Today was a summer breeze compared to the days behind us. Cruising with our Jeep through Queen Elizabeth National Park, while the sun was shining and little deer jumped around. A hippo was taking a bath and a baboon was scratching his ass. The start of a day without worries.

Nature continues to amaze us with it’s breathtaking beauty and we are doing our best to capture the coolest moments in Virtual Reality film. The feeling of standing beside a troop of elephants? Check. Buffaloes wallowing in a waterhole? Check. Occasionally Daan risks his life to put the rig as close to the subjects as possible. Everything for the ultimate safari experience! By now, we can safely say that we are on the right track.

After all the chaos of the first days, with failing mics, refusing cameras and human mistakes, we have become a well-oiled machine: a swat team in 360 movie. We exchange cards and juggle with batteries, while the Jeep continues to hurtle across the savannah. We pinch mics in the trees and the grass and hiss between our teeth to make the deer look up into our cameras. Everything for the wow factor…

Our guide Big Sam turns out to be not only a perfect guide but a brilliant actor as well as he does what he can to make the virtual safari trip as successful as possible. Thnx Sam!

This afternoon, we made a boat trip along the river. Aside from the few drops of rain it was a pleasure trip full of birds, elephants and hippos. Tomorrow we go again with a smaller boat to get closer to the animals. Who knows, we might be able to capture some nice action shots.

Tonight we sleep in Mweya Lodge, one of the top lodges in Uganda and this afternoon we have been there to explore the place. The word WOW! is once again in place here. What a luxury and opulence in the middle of the savannah. You can see elephants bathing in the river from the terrace of the swimming pool, and on the driveway you are welcomed by the house-mongoose. In the bar hangs a life-size buffalo head. Since we are also going to shoot some footage of this resort we can count on the biggest room: being innovative has its advantages : -).

Our next activity is a lion ‘gps’ safari tracking. Tomorrow morning we go out with a group of researchers and will try to capture the king of beasts with our six cameras. Roar!

MAY 28 – 2015

This morning we got up again at 5:30, something we have almost become used to. The alarm here rings before the sunrise and we sleep on average 5 hours a night, since after filming we often still need a long time to organize everything we shot that day and then make everything ready for the next day. And then we also have to write a blog : -)

The lack of sleep doesn’t trouble us. In the morning we joke about the fact that we are really going to take some rest this evening, something that never really seems to work. Once we’re back in the jeep we feel energized and ready for the day. What do you expect in such an environment and with the project we’re working on!! We therefore like to remind each other of how amazing it all is. “We’re doing this man!” often sounds from the jeep as we go along.

Today, we went along with a researcher to look for lions. This man, named James, examines a group of tagged lions. We had expected that James would find them with some high tech gadget, à la Google maps, and we would just drive straight over to them. “Turn left after the warts piglets, straight along after the buffalo and second right after the elephants,” but after being greeted by him, he walked up with something still best described as an old iron laundry rack and positioned himself on the roof of another Jeep. Waving his laundry rack in the air, James looked for the right signal by listening. A funny sight, a man on a roof in search of lions. James is not afraid.

After a good two hours of driving the desolate savanna, with James frantically waving his laundry rack the whole time, we arrived at a volcanic crater which is used by the locals for salt extraction. James had stopped swinging. There had to be some lions around, maybe even 20 of them! James’ work appeared to have paid of! There they were, panting in the sun: lions. A few females, some cubs and a male. The male roared loudly several times as we drove up. What a sound! Your instinct tells you instantly that you should run away, but the urge to keep looking from the roof of the safari jeep remains stronger. We put our gear on 360 and shot a few great images of a growling lion and some little ones. James was a bit nervous and asked us to be quiet. He was still sitting on the roof and saw that one of the lionesses was looking at him rather hungrily. Luckily, he was holding a laundry rack for defense : -P.

Later on during the day, we ended our 2nd boat safari satisfied. This time from a small private boat, the experience was totally different than the big boat yesterday. Our captain knew to dock at a bathing place full of elephants, buffalo and hippos. We could almost touch the elephants, I think the distance was a meter or six. A fantastic experience and exciting, because you feel very vulnerable in such a small boat. There was much to see. Elephants swam, buffalo fought, hippos came out of the water and birds flew all around. The Garden of Eden. Straight from the Bible. This was undoubtedly one of the best, if not the best VR scene we’ve shot here. Tomorrow we go on a Balloon Safari, will our rig hold, hanging from the balloon?

Yesterday evening the time had come: finally we were managed to be done early in the afternoon. We quickly went to work with our cards, chargers and blog, while chilling at the pool in the sun. We knew for sure, tonight we could finally go to sleep early and for more than five hours, maybe even seven or eight. After a day or 8 without one good long night, this seemed like heaven to us. And, we might even have a bit of an evening. We felt blessed discussing this as the man who would guide our Balloon Safari even came to talk about our shoot. “Yes gentleman,” he said. “We will be leaving a 4:30 tomorrow and the balloon will rise at 6 o’clock.” Daan and I looked at each other puzzled and in disbelief. “But, but the balloon was planned at 7:00 wasn’t it?” Daan tried in vain. But, the man was adamant. If we wanted to film the sunrise, this was the only choice. Again we would not be able to sleep longer than five hours.. it seems meant to be this trip. We could laugh about it.

So it was that at 4:00 the alarm went and we placed ourselves half asleep in the van that would take us to the place where the balloon was departing. Along the way we encountered a number of hyenas and a ranger who would not let us leave the park. Our accompanying crew, two police officers, a waiter and a guide nearly went berserk. “Is this your first time at the gate, it must be his first, why would you do this man, do not make it hard.” But the guard refused to be intimidated and refused to let us through. We were simply not on his list and protocol is protocol in Uganda, there is no deviation from that. Our guide Sam angrily began calling around to get someone of higher power and swore that this man would lose his job. If it would take any longer we were going to miss the sunrise from the balloon. In all the commotion Daan walked up to the guard (Sam had advised him not to), chatted and explained what we were doing. A minute later, the guard opened the gate for us. Daan saved the Sunset and made everyone happy.

In the middle of the savannah, the basket was unloaded and in the twilight they began with inflating the balloon, a pretty sight. The captain checked wind direction and meanwhile we convinced our guide Sam to join us in the balloon. Something he, like us, had never done. After a few minutes doubt he was convinced, we would ascend to the sky as boys and return to the ground as men of the air.

It was wonderful to see the excitement in Sam’s eyes. As a guide, he has toured Queen Elizabeth National park by Jeep, driving his clients, but he never saw it from above. He showed us everything, excited for him to see places he knows so well and amazed at the variety of animal tracks, which you can see from the air in the tall grass.

For us it was a fantastic experience to float in such a relative calm over the African soil. We eventually rose to 6000 feet, and looking straight down is pretty scary. Daan stunted for a bit to re-attach the rig mid-air. One mistake and it would all be over. After two hours we landed safely on the ground, where in the middle of the savanna a real champagne-breakfast was ready for us. Life is good at the moment.

Later we arrived at the Papaya Lodge near Kibale Forest, where we will go hiking tomorrow and hopefully see chimpanzees. Our last day of safari. Wow the time passed quickly. Fortunately, we can relive it later again in virtual reality and then everyone can enjoy!