It’s the Webosaurs camera guy here, I’m excited and privileged to be filling in for Flyboy on a couple of the posts here. I’m from Great Britain so please excuse any English words that I drop into this piece. Thursday was a blast as we headed to the Cango Wildlife Ranch in Oudtshoorn to film Nigel alongside Nile crocodiles. Oudtshoorn is pretty much the weirdest name I’ve ever heard. As we pulled into the car park the weather was already scorching hot, perfect for heating up the cold-blooded crocs to get them really active for us. Us Brits tend to have pasty white skin due to a lack of sunshine (especially in November) so me and the Sound Recorder slapped a load of factor 35 sun cream all over ourselves before heading into action.
Those crocs are looking hungry!
Our mission was to get footage of Nigel underwater alongside a bunch of nine-foot crocodiles. The only problem with this plan was that putting Nigel in a pond with a load of hot, hungry reptiles would result in a grisly end for our host. Luckily, the Wildlife Ranch provided Nigel with a metal cage to stand inside. He was also given a tub full of stinky mystery meat to entice the crocs with. We watched with excitement as a crane lowered Nigel into the water and the crocodiles were soon swarming around Nigel and the meat like bees to a honeypot. Snapping jaws full of peg-like teeth were clanging against the side of the cage, and Nigel was on alert not to let any of his fingers or toes poke through the bars.
So this is how they hot tub in South Africa...
After I shot some good footage of our host in action, I got the chance to get down in the water with the crocs myself. Flyboy joined me in the cramped cage to handle the tub of meat (and keep a watchful eye on me in case I got carried away during filming and stuck an elbow out of the cage). I’m pretty skinny but it was still a squeeze fitting two guys in the cage and we ended up in some pretty contorted positions. Flyboy was trying to lure the crocs with meat, I was trying to film them, and both of us were equally wary of getting any part of our bodies too close to the cage bars. After a few minutes we’d got some pretty exciting close-up wide-angle shots of the snapping jaws, and we signaled to be lifted out of the pool. I jumped in the shower straight away and took the underwater camera with me- after shooting underwater it’s always a good idea to get the camera cleaned afterwards, I didn’t want it to end up smelling of mystery meat and crocodile water!
I reckon I’m very lucky to have the job I have, and I’ve done some pretty cool things for Webosaurs and other projects, but I still get a buzz from filming. Being jammed into a tiny cage with Flyboy and lowered into a tank full of giant crocodiles was definitely an experience I’ll never forget!
