John Downer Productions pioneered many of the spectacular techniques now commonplace in wildlife filmmaking. If you see an eyeball to wingtip shot of a flying bird, a shot from a camera on an animal’s back, a simulated animal viewpoint or a moving track around an animal frozen in time, you can be sure JDP created it first. Producer/director John Downer started his professional life with the world-
renowned BBC Natural History Unit. Here he created many groundbreaking and award-winning programmes such as ‘In-flight Movie’, which for the first time flew cameras alongside birds on the wing and the acclaimed series ‘Supersense’ and ‘Lifesense’ which explored animal perception from the animal’s point of view. As an independent producer, John Downer pushed back the boundaries of filmmaking again to create the series ‘Supernatural’ and the wildlife special ‘Eagle’ which featured in-flight shots from a camera-carrying golden eagle, another first. He also created Lion – Spy in the Den, which introduced the now famous ‘Bouldercam’, a mobile rock containing a camera. As a director John Downer won a ‘Grammy’ for the innovative time-layering techniques in the Peter Gabriel video ‘Digging in the Dirt’. He also made many groundbreaking commercials including those for British Gas, Peugeot and BMW.
