What would you do to create unique wildlife footage? Build a robotic spy Dung Cam, of course.
British film producer and director John Downer is a pioneer in wildlife filmmaking, creating truly unique hidden cameras to capture footage of animals without their behavior being affected by the presence of humans. Since the 1980s, he has worked for PBS and BBC, producing award-winning work through his innovative immersive visuals and unique storytelling methods.
Calling his devices spy cameras, Downer has created several styles, some mimicking an animal like an egret or orangutan. In contrast, others take a more humble approach, hence the Dung Cam, a masterpiece of photographic engineering.
With its super low perspective and multiple detachable rolling cameras, the hilarious Dung Cam is actually quite effective. Several iterations of the dung device have been used in nature programs over the years, with the latest wheeled, multi-cam iteration sporting a main zoom lens to capture up-close video of shy wild elephants and their calves.
After over three decades of trial and error in the field, John Downer has perfected his techniques and his company John Downer Productions is now the go-to company for high-end, innovative natural history filming even earning awards such as a ‘Grammy’ for the innovative time-layering techniques in the Peter Gabriel video ‘Digging in the Dirt’ as well as an Emmy for ‘Earthflight’ that he says “used new techniques to fly with birds around the world.” Downer has produced 23 films and directed 34, including the acclaimed “Spy in the Wild” series, with the latest version taking to the seas with “Spy in the Ocean.”
“The company made its name by abandoning the traditional style of nature documentary and pioneering a highly inventive subjective approach. Through the use of new and exciting immersive techniques, including the use of Spy Cameras, it entered the animals’ lives and revealed their world as never before. If you see an eyeball to wingtip shot of a flying bird, a shot from a camera on a bird’s back, a “Spy” camera perspective or a moving track around an animal frozen in time, you can be sure JDP created it first,” JDP explains.
As far as proving his dedication, surely there are few more committed and clever than John Downer, not afraid to get dirty for the craft, who literally created a robotic dung to capture wildlife footage. Imagine having to retrieve that SD card.
Image credits: PBS, BBC, John Downer
