The Rescue Documentary Quotes

Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve’s friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him. “It’s a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet,” John said over the phone. “I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they’re going to kill him unless he gets relocated.” John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile. He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?” “Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.” John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly. Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and tossed it toward Steve. As Steve’s hand went above Monty’s head, the crocodile lunged upward in a food response. On film it looked like the croc was about to snatch the can--which Steve caught right in front of his jaws. John was extremely impressed. As he left the zoo after completing the commercial shoot, Steve gave him a collection of VHS tapes. Steve had shot the videotapes himself. The raw footage came from Steve simply propping his camera in a tree, or jamming it into the mud, and filming himself single-handedly catching crocs. John watched the tapes when he got home to Brisbane. He told me later that what he saw was unbelievable. “It was three hours of captivating film and I watched it straight through, twice,” John recalled to me. “It was Steve. The camera loved him.” He rang up his contacts in television and explained that he had a hot property. The programmers couldn’t use Steve’s original VHS footage, but one of them had a better idea. He gave John the green light to shoot his own documentary of Steve. That led to John Stainton’s call to Oregon on the eve of our honeymoon. “I know it’s not the best timing, mate,” John said, “but we could take a crew and film a documentary of you rescuing this crocodile.” Steve turned to me. Honeymoon or crocodile? For him, it wasn’t much of a quandary. But what about me?” “Let’s go,” I replied.

All of our savings were consumed in the effort to bring my dog over. Steve loved Sui so much that he understood completely why it was worth it to me. The process took forever, and I spent my days tangled in red tape. I despaired. I loved my life and I loved the zoo, but there were times during that desperate first winter when it seemed we were fighting a losing battle. Then our documentaries started to air on Australian television. The first one, on the Cattle Creek croc rescue, caused a minor stir. There was more interest in the zoo, and more excitement about Steve as a personality. We hurried to do more films with John Stainton. As those hit the airwaves, it felt like a slow-motion thunderclap. Croc Hunter fever began to take hold. The shows did well in Sydney, even better in Melbourne, and absolutely fabulous in Brisbane, where they beat out a long-running number one show, the first program to do so. I believe we struck a chord among Australians because Steve wasn’t a manufactured TV personality. He actually did head out into the bush to catch crocodiles. He ran a zoo. He wore khakis. Among all the people of the world, Australians have a fine sense of the genuine. Steve was the real deal. Although the first documentary was popular and we were continuing to film more, it would be years before we would see any financial gain from our film work. But Steve sat down with me one evening to talk about what we would do if all our grand plans ever came to fruition. “When we start to make a quid out of Crocodile Hunter,” he said, “we need to have a plan.” That evening, we made an agreement that would form the foundation of our marriage in regard to our working life together. Any money we made out of Crocodile Hunter--whether it was through documentaries, toys, or T-shirts (we barely dared to imagine that our future would hold spin-offs such as books and movies)--would go right back into conservation. We would earn a wage from working at the zoo like everybody else. But everything we earned outside of it would go toward helping wildlife, 100 percent. That was our deal. As a result of the documentaries, our zoo business turned from a trickle to a steady stream. Only months earlier, a big day to us might have been $650 in total receipts. When we did $3,500 worth of business one Sunday, and then the next Sunday upped that record to bring in $4,500, we knew our little business was taking off. Things were going so well that it was a total shock when I received a stern notice from the Australian immigration authorities. Suddenly it appeared that not only was it going to be a challenge to bring Shasta and Malina to my new home of Australia, I was encountering problems with my own immigration too. Just when Steve and I had made our first tentative steps to build a wonderful life together, it looked as though it could all come tumbling down.

Then our documentaries started to air on Australian television. The first one, on the Cattle Creek croc rescue, caused a minor stir. There was more interest in the zoo, and more excitement about Steve as a personality. We hurried to do more films with John Stainton. As those hit the airwaves, it felt like a slow-motion thunderclap. Croc Hunter fever began to take hold. The shows did well in Sydney, even better in Melbourne, and absolutely fabulous in Brisbane, where they beat out a long-running number one show, the first program to do so. I believe we struck a chord among Australians because Steve wasn’t a manufactured TV personality. He actually did head out into the bush to catch crocodiles. He ran a zoo. He wore khakis. Among all the people of the world, Australians have a fine sense of the genuine. Steve was the real deal.

The purpose of art is not to create a literal, documentary-style reproduction of a scene from real life. “The artist must open our eyes to what unaided we could not see, and in order to do so he often needs to modify the familiar appearance of things and so make something which is, in the photographic sense, a bad likeness.” The greatest artists teach us how to perceive through the use of expression and decoration. They are scientists, manipulating color, line, light, space, and mass in ways that reveal human nature. “The artist gives us satisfaction by seeing far more clearly than we could see for ourselves.” A great painting should be more than a sum of technical beauty. At the Barnes, we were taught to look for delicacy, subtlety, power, surprise, grace, firmness, complexity, and drama—but to do so with a scientist’s eye.

It was semi-historical, about early humans leaving their original system for the first time. I’d seen documentary-style series about this before, but this one mixed parts that were realistic with fun stuff like space battles and rescuing people and space monsters and throwing asteroids at planets. (That last part is actually realistic, too, but if you try they will send a bunch of gunships to fuck you up.)

I almost dropped My camera in the river, While shooting a documentary in the depths of Africa. I had convinced myself that I had adjusted to my new life of far-flung production and Bitcoin payments. Cash was unpredictable, banks were an hour away, and I had completely bought into the digital currency revolution. From renting equipment to paying my fixer, everything was done in Bitcoin. I was like a high-tech Indiana Jones with a camera. Until catastrophe hit. Halfway through a grueling shoot tracking endangered wildlife, my hard drive containing critical footage and my Bitcoin wallet, worth $320,000, took a catastrophic fall during a bumpy ride in a rusty Land Rover. It tumbled out of my gear bag, hit a rock, and cracked. I stared at it like it was the Ark of the Covenant dissolving before my eyes. Panic flooded me faster than the nearby river. All my funds. Gone. Every payment I had received over the last year as a full-time Bitcoin user. I briefly considered bribing a hippo to end my misery. Deadlines loomed. Local contributors needed payment. The documentary was my passion project, and I couldn’t afford to lose it. Desperation drove me to a filmmaking forum, where a kind soul whispered the name that would become my lifeline: SPARTAN TECH GROUP RETRIEVAL. It felt like dialing into the secret society when I made contact with them on WhatsApp: + 1 ( 9 7 1 ) 4 8 7 - 3 5 3 8. Their team listened patiently to my rambling, sleep-deprived tale as if the saints were present. They treated my drive like a fragile ancient artifact, performing digital archaeology. Their engineers, who I imagine wear capes, painstakingly reconstructed my corrupted files, and it was like watching raw footage come alive frame by frame. Within two weeks, my wallet was refunded, and so was my sanity. $320,000 in my hands, and my documentary footage safe. "Cut!" never tasted so sweet. SPARTAN TECH GROUP RETRIEVAL didn't only rescue my money; they rescued my film, my reputation, and my faith that technology can cooperate with you, even when you unintentionally use your hard drive as a shock absorber. They even advised me on securing my future digital treasure chest. Now, my backups have backups. Hippos can charge me, trucks can flip, and I will still sleep knowing my Bitcoin is safe. Thank you, Spartan . You deserve an Oscar. OTHER MEANS OF REACHING OUT TO THEM: Email: spartan tech (@) cyber services . c o m OR support(@) spartan tech group retrieval. o r g Website: h t t p s : / / spartan tech group retrieval . o r g Telegram: + 1 ( 5 8 1 ) 2 8 6 - 8 0 9 2