Dancing With Cranes: On Location With A New Zealand Wildlife Film Maker

Description

Wildlife film-maker Alison Ballance has driven across Mongolia in search of wild horses and dancing cranes. She's spent nearly nine months working on remote New Zealand islands to film the nocturnal, rare kakapo. She's travelled through steamy jungles in Thailand, and across the frozen forest of the Russian Far East in search of the Siberian tiger. Ballance's job as producer for TV company Natural History NZ has had her track rare and wild animals in some of the most remote places on earth.

The stories behind the films are extraordinary; being on location with Ballance is an adventure, frequently into the unknown. Her experiences range from the uncomfortable to the absurd, though she's had more than her fair share of dust and frustration, this book also captures the joy and elation of discovery. Whether she's nose to beak with a kakapo, riding a Bactrian camel in the Gobi, or tracking tigers in Russia's winter snows, travels with this winsome wildlife film-maker are seldom glamorous but always captivating and exhilarating.

So here we are, an all-women vegetarian film crew with a half a tonne of film equipment. Here to work in the land of boiled yak.

Author description

ALISON BALLANCE is a 30-something wildlife film-maker and producer with Natural History NZ. Her work takes her to the farflung corners of the world in search of the exotic. She produces films for the Discovery Channel and National Geographic and is a frequent guest on Kim Hill talking about her adventures to the Galapogos Islands, Siberia or Kiribati. Alison lives on the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin. ALISON BALLANCE is a biologist turned filmmaker, who has worked for the Dunedin-based television production company NHNZ since 1990. She began as a researcher, and has gone on to produce, direct and write more than a dozen wildlife documentaries that have been broadcast