AJANI’S GREAT APE ADVENTURES

Very pleased to see the artwork and my blurb for the DVD for Ajani’s Great Ape Adventures.  This was such a great project to work on.

Supported by a whole host of international conservation charities, the three films that make up Ajani’s Great Ape Adventures are designed to teach young people  across Africa about our close relatives the apes and how important it is to keep them and their habitat safe: not just for the apes but for the young people and their real families too.  With poverty so often the consequence as well as the cause of habitat loss and species extinction, it is vital that solutions that benefit people as well as animals are found.

That all sounds far too heavy to put on a young one’s shoulders.  But these stories, like any good educational tool, are fun and exciting with a feel good factor that will encourage rather than condemn.  And they offer simple, practical and doable solutions that will help, not hinder local people to thrive.

I was brought in  to work on the narration.  Originating with Dutch filmmakers, the English version needed colloquializing so that it felt more in keeping with the characters.  It was great fun and because I was working off of the rough cuts rather than the script, it was perhaps more akin to editing than writing.  I loved watching the children’s performances and the footage of the chimps and gorillas is wonderful.  And there is a poop fight.  Of which I wholeheartedly approve.

I wish the Dutch makers of the films, Nature for Kids, every success with this project and hope I can work with them again in the future.