Post #342672 by bigbrotiki on Thu, Nov 8, 2007 2:34 AM

So for those who are open minded and curious enough, and who believe, like me, that the pop culture recreations of exotic worlds other than (but related to) Tiki can be fascinating and a lot of fun, here are some more pictures from the Wild:

Quiet Village:

A typical African settlement, deserted for fear of slave traders that roam the area.....NOT!

This is, of course, a film set, where else would one find such a cliche. Last weekend I got to shoot a lot of the animal footage for the film, (principal photography will not begin until next Tuesday). The best place to do this was at the Glen Afric game park near Johannesburg. The animals there are quite tame, and can be directed in the desired setting with food, so you can say "We'd like the giraffes here, some Elephants on the hill there, and the Zebras down in the grass over there..."

They currently are shooting two TV series at Glen Afric (apparently contemporary versions of DAKTARI), the British “Wild At Heart” came first, and now they are re-shooting the same scripts for the American market with AMERICAN actors (!?) for an intelligently titled series called “Life Is Wild” (why not “Africa Gone Wild”?) There are lots of sets, they built the big lodge TWICE, so they can shoot parallel, but we needed animals in the wild.

Our lodge were we slept had a nice A-frame roof:

Some bars only need ONE piece of décor to create an exotic effect:

The same bar, after some bottles of Windhoek beer and shots of Conquerer Rum:

Next day, my first view of African wild life:

This guy has to do a shitload of work to get the ball rolling: The famous African dung beetle rolls his cargo with his hind legs while his wife enjoys the ride.

Let’s start small:

The attractive wart hog

The wild Wilderbeasts:

Watch Out! Zebra crossing!

These patterns would look good on my Witco couch.

Hallo handsome:

The real thing:

Chewing the cudd:

And now, for the grand finale:

Lions’ lunch

Cute cats…

The thing was, the lion was not allowed to roam around the landscape freely (but WHY !?), so how was one to film him without the fence in the foreground!

I found out:

Once I was in the cage, the game keeper casually mentioned that the lion was a bit grumpy today, because his mate was in heat. GREAT!

Sniff sniff

Getting the hell out of there!

Next: Impressions from Capetown

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-11-08 03:35 ]