CAPTURING THE GRIT AND GLORY

Guardians – a gripping new documentary series filmed using Blackmagic Design kit – sheds light on the courageous work of anti-poaching rangers in the Zambezi Delta of Mozambique.  

Produced by Conservation Film Company for EarthxTV, seven-episode documentary Guardians tracks the efforts of anti-poaching rangers – the unsung heroes – as they protect endangered wildlife in one of Africa’s most challenging environments. Through stunning cinematography and intimate storytelling, each episode offers a unique glimpse into the daily struggles andHE, triumphs of these dedicated individuals. 

“Guardians is a character-led factual series that goes beyond the headlines to show audiences the effort that goes into safeguarding wildlife in Africa through the eyes of the local people on the front line,” explains Sean Viljoen, series director (and camera operator). “We wanted to tell their story as cinematically as possible.” 

During the recent civil war in the country wildlife across all species, including large mammals, declined by 90 per cent. It was then protected and wildlife recovered but as human populations have grown, there are now abundant wildlife numbers and subsistence poaching has crept back in as well as some poaching for bush meat markets. 

Conservation Film Company spent seven weeks filming alongside the 19 rangers employed to protect the vast 2,000 sq km of the Coutada 11 safari concession in Mozambique. With limited resources available in the field, the production team needed versatile tools to capture high-quality footage while minimising logistical complexities. 

Having been “blown away” by the image quality of Blackmagic cameras when making a feature rhino documentary a few years back, Viljoen switched to Blackmagic and now has a full Blackmagic Design workflow for nearly every project. 

For Guardians they carried a broad kit list including the URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF and several Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro, offering exceptional image quality and versatility, allowing the crew to capture cinematic footage in various shooting conditions. 

Most content was handheld and crew were often jumping on the back of motorbikes with the anti-poaching rangers. “That limited the amount of kit we could bring, but there was also a number of different types of content we were trying to cover. All our cameras were rigged as lightly as possible for a run-and-gun type setup.” 

For most of the dialogue content they relied on the URSA Mini Pro 12K often using the BMPCC 6K Pro as the third camera, either on a longer lens like a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 or a Canon 200-400mm f4 lens. The 12K OLPF was fitted with a Fujinon XK20-120mm T3.5, and the 12K primarily used with DZO Cine Zooms.  

The G2 helped for lower light situations and having it as a separate wildlife specific rig meant to minimize the time to re-rig when switching between filming wildlife and following our contributors. 

Alternatively, they had the BMPCC 6K Pro rigged for a Ronin S3 Pro gimbal, with a Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 lens and for filming in confined spaced, such as inside vehicles riding alongside the anti-poaching team. Aerial shots were captured with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro. 

Joining Viljoen on the crew were DP Garth de Bruno Austin, camera operator Keenan Ferguson and editor Joe Krenzer who doubled duties as DIT. Krenzer set up an edit station in a tent offloading cards to two 32 Terabyte G-Raid drives via ShotPut Pro to create proxies overnight ready to edit in DaVinci Resolve the next day. Across the series they recorded 25 TB of data. 

All post-production including editing, colour grading finishing and mastering was done in DaVinci Resolve. “Whether it’s a bigger budget production with a lot of people at our facility in Cape Town or just me travelling around with my laptop it allows us to stay on one platform,” says Viljoen.  

Conservation Film Company arranged a special screening of episodes for the rangers and their families projected onto a local hall. “It was very important to us to share we filmed with the community because outside of the rangers themselves few local people even understand all of what they do to track, stakeout and apprehend poachers and why they do it.” 

“We successfully brought have hopefully done justice to the remarkable work these anti-poaching rangers do audiences worldwide, inspiring action and raising awareness about wildlife conservation.” 

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This article was sponsored by Blackmagic Design