After a sell-out tour last year, celebrated Scottish wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan is going back on the road.
One of the most prominent wildlife presenters and filmmakers working today, he’s produced some of the most popular wildlife programmes on the BBC.
Now, as his tour brings him to the Whitehall Theatre in Dundee for an ‘audience with’ type event on March 14, Gordon will be taking a look back at his incredible 30 years working both behind and in front of the camera.
Was filmmaking his destiny?
It’s being described as a “rare opportunity to discover what has driven his career” and what are his most favourite wildlife encounters.
His work includes the nature documentaries Reindeer Family and Me, Tribes, Predators and Me, The Polar Bear Family and Me and Life in the Snow.
But was the 50-year-old who was born in Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire, always destined to pursue his award-winning career?
“I grew up on the Isle of Mull, which is a very wild part of Scotland, and I think that drove my passion for being outside, and close to nature,” said Gordon in an interview.
“School didn’t do it for me: academically I wasn’t really present – all I wanted was to be outside, and the classroom was torture.
“I was a daydreamer, and I always knew I was never going to work in an office.
“I’d see the scallop divers, and I’d think: that’s a really good way to spend your working life.”
Influenced by David Attenborough
Growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s, Gordon was influenced by David Attenborough’s documentaries on the TV – and he “devoured” them.
He describes the legendary naturalist as “tremendous”.
With a career that’s lasted so long, Gordon regards Attenborough as “such an important voice” and someone who has so much respect, right across the globe.
Gordon thought his admiration for him could go no higher.
That was until he met him and it soared even more.
But in terms of how he himself got into making wildlife films, Gordon explains that he was very much thrown “right in at the deep end”.
He was 17, and working in a restaurant on Mull at weekends and evenings to earn a bit of money – and the husband of the owner was a cameraman.
He was going to Sierra Leone for 18 months to make a film about the animals in the Gola rainforest, and he asked Gordon if he wanted to come along as his assistant.
“I knew nothing about what it involved,” he recalled, “and I had no idea really what I was getting into – but I knew it was the sort of life I wanted, and I never wavered from that belief.
“So having never been abroad – never even been on a plane – there I was a month after leaving school, setting off for a year and a half on the other side of the world.
“But if getting there was serendipity, and while it was definitely the best break I ever had, those 18 months were tough going.
“I was so young, and being so far from home was hard. But I knew it was the way forward.
“I knew it was an incredible opportunity – and I knew I’d be able to build on it and move into the life I’d love.”
How has his career changed?
Gordon, who in 2020 was awarded an MBE for his services to conservation and wildlife filmmaking, is on his way to Brazil for a conservation series filming jaguars at the time of this interview.
Big cats are the pinnacle for him. He describes watching them hunt as “utterly fascinating”.
The technology around wildlife filming has changed hugely over the three decades since he started out.
“It’s always been about showing viewers the parts of nature we’ve never been able to see before, and technology allows us to do that more and more,” he said.
But the other huge change across the years has been the increased realisation about how vulnerable and fragile these areas of the world where they film actually are.
“Thirty years ago we didn’t know – the world was a lot bigger then, and we simply didn’t realise the impact human beings were having on wildlife,” he added.
“Now we understand that so much better, and I’m acutely aware of it in every way, from my own carbon footprint to questions around changes that need to be made by governments across the globe, if we’re going to stop the damage.
“Right now we’re losing animals before we even knew their species existed – that’s a tragedy.”
Does he have hope for the future?
Despite the immense difficulties facing the planet and biodiversity, he does have hope for the future.
He spent time at COP26, in his home city of Glasgow, and he was really moved by how children and young people are making their voices heard.
“At the moment it’s ‘the suits’ who are making the decisions – but soon it will be the turn of the new generation, and they’re going to understand the climate emergency in a very different way, which I think will make for real change,” he said.
“My growing-up years were the 1980s, when we were all in awe of the US and consumption – it was all about big cars and having stuff.
“But the mentality has changed, and tomorrow’s decision-makers are being formed by that.”
Asked how it feels being somewhere really remote when he’s making a film, Gordon says that when he’s trying to witness something that requires great sensitivity, it’s best to be on his own.
But usually he’s working in a team of four – the camera operator, sound operator and director.
They tend to be a pretty tight bunch, he says, because they are relying heavily on one another, especially when they’re in a dangerous situation.
In Animals with Cameras, Gordon works with scientists to put cameras onto animals, revealing unique footage and amazing discoveries about their lives.
But how did the concept come about, and are the animals ok with it?
“We knew Animals with Cameras was a great idea a long time ago,” he said, “but the technology had to get there.
“And it’s so good that it has, because it’s one of those programmes that really captures the imagination, and also it’s about genuinely seeing animal behaviour without human interference.
“We’re very careful about making sure the camera-carrying animals aren’t upset – we have very strict rules about the weight they can carry.
“If they weren’t comfortable with it they wouldn’t behave naturally, and that wouldn’t work from the point of view of the programme either.”
What are his career highlights?
Gordon surely has a lot of contenders for career highlights.
But asked if there’s any that stand out, he’s willing to select a few.
“A few years ago I was working with Arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island in Canada,” he said.
“It’s really remote, there are no people there.
“I got to meet a pack of wolves who had no preconceptions whatsoever about humans.
“What I realised is that wolves have been vilified for centuries by humans – but they’ve been totally misrepresented.
“They’re actually highly intelligent animals, and I felt honoured to spend time with them.
“Another incredible moment for me was seeing polar bear cubs emerge into the world for the first time.
“They’d been in their winter den, under the snow, for the first four months of their lives, and I was there to see them coming out into the daylight, seeing what was outside, exploring it with a sense of wonder.
“I remember thinking about the lives they had ahead: it’s incredibly tough to find food, to live the way they do.
“And yet it’s the life they’re equipped to live.
“Another amazing time was the two years I spent living in Brazil, travelling up the Amazon by boat.
“I remember the incredible sense of awe at being in the last great wilderness on the planet – that memory has stayed with me, and it always will.”
Asked if he’s ever found himself in danger and if so what sort of scary situations has he been in, he added: “I’ve been chased by bears, tigers and elephants – but not all at the same time.
“And let me tell you: that’s when you discover how fast you really can run!”
Ticket details for Dundee
Gordon Buchanan: 30 years in the Wild is at the Whitehall Theatre, Dundee, on March 14.
For ticket information click here.
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