Bursary Winner Filmed Wildlife With B.B. C.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30873, 6 October 1965, Page 8

Bursary Winner Filmed Wildlife With B.B. C.

"The Press" Special Servlet AUCKLAND, October 5. Mr Peter Morrison, winner of the first bursary of its kind awarded by the British Broadcasting Corporation, has returned to New 7 Zealand after five months’ television filming with the 8.8. C. natural history unit.

Mr Morrison, of the Wildlife Division of the Department of Internal Affairs, made the recently-released New Zealand film “A Place to Live.” He was awarded the bursary for naturalist-broadcast-ers overseas for his work on this and other New Zealand films he has made, and travel-

led with the natural history unit throughout England. His experience with the unit will, he thinks, do much to improve the quality of wildlife films produced by him in future as visual-aids officer of the Wildlife Division. “One of the objects of the bursary is to show overseas film-makers the special techniques of filming for television,” he said. “Another is to convey the film-making style that is acceptable to the British public.” In return the 8.8. C. expected to learn something from holders of bursaries about film-making styles acceptable in their particular countries. “Even now the market for wildlife material is very large,” Mr Morrison said. “I began work with the unit in Bristol in March this year, assisting chiefly with two popular series of natural history programmes. “One series, ‘Look,’ runs to about 20 episodes a yeas. The other, of about the same duration, was the children’s programme ‘Animal Magic.’” He said he learned two things very quickly: First, that a tremendous amount of material was required to keep a television programme going week after week, and second, that there was a great difference between the sort of filming he had been doing in New Zealand for ordinary screening, and filming for television. He said at first he was merely an observer and sat in on studio productions. Before long, however, he was doing a certain amount of short-sequence filming himself.

Toward the end of his stay he filmed, at different zoos, six episodes of a new 8.8. C. programme called “Zoo Challenge.” “Not surprisingly, because of the great volume of natural history material televised, the 8.8. C. relies on getting a lot of films from other sources,” said Mr Morrison. “It commissions many films and buys any number from serious amateurs.”

He hoped that his fourth film, about the takahe, would be televised in England one day, although it was intended mainly for New Zealand viewers. His next film? A decision

was yet to be made, he said, but he hoped it would be of the type exemplified by “A Place to Live,” in which the utter dependence of the “actors”—the birds of Lake Ellesmere—on their habitat was deliberately emphasised. “This is the sort of wildlife film that really matters,” he said. “It shows people what fascinating fauna and flora we have here in New Zealand. “But it also sets out to of the great volume of natural history and enlist support for the need to preserve it wherever necessary. “Give people the facts about conservation by way of a film, and they invariably respond wholeheartedly.” Mr Morrison has been with the wildlife division of the department since 1959.