Filming -Shaun Ellis

Today I had the great experience of interviewing Shaun Ellis and his wolves at Dartmoor Zoo. The interview was at 9 in the morning, which meant I had the zoo completely to myself as it wasn't open to the public until 10. I was also extremely lucky with the weather as it had been raining all morning and stopped as soon as I got out of the car for the interview. As soon as I left the zoo after the interview it starting pouring with rain.

I was nervous and excited to interview Shaun, especially as I have always been a fan of his. When I met him I realised that there was no need to be nervous as he was a very down to earth, nice guy. He was also very interested in what I was doing for my FMP. I firstly wanted to interview Shaun on his own to find out more about his experience with living and working with wolves.

Here are the questions that I asked Shaun during the interview: 

• When did your passion for wolves begin?
• What have you risked/ given up from working with wolves?
• Can you tell me a bit about your experience living with wolves in the wild and how that affected you as a person?      How did you establish yourself within the pack?
•  Why do they not harm you? And are you not afraid?
• Where are you ranked within the pack and what’s your job?
• How did you learn the wolf language and have you made any mistakes?
• What’s the biggest secret you’ve learnt from the wolves?
•   What is the biggest threat to wolves?
•  What values do wolves have?
• What do you think the wolf symbolises?
•   What can they teach us?
• What do you think the wolf has to offer us now and for in the future?

After the interview Shaun went into the enclosure with the wolves, which was an amazing thing to see. I filmed him in with the wolves, whilst he continued to talk about the wolves and his work with them. Overall I am very happy with the footage that I was able to capture, Shaun also gave me some very interesting answers to my questions which I feel will benefit my documentary immensely.