A Life in the Day of
Luke Gent
Wildlife Camera Operator for “Serengeti” by John Downer Productions UK
Luke Gent has spent most of the last three years as one of a team of four camera operators capturing raw footage of animals in the wilderness to create Season 2 of “Serengeti,” the highly acclaimed wildlife ‘drama’ currently streaming on Discovery+, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime video, Apple TV and DStv Now. DVDs are also available through Amazon.
production team in the UK who very cleverly puts it together to create a dramatised Natural History programme, a kind of animal ‘soap opera’. The animals have names and stories and it’s our job in the field to make sure the Production team have all the right imagery to enable them to tell these dramatic and intimate tales. As the stories unfold, the producers tell us which animals and behaviour they want us to focus on, and we try to find and film it, which we may manage, but we may also capture something completely unexpected, which then steers the script in a completely different direction. It’s exciting because ultimately nature writes the script, we never know how the stories will evolve through filming the season. The main characters in the show include lions, cheetah, leopard, elephants, hyenas and baboons, but the other animals that populate and make the Serengeti so spectacular also feature, to bring together the drama.
How did you come to do this? Shaba and Shavu's pup
What does your work entail? Working within the Serengeti ecosystem, my job is to capture stunning footage of the many different species of wild animals and their interactions with each other. We try to get really original, intimate shots that have never been seen before using a range of groundbreaking camera technologies and innovative filming techniques (hidden cameras, log and rock cams and drones) to capture the animals up-close and personal, giving the audience a glimpse of the world through their eyes, which is a totally unique perspective. The raw film footage is sent off to our post14
Muthaiga Country Club April - June 2022
I got into photography at school and took it for A-levels. I really enjoyed photo editing and experimented with different software to enhance and manipulate photos in order to create quite surreal imagery - think Salvador Dali but with photographs! I am dyslexic and always found reading and writing challenging, so after graduating in Geography at Exeter University, I did some travelling which allowed me to pick up my camera again and I realised I prefer doing things visually and practically, so I followed my true passion and chose a career in film. I started with an Internship at the BBC Natural History Unit for a TV series called Earth from Space (where I found my degree in geography came in handy.) This was followed by a job with celebrity chef Kiran Jethwa and his production team ‘Quite
Bright Films’, which include human documentaries for C variety and helped me build opened up with my neighbo photographer and MCC Me who brought me onto the ‘S
Your typical day starts
My day starts at 5am. We set around looking for action in dawn, or if we are following to where we left off the prev packed breakfast and lunch, nothing happens – but it oft gets dropped for the camera forgotten lunch on the bonn the windscreen as we rush o
We spend the whole day out for it until sundown and the camp we are in. We eat supp and 10pm.
www.mcc.co.ke
