CLOSE encounters with crocs, stingrays, flying piranha, tapirs, giant spiders and biting black flies - all in a day's work for North Uist film maker Uisdean Murray when he flew to the Brazilian Amazon recently to work as a cameraman on a sport-fishing pilot for American TV.
Uisdean (29) from Paiblesgarry is more used to the controllable confines of feature filming from his work as writer/director on a series of shorts including the critically-acclaimed 'Jemima Trilogy.'
The opportunity to film in the Amazon turned up t
hrough Uisdean's connections with wildlife cameraman Steve MacKay from Red Zebra productions in Edinburgh. He was looking for a second cameraman to shoot 'The Fish Finder' featuring larger-than-life English angler, Steve Townson. The plan was to film sport-fishing in a remote part of the Brazilian Amazon for a pilot programme to sell to a US sports channel like ESPN or Discovery.
Filming took place over two weeks in two tributaries of the Rio Negro just south of the Columbian and Venezuelan borders. The areas were so remote that after flying to Manaus, the team travelled north in a small plane for several hours, followed by a further stint in an amphibian plane to get to the locations. Much of the remaining travelling was done by water, fringed by dense jungle.
"We had to go through an area where they'd only ever seen about 50 white people," Uisdean recalled. "There were lots of curious children lining the banks having a good look at us. I'm not sure where the adults were."
The team stayed in camps run by Acute Angling.com, a US company specialising in exotic freshwater angling holidays. The eco-holidays attract wealthy businessmen part of whose fee goes into a fund to protect the habitat and its indigenous people.
The team worked from dawn to dusk filming 'the fish finder' Steve Townson as he pursued his favourite prey, peacock bass, for which he holds the world title.
Along with peacock bass came close encounters with giant catfish, with Townson landing an 85lb, 1.4 meter specimen at one point. Another favourite was the pirapitinga, a fruit and nut eating fish with powerful teeth and jaws - but delicious barbecued. All the fish, except those destined for the campfire at night, were released back into the wild.
Taking the role of second camera, Uisdean's job was to cover the action and also to film underwater shots of various fish as they were released, including the notorious stingray and piranha.
"We have footage of Steve catching and handling a deadly stingray," Uisdean explained. "They hide in the sand in the shallows and many's a fisherman with a hole in his foot from standing on them as they walk out to their boat. Piranha are considered the rats of the river as they destroy the lures. They are used a lot for bait."
One evening at dusk his encounter with piranhas became a bit more up close and personal as one leapt out of the water and hit him on the forehead as it flew past.
Fortunately its flight is better than its ferocious bite and Uisdean only sustained a graze. He also had a close encounter with a 2.5 meter long sleeping cayman, getting to within a foot of it with the underwater camera.
"We got closer and closer, and eventually the guide put the paddle to the cayman and lifted it up. It woke up and bolted 20 meters along the bank in seconds," said Uisdean. "I was only thankful it went down the bank instead of towards us!"
The team also went on jungle treks looking for wildlife to film. "We sweated buckets and got badly bitten by tiny black flies which made you itch all night. You could pick up a hundred bites in a day.
"But we saw spectacular birds, butterflies and dragonflies. Once we saw a tapir, and we glimpsed monkeys in the distance. At one point the boat was invaded by fire-ants, which the natives greatly fear for their painful bite. They came off a log on the river, but we managed to stamp them out without anyone getting bitten."
He revealed: "Although the resulting TV programme is action-packed with the highlights of Steve's catches, there was a lot of waiting around, periods where you had to stay alert for four hours, with nothing happening. Then there were times when we were catching 200 fish a day."
After short trip home to Uist, Uisdean is back in Glasgow with 70 hours of material to finish editing. Once the pilot is sold, he is likely to return to the Amazon for a further few weeks of filming, with plans for a world-wide 'Fish Finder' series to follow, including destinations in South Africa, Australia and Egypt. It's a prospect Uisdean welcomes.
"Filming in the Amazon was exciting, challenging and unpredictable,' he said. "It's totally different from the regimented nature of filming with actors."
Meanwhile, Uisdean's latest production,'Sweet Stained' a short film produced and directed by himself and written by and starring Mary-ann Cerrutti has been selected to screen at this year's Hollywood DV/HD Festival in California on March 26.
