Micro Monsters 3D with David Attenborough

The world of the tiny

From armies of killer ants to spiders weaving silken trap doors, ferocious scorpions with paralysing stings, beetles shooting boiling chemicals at their enemies, bees communicating with a waggle dance and assassin bugs that clothe themselves in their victims corpses; David Attenborough will for the first time in stereoscopic 3D take viewers deep into the macroscopic world of bugs.

…pioneering macroscopic 3D.

Capturing the world of the very small in 5k, 3D, created a very specific set of challenges. To successfully get the pictures we were after we had to develop a new camera and lens system. Jonathan and Chris Watts jointly developed a new 3D rig that enabled us to see in 3D extraordinarily small insects. Furthermore this rig was portable enough to allow us to work on location in Kenya and Australia.

Macro Unit DoP

I oversaw the photography on the second unit for the whole series which entailed building sets, lighting, and shooting macro 3D sequences of all the insects in the script. We shot in studio locations in UK (Shepperton), Kenya (Kakamega) and Queensland (Kuranda). Additionally location filmed was done in Kenya and Australia.

Stereo timelapses

Additionally to my main DoP duties I also filmed a variety of stereo timelapses in all the locations we visited. These were shot on my Hurricane mirror rig, with dual D800 cameras and matched lenses. The rig was mounted on my motion-controlled hot head, and dolly, allowing for three axis moves.