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The making of Little Wonders of Nature
The film won a Gold Standard Award and the prize for Best Camerawork.
I have always been fascinated by nature. When I was a young boy I could not keep my eyes off all those little wonders of nature. Nothing has changed ever since. So it was inevitable that I would start making nature films when I bought my first camera in 1970. Little Wonders of Nature is one of the various documentaries that I have made about fauna and flora.
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Why go off taking shots of exotic animals knowing that you can see the most extraordinary and beautiful things in your own garden or in your neighbourhood? You can find innumerable species of insects, birds and mammals in your own habitat in Belgium, in Holland, in Britain …
People do not always realise that the biological diversity in nature in their own country is enormous! In my films I always try to explain the intricate ways of plants and animals. My film's aim is to result in an exquisite tribute to my own countryside. It's so closely observed for so many years, but there are still fresh discoveries to be made.
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Perhaps it is interesting to know that in the field I use my DV camera Sony VX2000 for any habitat shots. In order to show birds or other animals at some distance I use a teleconverter or long focal length lens called 'Century Optics 2.0'. For shots at a short distance a Nikon lens 6T (4 dioptre) is very useful. In my film Little Wonders of Nature you can see the tiny larva of the common blue butterfly which is only 3 millimetres in size. In order to take a shot of it I screwed a reversed 50mm Minolta lens (24x36) on the lens of my Sony camera. Using these and other special photographic techniques I discovered so many 'Little Wonders of Nature', marvels that do not always attract the attention of passers-by. In my films I always try to show the immense charm of all those fantastic little things.
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- Florent Van Opstal (translated by Willy Van der Linden) March 2006
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