First though, is there anyone out there who still assumes that wildlife filmmaking consists of little more than waiting at the waterhole for the local fauna to come and perform bloody deeds in front of your camera ?

Well, come to think of it - local fauna & bloody deeds might well occupy a prominent place in your schedule, your budget, your insurance & your anger management programme - but that’s the wrong kind of fauna & the wrong kind of bloody. So we’ll leave it there. Also the Hades of a camera-hide in which you’d have been set up since before dawn, the hordes of insects feasting on the only insect-repellent-free human skin in this whole stretch of savannah, and a collection of assorted cramps, itches & other bodily discomforts.

Oh, and the other thing the viewer doesn’t usually see is the amount of garbage that might have had to be removed from the scene of pristine undisturbed African wilderness before filming started. We’ll leave that issue there, too.

So, the camera’s rolling, the animals are doing their thing, the lighting is magical - it’s Africa at its wild & bio-diverse best; stunning footage which gets shaped into a compelling film which brings the wonders of the natural creation to a world-wide audience. All good. Especially if the filmmaker’s been paid.

And right there is where I stub my toe on the biggest ethical dilemma of all. And no - it’s not the beneficiation of local communities; it’s not even the side-effect of encouraging an already unsustainable tourist load on the pristine undisturbed African wilderness.

Here it is: it’s the food-chain in which our familiar top-predators occupy only the bottom-most rung. The rung above ? The poor filmmaker, who (like everyone else) works to feed a family; Above him: the commissioning editors (as much victims in this as anyone else) who will only issue contracts, commissions, funding for the making of wildlife films of a kind which they believe their audience would watch. Anything contentious, disturbing, uncomfortable ? Sorry No - not in the mood. Pristine, happy nature - that’s the thing. Leaves everyone happy & entertained.

What the viewer wants, the viewer gets. What the viewer wants to see, gets funding & gets filmed. The pretty, & safely remote, animal-on-animal violence. Any other kind of reality belongs in the news.

So why is this a problem ? Because this little collusion leaves the viewing audience with the illusion that “things must be OK” - there are still wild dogs to be filmed, lions apparently everywhere, roaring into the African night. No need to be all that concerned. And in any case, what about the stories of heroes who rescue animals in trouble ? Sure, positive human stories, with a triumphant & hopeful ending. Just don’t ask the editor how much of the real story got trimmed & tidied up & sanitized so that it would be watchable by “a general audience”.

Occasionally - just occasionally - some passionate soul will go out & pour his life savings into bringing an in-depth, hard-hitting real documentary to the screen. But he will probably only manage to do so with private funding, a good deal of sacrifice - and the viewing figures will depend on the inclusion of a Hollywood celebrity to front the story.

So we’ll keep watching the good & happy stories, because they get made & shown; and such stories will get made & shown because at least they will get watched, which will mean that there will be enough money to pay for the making of more good & happy stories which… you get the picture.

The truth is that all is not well with pristine, undisturbed African wilderness. But we will keep on chasing the ever diminishing bits, and make stunning, happy films about them, while our hearts are breaking.

The entire world was watching “Shock & Awe” - courtesy of CNN and others. History was happening out there - people making decisions about other people living or dying. And here in the post-production studio we were working with footage shot on the aircraft carriers in the Gulf - American youngsters loading bombs on the combat aircraft before they leave for Baghdad, young pilots talking about their families at home just before they take off, risking their lives among Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles.

We knew we were seeing just one side of the story. On both sides, there were thousands of people like these ones, caught up in world events of terrifying impact & moral complexity. And for us - sitting so many thousands of kilometres away from the action - the tense young faces on the screen brought the whole tragedy unfolding on the world’s news channels uncomfortably close.

Journalistic distance - for most of us, I expect - is a process rather than a state. Something happens in front of the camera, an interviewee says something which slips past your defences & hooks your humanity. One wrestles with these things - and perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

How far does one go for that perfect shot ? Every filmmaker has a story about that - some good ones where the risks paid off, & some tragic ones where they didn’t.

In this instance we stuck it out & waited… and the gods smiled on us. It did cost us a terrible, long trek back to vehicles & roads in angry weather & in the pitch dark - but we had our Star on the cliff, with lightning flashing behind him & a full moon rising. A Moment, undoubtedly A Moment.

So what was a Cape Town television director doing in a dry Botswana riverbed ? Carrying the tripod, actually, which is what I somehow always end up doing whenever the production hits deep sand, boggy ground, or an uphill. I didn’t have the map, so I didn’t know how far we’d have to go. Well, there was no map - but the gun bearer knew the area and he thought… well, anyway I shouldered the tripod & we set off.

As a matter of fact I didn’t really care all that much about finding the exact spot which our guide ASSURED us was just over there… It was enough for me to just be there. That wild, open, real country - that sun, that sky. I was happy.

I used to think of such experiences as a fringe benefit of the kind of documentary productions I do - now I think it might well be the reason why I do them.

So what happened there, that afternoon in the middle of the Motloutsi ? You’ll have to wait for ONCE UPON A BAOBAB…