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David Lickley talks Born to Be Wild

By Anne Brodie Apr 8, 2011, 16:07 GMT

This film documents orphaned orangutans and elephants and the extraordinary people who rescue and raise them—saving endangered species one life at a time. Stunningly captured in IMAX 3D, Born to be Wild 3D is a heartwarming adventure transporting moviegoers into the lush rainforests of Borneo with world-renowned primatologist Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas, and across the rugged Kenyan savannah with celebrated elephant authority Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick, as they and their ...more

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman narrates the documentary adventure “Born to be Wild 3D,” which takes us “up close” to two sanctuaries for abandoned wild animals in Kenya and Borneo.

It’s a stunning film; a feast for the eyes and the heart, beautifully photographed in ways never seen before in a nature documentary.  World-renowned primatologist Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas looks after orangutans in Borneo while Dr. Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick dedicates herself to elephants in Kenya – both ladies have been doing this work for decades.  We meet their charges and get a rare chance to enjoy the incredible relationship between them. 
 
David Lickley is a scientist turned filmmaker out of the internationally renowned science center, Science North, in Sudbury, Ontario.  His films reflect a strong conservation ethic while bridging the gap between human and wild animals through cinema. 

His previous films include “Gold Fever,” “Bears” “Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees” “Mysteries of the Great Lakes,” “Shooting Star,” “Wings Over the North,” and he’s currently in production on the sequel “Wildfire 4D.” and developing Polar Quest,” “Penguins to the Max 3D” and “Wild China – Land of the Panda.”

Monsters and Critics spoke with Lickley:
 
M&C: There is a dramatic scene in which “teenaged” ex-orphan elephants thunder into Daphne’s camp in Kenya to meet a new generation of abandoned elephant babies. It’s thrilling stuff, but were you ever in danger of being trampled?

Lickley: Elephants are really gentle by nature, when there are threats they are protective of each other. These were raised by Daphne. They’ve gone wild but they are her ex-orphans and they understand that people aren’t threats. They never forgot the keepers.

One of the amazing things that happened was the keepers from Nairobi with the tiny babies, they raised some of those orphans 10 years ago and they recognized the keepers and had a reunion.  They knew them.  They go wild and are gone for years but when they come back they understand them.

We never felt in danger. There are times when they are rambunctious, and you can run into problems but that’s when the keepers come in, they’re very gentle. They knew when there was going to be stampede and they made sure no one got hurt.

M&C: This is the first IMAX feature to be shot digitally with a new and much smaller camera.  How did it help?

Lickley: The camera was beta tested the week before we left and finished it as it was being put into the packing crate. We did not know when we off to Africa if it would work. The first few days we didn’t get much because we didn’t understand the temperature requirements and we were in 45C degree heat and it was fogging.

A lot of things we had to figure out. We were hoping it was working, we could do 24 hour downloads and check the rushes, that’s never happened in IMAX.  The digital film could do things we couldn’t’ have done before. The scene of the smashing tree you would never have had.

For one thing we were way up in the air, we couldn’t have gotten the original camera up there, just too heavy, and the second thing, the new camera has a 30 minute hard drive and just to be technical, it’s the anti-camera.  

A normal camera takes time to fire up, and it runs out in 3 minutes. It takes time to start and stop.  You just hope you get the shot, you’re always cautious.  Our new digital camera was on buffer mode, we were recording everything all the time, anytime we saw something we said Stop!

And the last 45 seconds we got to keep and store. So that tree shot was one of 20 minutes following the Orangutan. And then that happened “Smash!”  We got a lot of the behaviors that way.

M&C: Why these particular animal “nurseries”?

Lickley: We chose these two subjects not just because they were great stories but we knew we could get the cameras this close to these animals because they’d accept us. They accept people. It was just a question of waiting long enough. A wild Orangutan is the most elusive thing in the forest. Birute took almost two years before she could even study one animal.

They’re not coming to people. They’re up in the high canopy and they move so fast that you set up – they’re over there.  And you lose the shot. This camera was really suited to these animals and they were really suited to the camera.  They would wait.  Essentially if you were patient they would eventually ignore you. That’s why they don’t look self-conscious.

These animals after a while were like Who cares?” sometimes they got too curious, something hanging from a crane within reason is just a real temptation, a very smart animal, it’s a big piece of fruit.  We have shots of them winging off the tree and come right to the camera, and we’d have to pull them off.

We have dozen of shots but we couldn’t use them because when it’s up to there – it’s a very intrusive shot.  This big hand in front of your face!

M&C: Both of these brave ladies are getting on.  Who will carry on their work?
 
Lickley: Daphne’s daughter is the mother of the two grandsons you see and runs the organizational side of the trust, so she’s in great shape because Daphne’s a bit frail.  And the grandsons are animal freaks; they love the animals like their grandmother does. I think there is a good chance it will be a legacy for them.

The harder situation is what’s going to happen with Biruté and the orangutans. There’s no natural fit. She has a son Fred who is interested but Borneo is a tough place to live, he’s from there but it’s one of the hardest places to live for us.

It’s just hot and humid and it’s not comfortable and there are a lot more problems in Borneo than there are in Africa, like deforestation and government interference. It’s a nightmare there on many levels. 

If it’s not him there will be someone else. There are half a dozen organizations like Birute’s that do similar work inspired by her in other parts of the forest and Borneo. Someone will step up, maybe someone who sees this film.

M&C: That’s exciting.

Lickley: We think is there is someone in the crowd watching the movie who is 12 of 15 years old and trying to figure out “What am I going to do? Wow! I’d like to do something like this!”  The last reporter I talked to she says she wants to go do it. I told her Birute would take her, she could go tomorrow.

She could be a caregiver if she wants, it’s there for you.  It’s not this big secret. I’m hoping there will be people in the audience who will become the future Birutes and Daphnes of the world. 

We know we need them.  That’s how it started with Birute, she saw a lecture by Louis Leakey when she was 19 and she thought she could do it. Why not me? That’s how she began her career. Why can’t a film inspire people?

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