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Big Cats 24/7 review: The elite wildlife camera crew who put themselves in danger every day, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
David Attenborough isn't a fan. But the ten-minute 'making of' segments at the end of wildlife documentaries, though the purists disapprove, have become a favourite with millions of viewers.
The crew are on duty day and night, with cutting-edge heat-sensitive tech that works in pitch darkness, creating a sort of living photographic negative — the lions picked out in glowing greys and white against deep shadow. When one cameraman witnesses a leopard plunging from a tree onto an unwary impala, or sees a young lion braving crocodiles to wade across a flooded wetland, the rest of the team are immediately aware and able to co-ordinate. It's striking that, though they might have spent months living in malarial hotspots or on Antarctic icebreakers, at constant risk from rhinos/hypothermia/heatstroke/poachers/delete-as-applicable, what really tested them was the logistical challenge of ensuring people were in the right place with the right equipment, permits and supplies, all the time.
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