today. His name is Bill Wallauer. And he's from the Jane Goodall Institute. So, let me

tell you a few fun facts about Bill. All right, fact number one: For 15 years, Bill spent

almost every day following chimpanzees in Tanzania and Africa.

And during that time, he spent more time with chimpanzees than he did with humans. Fact

number two: Bill has served as a cameraman and scientific adviser for more than 30 shows

on the BBC, Animal Planet, and The Discovery Channel, including the very popular "Planet

Earth" series. Fact number three: In the early 1990s, he successfully captured a video of

wild chimpanzees giving birth on tape and got asked by Jane Goodall to join the Jane

Goodall Institute.

>>Bill Wallauer: So, thanks so much for coming out. My name is Bill Wallauer. And I think

you can see from that video, I kinda like my job. So maybe next to a Google employee,

I'm probably the most happily employed employee on the planet.

[laughter]

Yeah, I keep reading how this is the best place in the world to work. And I keep thinking,

"They've never been in my forest."

[laughter]

Anyway, this next slide. Have any of you ever seen a Jane Goodall talk? A couple of you.

And Jane, I got a message from Jane to send a greeting. And we've already heard that greeting.

But let's hear it again. This is Jane with her classic chimp greeting to all of you.

[Jane Goodall makes chimpanzee sounds]

And that's that wonderful chimp call, which we've been hearing in the forest now. Me,

for 20 years. Jane, for about 60 years, as we go through the forest. And that's just

a chimp greeting to all of you from Jane.

Thanks so much for coming out. So, a lot of people ask me now how do they get involved

in this work? And I have really three people to credit, my mom on the left side. This is

my mom as she was growing up. She was from the East Coast, a traveler, English teacher,

very cultured, from Charlottesville. My father on the top right, he was a professional rodeo

cowboy.

Grew up in the mountains in California. And so, I got this great mix of both worlds. So,

we'd be at a Shakespearean festival in Ashland one weekend and then Dad and I would go up

to Northeastern Oregon and go fishing the next weekend. And so, I'm from Oregon originally.

And so, I owe--. Is somebody from Oregon here? Yay.

[laughter]

A great state. And so, I owe them just so much for giving me that sense of wonder about

both human culture and also about wildlife. And it's just been a wonderful ride. And then,

of course, Jane Goodall, who always a hero.

I met her as a Peace Corp volunteer in 1989, and instantly fell in love with her and her

mission. Yeah, to find out more about that mission, I really encourage you to find out

more about her. She is certainly a pioneer in more than just chimp research in conservation,

in the way she views the world. She is a true living philosopher and visionary.

So, from my background, climbing around these hills and mountains in Oregon gave me a very,

very good background to do the same kind of work that Jane did in the early 1960s. And

so, it's not such a different forest. Very different climate, but not such a different

forest. So I just, with my two years in the forest as a Peace Corp volunteer and my knowledge

of Swahili, I was the perfect fit for Jane.

And this is what I looked like in, when I first went out. I was in my mid-20s. This

is about '92. And very, very green around, green in the field; didn't know very much

about chimps or very much about film-making. And within a year of the Jane Goodall workout,

I had totally gone bush.

[laughter]

You've all heard the Jane Fonda workout? Well, that's got nothing on the Jane Goodall workout.

[laughter]

So, I totally got into it, went completely bush. And just Jane, I filmed this birth that

Winnie talked about. And Jane said, "Well, why don't you just do this full-time? Let's

get a research, visual imagery to go along with the long-term data," which they had been

collecting at that point for 30 years.

So, now we have a thousand hours of research footage of every aspect of chimp behavior.

But then, film groups would come, film crews would come and they would realize, "Well,

wow. This is really steep and really thick and our scientific adviser can actually get

through this stuff just like a chimp can."

And so, I would be keeping up with the chimps, trying to radio them, "Catch up, catch up.

All this stuff's going down." And they would be a hundred yards behind me trying to keep

up. And so, pretty soon they started giving me the camera and teaching me how to shoot

for film-making, which is a very different art than doing chimp research home movies,

which I was learning how to do.

So, I got this great crash course in chimp behavior from the chimps and in film-making

from these visiting film crews. So, as Winnie said, I worked on about 30, 35 films. And

this pinnacle now is this; I think many of you have heard about the "Chimpanzee" film

by Disney Nature. I was one of the cinematographers for that, which is, as a wildlife cameraman,

just a dream job on so many levels.

But particularly for me, because it gives me a platform to actually come to people like

you and talk about not only how amazing chimps are, but the fact that within my lifetime,

at the rate we're going right now with the Equatorial forest, the African forests, they

could be gone in my lifetime. So, that also gives us a really amazing platform to talk

about chimps and chimp conservation.

So, Gaia still very much has my heart. And it was absolutely amazing when on my visits,

I would be there for ten, eleven months out of the year, and you could imagine, like during

the 90s, there was a lot going on technologically. You might be aware of that. I missed all that.

[laughter]

And I just heard rumors about this Google thing. I'm a real map person. I love my maps.

I love being able to see where I'm going and see where I've been. And you could imagine

my delight when I could get on Google Maps and mark the tree that Gaia was born in. I

mean, is that cool or what?

[laughter]

So, you could go on Google Earth and check out the tree that Gaia was born in. That is

absolutely intriguing. You hear about Jane's Peak. It was just off Jane's Peak in the tree

that Gaia was born. But it's this tree.

[laughter]

For those of you who are scientist-minded, this is Parinari curatellifolia was the species

of the tree that she gave birth in.

[laughter]

And this is Gaia now. This is now 19 years later. She has a baby of her own. And guess

what we called the baby? We called it--. We have G-family, so Gremlin had Galahad and

Gaia, and Goldy and Glitter.

Do you see the pattern there? Fifi has Freud, Ferdinand, and Faustino. So, we named them

through the female line by their--. And so we thought, "Well, what would be an obvious

name to name another G-baby?" So, there we go.

[laughter]

[clapping]

Born about June 4th, within a day or two of June 4th, 2009. So, Google, meet Google.

[laughter]

And like the chimps, the chimps are obviously aware that I am there, but don't think about

me at all. But hopefully, you'll be involved and follow Google's life. And she will never

be aware of you. So, it's a very one-sided relationship. But that's the way it has to

be because that's one thing this movie has been able, something it's been able to do

for me is like, be a voice for chimps.

And so--. We talked a little bit about my background. Did you see the "Planet Earth"

series? I mean, I haven't seen most of these series 'cause I spend all of my time in East

Africa filming, but "Planet Earth" was one that I filmed, "Life of Mammals," both of

which were produced and directed by Alastair Fothergill, who came to me with this Disney

idea.

And that was one of the shortest decisions of my life, next to saying "yes" to Jane,

"Will I come to Gombe?" From 2008 to last summer, I got to spend on and off three years

filming for this Chimpanzee project for Disney Nature, which was just wonderful. But what

does it take to make it happen? They didn't tell me about this part.

[laughter]

I kind of pictured, 'cause often I'd get a shot list, which is the list of shots that

a film crew wants. They don't even send a producer. They'll just send a camera and a

shot list and a tripod and I'll start my work. We did that for "Planet Earth" and for "Mammals."

And I did a couple BBC series. But in this case, I stopped by Bristol, England to pick

up equipment and I thought it was gonna be a few boxes and bags.

We had 22 hard cases plus our luggage plus all our carry-ons. We were, my wife and I,

my wife has done this with me for about ten years now. She did the sound. So, when you

go see the film, she did--. Just close your eyes once in a while and just listen to the

wonderful sounds of the forest. That's all Kristin's sound.

And she did the production stills as well for this film. But yeah, the initial shock

at having to carry and be responsible for about 500,000 dollars' worth of boxes and

bags and camera equipment was extraordinary. And then the other thing, we get to our field

site and then we have to buy two months' worth of food to add another ten, twelve boxes to

our boxes.

And then, we'd also go to these wonderful open food markets where--. I mean, I just

experienced your open food market, which was quite nice I'll have to say.

[laughter]

But there's nothing like an African open market with all the tropical fruit: the mangoes,

the pineapples and just all the food that we can get. And we loaded up and happiness

is seeing this city in my rear view mirror.

You can imagine. Hit the open road and it's just extraordinary. That shot on the left,

a beautiful lake in the middle of Africa, but not every scene we see is amazing. I mean,

this is chimp's habitat and the distance in this upper right shot, but that's a tea plantation

surrounding it. You get the same in all over West Africa: coffee, chocolate.

There's a lot of unsustainable removal of these forests for the things that we in the

West and East have a hugely high demand for. So, part of our messaging is as far as a conservation

organization is make sure you know where you're buying and eating that stuff. Make sure you

know where it comes from because if we don't, the result of that, like the African hardwood

demand, which is pretty much developed country-wide, you can buy all kinds of African hardwood

in this country.

Just be sure you know where your wood's coming from when you need to build something. Obviously,

we need to keep utilizing. We need to keep building. It's just a matter of sustainability.

I have a feeling I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's still worth saying. And so,

this is, as soon as we turn off the main road, this is what the road looks like. It is extraordinary

getting to the field site, about a nine and a half hour drive.

And then, we enter this forest, this magical kingdom of the chimps, which you'll see in

the film. I hope you all plan on going. It's just an amazing, amazing place, this magical,

150-, 200-foot canopy. Layers of canopy unlike anything we see here anymore. It's still untouched,

phenomenally beautiful and absolutely worth saving.

And this is home sweet home. We lived in this tent, on and off. We have a little hut in

Gombe National Park, where Kristin and I have lived for 12 years together. But in this field

site, we just lived in this tent. And on the right is our technology base tent. So, I would

have my computer, hard drive, HD screen.

Kristin would have her stack of hard drives for all her sound and stills. We ran that

off both solar and a little generator. And so, we would come back from ten, eleven hours

in the field and then have to download 50 Gigs of data from our computers. And we could

not have done this without the amazing crew, the field assistance there.

So, I wanted to show you, this is our group, but Kristin's not in it because she's always

taking the pictures. So, I finally got her in front of the camera for this one. This

is just on a break during a shooting day in the forest. And this is our commute to work.

[laughter]

There's no traffic except for the occasional--. Occasionally, we would run into an elephant

herd and that's like, serious traffic because you are stopped in your tracks for a long

time because they will spread out. And if they run into you in this forest, it's like

you can't see the traffic. It's stopping you because if you run head to head in a mom who

has a kid, it can be really, really dangerous.

But you would know they were there. You could hear them rumbling. They do this deep [elephant

rumble noise]. You hear this sound in the forest like, "Oh, shh."

[laughter]

"What's gonna happen?" And so, you back off and look where you need to go and try to get

around them. But I just thought this shot was fun. Can we get those lights? I didn't

know those were so bright. Can we kill those?

>>Male #1: Then we can't see you.

>>Bill Wallauer: That's OK. Oh, it's not OK for you as a videographer. I have no sympathy

for you. I was filming in a black forest.

[laughter]

Dark chimps in a black forest. Come on. Man up here.

[laughter]