Livvy In The Wild
A CHARGING elephant had reporter Simon Reeve running faster than an Olympic sprinter during filming for Nine’s new series Wild Life.
While Reeve was heading for the hills fearing for his personal well being, his tour guide was in fits of laughter - local knowledge enabling him to pick the difference between an irritated elephants mock charge, designed to frighten away intruders, and the real thing. “We were filming in South Africa when we stumbled across an elephant and started to approach it,” Reeve recalls. “We snuck up from behind to get a few shots when it must have caught our scent in the breeze. It turned and looked at us and began to make a move. Our guide had seen it thousands of times before and wasn’t alarmed at all. However, I didn’t have a clue about mock charges so I got out of there pretty quickly. I had no way of knowing whether the elephant was going to keep coming or not and decided to head for the safety of the vehicle. The guide was laughing, and while at no stage were we in any real danger, well that’s what he told me, I wasn’t about to take any chances. I was totally in awe of this huge creature and came within I5 metres of it when it turned. Who am I to challenge something that big and powerful?”
What’s more it was all captured by the film crew and will appear in the first episode of Wild Life this Thursday, hosted by Australia’s own international star, Olivia Newton-John. Livvy says she really became “emotional” when approached by Beyond Productions with the idea for the show. Since then she has been seen in the company of tigers and snakes and has journeyed to the top of a rain forest canopy. She has filed stories on everything from the parrots of Mexico to the secret lives of dogs. She also interviewed movie star Patrick Swayze about his Arabian horses and profiled the Butterfly Man, Bill Too.
Wild Life’s reporting team includes former actress Rachel Friend, journalist and broadcaster Michael Beatty and Samantha Kume, who began her television career with QTV North Queensland as an on-air presenter. Extraordinary stories featured include a rat temple in India, Southern White Whales in Australia, Japan’s Macaques (snow monkeys), the Philippine eagles and Indian snake charmers.
Reeve, better known for his stint on Beyond 2000, ventured to all pans of the globe for the series including South Africa, the US, Kenya and Costa Rica. With an extensive background in sport, current affairs and science, reporting for Wild Life on animals and nature adds another suing to his bow.
“For me this was the most fun and most satisfying show I’ve worked on because of the type of people I worked with and met,” he says. “The animal element adds something special and makes it more relevant to Australians, most of whom have an affinity with the outdoors.”
In a later episode, Reeve visits a convent in Texas where the nuns breed miniature horses. Their goal is to breed a horse that stands only 30cm high. Reeve also introduces viewers to “Lion Man” Luke Hunter, an Australian employed by a game reserve in South Africa to keep a close eye on its star attractions. “This guy is truly amazing he’s about 26 years old and a graduate from Monash University in Melbourne,” Reeve says. “He got the job about 18 months ago and beat a host of applicants for the job. To put it in perspective, Luke getting the job is equivalent to someone coming from Japan to care for the kangaroos at Taronga Zoo. He has to make sure the big cats and other animals stay within the confines of the reserve and not raid the Zulu farmers’ cattle kraals. Luke also does testing on the animals, monitoring their progress and collating information. “He’s a great guy and very cluey but he’s not like some jungle man roaming in the wild, he is doing a very important job.”
Filming schedules were tight with Reeve covering about a dozen stories in six weeks with the unpredictable nature of the show’s “stars” making life for the crew anything but routine. “You can’t set up interviews or call out ‘cut’ when you are filming a wild elephant, giraffe or lion in their natural environment,” he says. “We had to sit back and wait for these critters to do their thing but most times we were lucky and obtained enough footage.”
So what can viewers expect from Wild Life? “Expect lots of great photography. Some of the pictures are absolutely inspiring, the musical score is also wonderful and the show has a strong travel and environmental element,” he says. “But we don’t preach to the viewers, rather we present these places in such a way that makes people aware how precious and valuable they are, I suppose it’s like National Geographic magazine brought to television,” he says.
Wild Life With Olivia Newton-John premieres on Channel 9 on Thursday, February 2, at 7.30pm,
BY ANTHONY PETERSON