Because one of Deep Jungle’s objectives is to make science comprehensible in a visual way, the cinematographers occasionally needed to modify the researchers’ equipment. For instance, they substituted a red laser for the invisible infrared beam in shots demonstrating how the tiger trap functions. “The laser was much more diagrammatic and familiar [to the audience] from action thrillers,” notes Thurston. “All those films would make the audience say, ‘Oh, yes, they break the beam!’”

Similarly, the infrared beam used by botanist and mathematician Roman Dial to create 3-D maps of the forest would have been lost upon viewers. Allen swapped it for a green laser specially designed to fit Dial’s measuring equipment and run from a 12-bolt Sun-gun battery strapped to the scientist’s back. “Otherwise, he’d be hanging there from the tree, and you’d just have to imagine the beam going back and forth.” To augment the laser’s visibility, the crew dragged a smoke machine into the forest. “It’s quite a business, I have to say,” Allen recalls with a laugh. “The kind of smoke machine one can get on a documentary budget is one machine burning out smoke, with people smashing about with big boards to break it up. A feature film would have large hoses with little holes, spreading smoke all over the forest, giving you that diffused look. Ours was slightly hit and miss. If we had any kind of wind, it looked like the forest was burning down!”

Allen also faced safety issues. The crew wore red goggles, while he had to place a red filter on the Aaton XTRprod eyepiece, which rendered the laser invisible to him when he was framing the shot. What’s more, he adds, “We had to watch out for Japanese scientists. There was a whole troupe of them doing research as well, and they would come over the hill, not realizing they’d get zapped by our laser beam.”

Deep Jungle’s challenges were never run-of-the-mill. The cinematographers had to be fit enough to scale 150' trees, and agile enough to juggle a camera and recording gear for sync-sound interviews from that lofty perch. They also risked contracting tropical diseases; when Bower exhibited typhoid-like symptoms deep in the jungle, Thurston called Sumatra’s emergency medical number, only to reach an answering machine. Of course, there were also the wild animals. Thurston remembers lying alone in his tent at night near fresh tiger tracks. “Every time I heard something walk past the tent — or thought I did — my eyes were wide open in the dark, and I was listening as hard as I could, trying to figure out what it was. Invariably, it was just the wind blowing through the trees.” Allen pursued forest elephants that were as dangerous as they were huge. “If a bull elephant gets your scent,” he notes, “it’s 50-50 whether they’ll turn and run, or charge and crush you.”

“In America,” Thurston observes, “a lot of people do adventure sports such as bungee jumping, whitewater rafting and downhill skiing. I would say to them, ‘If you want an adrenaline buzz, take a trekking holiday in Sumatra.’ It’s far more exciting. It really does trigger that primal instinct to be scared, because you know there’s something out there that will eat you.”

Despite the hazards, filming Deep Jungle offered many rewards. As a producer, Allen was delighted that the show’s three big gambles — the Sumatran tiger, Darwin’s moth and the chicken-eating spider — all paid off. They got the footage they wanted and more. “We never expected to find a new species of tarantula,” he notes. The production also provided its cinematographers with an opportunity to stretch their wings and do multiple styles of shooting. “The variety of this project was wonderful,” says Flay. “We were going from something as small as mosquito larvae to a scientist at the top of a tree, then to another scientist sticking a camera down a tarantula burrow, then to a cast of 30 locals all dressed up as Conquistadors, crashing through the forest. That was good fun.”

TECHNICAL SPECS 16x9 Super 16mm, DigiBeta, MiniDV Aaton, Arri, Sony, Photo-Sonics, Thermascan, Canon cameras Zeiss, Canon, Fujinon, Optar, Nikkor lenses Kodak EXR 50D 7245, Vision 250D 7246, Vision 320T 7277, Vision2 500T 7218 Super 16mm transfer and telecine by Film Lab North (England)