A little bird told 'em

River Terns of Bhadra... is all about one of the most charismatic birds in India — the River Tern. Every year, the Bhadra dam is witness to an amazing gathering of thousands of River Terns in its backwaters, which it shares with the Bhadra Tiger reserve, one of India’s most pristine natural habitats. The phenomenon is rare and extraordinary as these birds choose the same island each year to nest. We followed their lives closely over the entire period of five months, during which time they come, breed and also get their young ones ready for life.

The idea behind this project... is to shed light on the lesser known fauna like birds and spread awareness about the brilliant natural wealth we have in our state. This was a commissioned project by Jungle lodges and resorts. They have a property overlooking this phenomenon, hence naming it River Tern Lodge. They wanted an education film to be shown to their guests to increase their knowledge about the place. They gave me a short brief of what they were looking for and then, we worked on the story.

Time and resource... The entire project filming took five months. We have filmed for more than 200 hours to get a 23-minute-long documentary. The budget was sanctioned by Jungle lodges and resorts. It was a really small budget, but I think we have managed to do the best we could with the resources we had.

Filming the birds was extremely difficult... One moment they are here and the next moment, elsewhere. There’s not even enough time to focus your camera for a shot. We put up camera traps which would record about eight hours of footage everyday. Apoorva, my assistant cameraman, would sit through each day and watch the footage for juicy bits.

We would have completely action-packed days — the filming would start at 6am and go on till 7pm. And then we would sit together to transfer data/watch footage and accordingly plan for the next day. Shooting in the rains was yet another experience — even with a big umbrella and rain gear we would be fully drenched in no time due to the winds. Looking at those birds for five months, we developed a sort of relationship with them. Their lives were too human and started bringing out emotions in us. We could start identifying individuals and families among the hundreds that all looked alike.

Creative Commons... is a different kind of licensing. While copyright lets no one to share information, the focus of Creative Commons is to encourage sharing. This has been fairly prevalent in the art and photography circles. All my photographs have been, for years, under Creative Commons — anyone can share my image as long as it’s not for commercial purpose. But this is the first time in India that a wildlife film is being licensed under Creative Commons. The reason behind this is to encourage the culture of free knowledge and also to make sure the beauty of our planet gets shared without hindrance.
Schools and other organisations around the world can organise screenings, people across the globe can also view it at their homes. It’s free and they don’t need to ask our permission as long as it is non-commercial.

When a photographer turns film maker... I’ve always believed in the power of stories and photography was the tool I started with. As different stories and different audiences demand different mediums, I’ve forayed accordingly. Filming, of course, is a different ball game altogether — the amount of time, resources required, difficulty involved is exponentially higher than stills. It also needs a strong understanding of scripting, editing and music. The project was a great learning experience, and also quite challenging. Our previous film How to save The Tiger? had taught me quite a bit and was also well-accepted by the audience (it has been nominated at India’s top Wildlife film festival, CMS Vatavaran, to be held this December).

And many more to come... We are working on a lot of exciting projects. I just finished a small video on rainforests in Tasmania, which will be freely available on the internet soon.

We are also working on www.findingsaxicola.com, a project where we have tried to bring in a little bit of humour to wildlife. This will also be out next month.

River Terns of Bhadra will be screened at the UB City amphitheatre, Vittal Mallya Road, 7pm onwards, on October 6.