More than just shaving foam

Rod Morris. Film-maker, photographer, author, animal behaviour expert and above all, mesmerising story-teller. Our hero! Last Monday, I sat at one end of the NHNZ round table and listened to a true master of storytelling impart his wisdom from the other end. What's so fantastic about Rod is the fact he's amazingly grounded. Not only is he full of knowledge, but he passes it on to us like he's having a yarn about rugby over a beer. Instead of feeling intimidated we're easily able to voice those nagging questions and concerns.

Rod's walked away from commercial film-making in the last couple of years, disillusioned with the direction in which natural history film-making has moved. Increasingly tight budgets are imposing severe constraints on the ability of people like Rod to make films the way they want to. It got to the point a couple of years back where Rod felt he was compromising his morals to make films within economic bounds. He wanted to make films that were, in our professor Richard Thomas' words, more than just shaving foam. So he stopped. Inspirationally. I hope that, put in his situation, I would have had the integrity and strength to do the same thing.

Luckily for all of us, getting out of full-time commercial film making has not meant Rod's mind's become idle. We sat on the edge of our seats, eyes wide, mesmerised, as he talked us through his dream film - casually weaving plot lines and throwing in characters...but we were hooked. When it's made - it simply has to be, it's that good - Gods and Lemurs will use two threatened lemurs and the tragedy of humanity in Madagascar to make Western audiences think again...

For a photo of our hypnotised team with the master himself, I'll refer you to Kat's blog.