Mosquito - Jackson Wild: Nature. Media. Impact.
Mosquito is a timely, in-depth look at this dangerous creature, how it is changing in unpredictable and unprecedented ways, and highlights how without an international coordinated effort, the world and its citizens are at risk for an historic pandemic. Shot on four continents, Mosquito features insights from world and health leaders including Bill Gates and former CDC Director Tom Frieden, as well as the intimate stories of the men, women, and children who are living in fear that the next bite could be a deadly one.
Executive Producer Elliott Halpern has had a long pre-occupation with public health and pandemics, having made three films about lethal viral outbreaks. What made this idea different was that it focused on the carrier itself, rather than a specific disease.
Producer Elizabeth Trojian’s stepfather, Norman Andersen, grew up poor in South Africa. He and many of his friends and family members were affected by malaria. Norman told Elizabeth stories of how mosquitos made life in Africa very difficult and held people back economically and socially. These stories of how a tiny insect could devastate individuals, families and communities made her want to tell the story of the mosquito and the deadly viruses it carries. But what amazed her most is how her stepfather knew the solution was both personal responsibility for one’s own yard and communities coming together to devise long term plans.
There were several challenges we faced while making the documentary – from protecting the crew from viruses like Zika, Malaria and Dengue to shooting tiny mosquito larvae and pupa in the field to finding subjects willing to participate in the documentary while they personally were going through some of the most agonizing times of their lives.
The crew had to go through several courses of intense medication to protect them against a wide range of viruses. However, because Zika has morphed into a deadly and largely un-understood virus the crew had to be screened every time they returned from a hot zone – waiting for the results were very stressful times form everyone on the production.
We wanted our documentary about the mosquito to use only real images and footage of the insect and no CGI mosquitoes. This made for hours of mosquito wrangling in the field (searching for mosquitoes at the right stage of development, clearing pools of standing water so the camera could get clear shots of the insect and its predators, along with building mosquito sets for high speed shots, macrophotography images and photo stacking images).
We wanted Mosquito to be both a natural history film about the insect but also a human story of those suffering from the viruses spread by the world’s deadliest creature. We thankfully found several very interesting and articulate people willing to share their stories with us. The film’s subjects are the heart of the film sharing their incredible stories while their child struggled to survive malaria, or worried if their unborn child has microcephaly caused by a mosquito bite, or wrestled with the aftermath of living with neurological damage brought on by the West Nile Virus.
Filming mosquitoes is enormously challenging, so we experimented with a variety of techniques: Ultraviolet photography, photo stacking, high-speed filming, and extreme macro filming. AP Alex Rankin, DP Mark Ellam, with Director Su Rynard and yapfilms Harrison Freedman, took weeks to meticulously research and plan our shoot. We formed a partnership with Brock University in St. Catherine’s, where they bred several colonies of mosquitoes for us to film in studio. Not only did we need different species of mosquitoes, we wanted to film mosquitoes at all stages of their life cycles – from larvae to emerging adults. Given that one never knows exactly when a mosquito egg is going to hatch – scheduling was nerve wracking.
The wing movement of live mosquitoes in flight is an action that takes place at 500-600 beats per second. In fact, this wing movement produces the familiar buzz we hear. To capture this image we hired a high speed (super slow motion) camera by Vision Research most often used in in science, military or ballistic testing. We used frame rates of 8000 to 22,000 frames per second, which created a new challenge, as the higher the frame rate - the more light is required. We had high intensity lights designed specifically for this purpose, as to shoot at 22000 frames you need a light brighter than the sun, but yet cool enough not to torch the mosquitos before the shot is finished.
Additionally, mosquitoes are only a few millimeters long, and they move very quickly, so we knew we needed to have the ability to move the camera as well. To achieve this, we had a custom rig built so that we could precisely control panning and tilting via a small electronic joystick. Because of the size of mosquitoes, it's impossible to get a single photograph with the eyes and wingtips both in focus when the insect is facing the camera. The physics of diffraction works against us at these magnifications, and the solution is found in a technique called photo stacking (or focus stacking). The camera, on an automated moving rail, will take successive shots of the insect with each image containing a different "slice" of focus which are later computationally combined to achieve full focus from front to back. The ultraviolet images of mosquitoes were taken using intense UV-only light, but photographed collecting the visible light that fluoresced as a result.
Combined, these tools and techniques allowed us to create unique imagery for the film that allows us to see and experience the mosquito in a way that is far beyond normal human perception of these insects.
We hope Mosquito encourages people to act both as individuals and as members of their community. We want our viewers to ask their elected officials to invest more in mosquito control on an ongoing basis and not just when an outbreak occurs. We also hope our film touches the hearts of those in the developed world to see how the results of our actions (climate change, standing water in garbage plastics and increased global trade and travel) can have devastating effects on those living in less affluent cities and countries.
The actions of the general public can go a long way to solving the problem of mosquito borne illness. So what can we do?
We know that climate change is increases both range of mosquitoes and the numbers, so it’s really important to reduce your carbon footprint.
Mosquitoes need only a surprisingly small amount of water to breed, so individuals can reduce mosquito numbers in their own neighborhood by emptying cans, buckets, garbage cans, roof gutters, flower pots, bottles, toys, plastic “kiddie” pools, lids, old tires, pool covers, barrels and any other container or item that holds or can hold water.
Let your government know that global health security is important to you, and that you support public health initiatives.
Elect officials that support scientific research and evidence based policy making.
As a filmmaker, Director Su Rynard strives to strike a balance between what needs to be said, what is inferred by behavior, and what is felt. She works to create an experience for the audience so they can inhabit the cinematic world using all their senses. This includes building an emotional connection with the characters. Developing trust with subjects while shooting in central to achieving this. To this end Su worked closely with DP Mark Ellam, who utilizes fiction techniques to cover the subjects while getting to know them personally. We bear witness to what is unfolding, and learn through the lens while using camera as a vehicle for intimacy.
In Mosquito the storytelling makes use of a dynamic interchange between the macro world where we see mosquitoes breed, live and die, and observational cinema where we journey with our characters into their world. Environmental/social impact films are not easy films to make, especially when human are causing or exacerbating the problem! Finding the right tone, the right balance between darkness and hope is critical. While the future portrayed in the film may be frightening, there is another aspect to this story, as mosquitoes are amazing creatures playing a necessary role in the web of life.
Mosquito is a cautionary tale. Today’s world is a global community. This interconnectedness brings many benefits but also challenges. There are no borders that will protect you from disease. One person with a highly contagious disease anywhere in the world can affect the health of potentially everyone on earth. Importantly, Mosquito looks at the ways human impacts drive some species to extinction while making the world a better place for mosquitoes. In short, much of the mosquito problem is a human-made problem. Given that we are living on a changing planet at a critical time ecologically, these are exactly the kind of questions that are really worth exploring.