The Green Light!

Our business, Minibeast Wildlife, has been given the green light to participate in filming the second series of the television program on invertebrates that is being made by a US network. We co-ordinated the animal wrangling for the first series, which was shot in north Queensland from October 2010 to January 2011. The network was very impressed with it, and the ratings were excellent so they gave us the green light to go ahead with series two.

Alan on set with the cinematographer, Malcom, working on the first series.

This time though, we are going to Costa Rica!! The Australian production company that we are working with asked us if we could recommend an appropriate overseas destination to film a second series. We suggested Costa Rica, one of the most beautiful places on earth and teeming with amazing invertebrate life. And what do you know, the production company thought it was great!

The Costa Rican Hooded Mantis is one of the species we will hopefully be working with

So after much negotiation, the production company finally got the green light from the US network, and in turn gave us the green light!

We have being doing a lot or research in terms of finding out which Costa Rican animals would best perform on film, and also in terms of filming locations. We had a few contacts both in Costa Rica and who had visited regularly who helped us with finding an appropriate site. We finally chose the Osa Peninsula, located on the west side of Costa Rica. This location has an amazing diversity of wildlife, and it also helped that we had a contact there who spoke English! We will be working with the Ventanas en Corcovado Research and Education Centre with an American called Steve Prchal. This research centre is in Dos Brazos, which is right in the rainforest. We will be staying in a house close by to the research station, and it is beautiful! The lack of walls will help with spotting any wildlife that happens to wander past, and hopefully we will be able to keep the jaguars out!

Our house in Costa Rica

We also had to organise wildlife permits for collecting and filming the bugs, which is not the easiest thing in a foreign country! Emails sent to us explaining the process where in Spanish, so we used online translators a lot which are not always accurate. We had a bit of fun deciphering the exact meaning of some of the forms we had to fill out, and then translating them back into Spanish to send back to the authorities is Costa Rica!

But we are all sorted now, and our flights are booked! Alan, myself, Tayen and Saige will be leaving Cairns very early on the 26th June, and after a few stop overs in Sydney, Los Angeles and Houston, we arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica on the evening of the 27th June. Two whole days of travelling should be very interesting with two small children!! We will be in Costa Rica until the end of October, 2011.

So keep following this blog as I keep you updated on our adventures in Costa Rica!!