MOUNTAIN GORILLA
THE MAKING OF THE IMAX FILM

by Adrian Warren (Director)

Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla g. beringei), Virunga Volcanoes, Rwanda

The gorillas cooperated but the guerillas did not. When war erupted in the tiny central African country of Rwanda in September 1990, it added a new dimension of difficulty to the already arduous task we had set ourselves of filming mountain gorillas with IMAX equipment. The aim was to try, for the first time, to make a film on the natural behaviour of wild animals for the giant screen format of IMAX/OMNIMAX. For the uninitiated, the IMAX screen is approximately seven stories tall and is "flat"; the OMNIMAX screen is even larger and is dome-shaped: both fill the peripheral vision of the audience in the theatre and that, linked with a very sophisticated three dimensional sound system offers a sensation that is close to reality.

We knew it would not be easy. We had just finished another film on Mountain Gorillas the year before, a co-production for the BBC Natural History Unit and WNET New York, on the 16mm format, so we knew what we had in store for us. Steep mountainsides, altitude, cold, rain, mud, stinging nettles, and up to four hours climbing each day before we would even be in a position to start filming the gorillas - that is, if they decided to be cooperative.

Neil Rettig with IMAX Camera

HAGENIA FOREST, Mountain Gorilla Habitat

Now add to that the burden of heavy equipment - the IMAX camera alone weighs fifty kilos; the battery another fifteen; the tripod a further thirty or so; an expensive 300 metre roll of film lasts a mere three minutes with a slow, laborious process to re-load; the lenses are wide angle which means you have to be close to your subject; focus and exposure are critical - especially with gorillas that are essentially black and soak up the light; and, as if all that is not enough, the camera is noisy. There were those who told us we were mad, one prospective crew member asked us if we were going to build a pen to keep the gorillas in one place - when we told them it would be impossible to "control" the gorillas and that if we tried to pressure them we would be asking for trouble, they just shook their heads in disbelief. It would be a question of patiently and persistently following the gorillas across the mountain hoping for an opportunity to record interesting behaviour, but not necessarily the first thing that happens; whatever we filmed had to fit a storyline within the tight constraints of a fixed budget. Natural history film-making teaches you about patience and persistence and I decided, for obvious reasons, to invite essentially the same dedicated group of people that worked with me on the previous gorilla film to join me for this one.