like I used to!”
In front of an industry-leading panel of judges from the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix at the Wildscreen festival, she presented the idea for The Animal Kingdom of Fife, a documentary exploring the impact of the climate crisis.
“It was a mad experience, but I’m really happy with how it all went,” Penman said.
“I was kind of terrified before doing it but they tried to make it less like The Apprentice or Dragons’ Den. There were all these
really influential people there, but they were wearing silly hats and [wildlife presenter] Gordon Buchanan was hosting and cracking jokes.
“They tried to make it less scary, because there are quite a few pitching events in the industry renowned for people bursting into tears on stage and being really serious. It was still a bit of a task, though.”
The pitch was to work alongside one of the world’s best in Allan, one of Sir David Attenborough’s go-to cinematographers, to explore the viewpoints of different generations.
Penman explained: “I thought it would be really interesting to look at the nature and climate emergency from our two perspectives, nearly half a century apart in age.
“Doug’s one of the people on Earth who has spent the most time filming under polar ice. He’s seen the archetypal example of climate change, the ice melting, more than anyone. I’m new to the industry and coming at this at the time of a nature emergency.
“We’re coming from the same place but at totally different stages of our career and life. I thought that would be an interesting way to look at things and thankfully the judges thought so too.”
Allan, from Dunfermline, has won numerous Bafta and Emmy awards as part of Frozen Planet, Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and has become a friend and mentor to Penman over the past year.
They’ve found plenty in common beyond just the accent – including the fact they’re both twins.
“He’s a legend,” Penman said. “I can remember the first time I saw one of the shows he worked on, and seeing him in the behind-the-scenes part at the end of the episode.
“My ears pricked up – this guy sounds like me, he’s got the same dodgy Fife accent! It was funny because you don’t see people from here on the TV all that much.
“He is regarded as one of the best wildlife cinematographers of all time and is a major inspiration to everything I’m trying to do and it’s especially cool knowing that he’s from the same place I am.”
The pair hope to bring the documentary to fruition next year, on the back of Penman’s recent work filming for shows like Springwatch and her own series of mini films for BBC Scotland’s The Adventure Show.
She also produced and presented the award-winning short film Shooting Animals, on STV Player, which followed her journey filming wildlife in Scotland in the build-up to Cop26 in Glasgow last year.
“It was geared towards what we as filmmakers can do to be more honest about the situation and to actually help,” she said.
“I’ve had messages on Instagram from people saying the film’s really inspired them, or made them think about things. It’s all the motivation I need to keep on doing films like these.”
As well as volunteering at Cop26, Penman worked on site for WWF Scotland filming social media content and presented her short film alongside other filmmakers at an event hosted by wildlife presenter Steve Backshall.
“We were speaking to the heads of the TV industry about how we wanted to see changes in the way that we discussed the climate emergency with regards to wildlife, being more open and honest about the state of nature,” she said.
“TV bosses often don’t want to make things depressing, but people are very much aware that there’s a problem right now and they’re not going to switch off just because it’s a bit gloomy. I think they’re quite ready for some harsh truths and addressing their behaviours.
“It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of Cop27 next month. I’m keenly looking out for what is said and done.”