Erin Ranney: Filming The Matriarchs of the Animal Kingdom (Wildlife Stories through the lens)

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Filming Bears, Deep Seas & the Matriarchs of the Wild
🎙️ Adventure Diaries Podcast

From grizzly bear close calls in Alaska to exploring 4,000 meters below the sea, wildlife cinematographer Erin Ranney takes us deep into some of the wildest places on Earth.

Erin has filmed for National Geographic, Disney, BBC, IMAX, and was part of the groundbreaking all-female production team behind Queens, a visually stunning documentary that redefined how we tell stories about animal leadership—through the lens of matriarchal power.

A third-generation fisherwoman from Bristol Bay, Alaska—home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run—Erin shares how growing up between forests and fisheries gave her a lifelong connection to nature, a strong work ethic, and a deep respect for wildlife.

We talk about:

• 💥 Her funniest bear encounter (mid-bathroom break in Katmai!)
• 🐾 Filming adolescent grizzlies and why they’re the real troublemakers
• 🎓 Switching from veterinary science to ecology thanks to a fly-fishing class
• 🎥 Getting hooked on photography in Madagascar with a Costco camera
• 🛥️ Exploring the deep ocean with the Nautilus Live team
• 🐘 Filming elephants for Queens and navigating heartbreaking animal moments
• 🎞️ Founding Wildlife Cameramen Community and mentoring through Girls Who Click
• 🧭 Her passion project retracing her bush pilot grandmother’s remote Alaskan adventures

Plus, we round things off with Erin’s Call to Adventure, Pay It Forward conservation picks, and some quick-fire questions—including the advice she lives by:
"Lift as you climb."

🎧 Whether you love wildlife, adventure, conservation, or just great storytelling—this episode has it all.

Chapters

• 0:00 Hilarious Bear Encounter
• 1:12 Introduction to The Adventure Diaries Podcast
• 1:35 Meet Erin Ranney: Wildlife Cinematographer
• 2:12 Erin's Alaskan Roots and Fishing Heritage
• 3:29 Growing Up Between Alaska and Washington
• 4:59 First Bear Encounters and Fishing Life
• 5:26 The Fishing Industry in Bristol Bay
• 6:40 Challenges and Joys of Commercial Fishing
• 9:22 From Fishing to Ecology Studies
• 11:22 Discovering a Passion for Photography in Madagascar
• 13:04 Pursuing Wildlife Filmmaking in the UK
• 14:55 Filming Grizzlies and Mentorship
• 18:43 Empowering Women in Wildlife Filmmaking
• 21:09 Deep Sea Exploration with Nautilus Live
• 23:51 Travel Adventures and Sea Legs
• 24:55 Behind the Scenes of National Geographics 'Queens's'
• 28:03 Filming Wildlife: Challenges and Emotions
• 30:07 Memorable Moments and Logistics
• 32:26 Future Projects and Personal Stories
• 35:55 Closing Traditions and Fun Questions

Transcript

 My funniest encounter, which was funny after the fact, was when I was going to the bathroom in Katmai during a shoot, and I had my pants down and a bear decided to come right up behind me and there was really nothing I could do other than try to stay on balance and not fall over while I was trying to scare it off. 

I was probably like two or three. And my grandpa couldn't find me, and my dad was really, really stressed out, and they were looking for me, and I came toddling back, and I had decided to go to the outhouse by myself, but they were worried I had gotten eaten by a bear.  You're on top of the ship, and it's almost like this big shipping container, and so that's the control van, and you're all plugged into mics, so the front row is the video engineers, ROV pilots, navigator, the back row is the scientists, the science communicator, and you're live streamed the entire time. 

Yeah, you see things and luckily you've got a team of professionals behind you, scientists, who can usually right away tell you what type of deep sea sponge this is. And it is really fun because the Nautilus, you can watch their live stream on YouTube, but if you ever watch it, if there's something exciting, the scientists don't hold it back.

They show their excitement. I really like that. It makes it real. It's real people who are excited about things they're studying.  

Welcome to the Adventure Diaries podcast, where we share tales of adventure, connection, and exploration. From the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers, we hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures.

And now your host  

Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today, we're joined by Erin Ranney, a wildlife cinematographer, whose work has taken her to the most remote and unpredictable corners of the planet.  Erin's filmed for National Geographic, Disney BBC  and IMAX, and most recently, captured the stories of the Matriarchal Animal Societies for Queens, a groundbreaking documentary that redefined wildlife storytelling.

By focusing exclusively on the power and the leadership of female animals in the wild. But Erin doesn't just observe the wild, she lives in it.  A third generation commercial fisherwoman based in Bristol Bay, Alaska, home to the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery.  She grew up hauling salmon with a staggering 78 million return each season.

And Erin spent many months in bear country and has navigated deep sea exploration missions Operating cameras 4, 000 meters below the ocean surface.  And if you think her next adventure is slowing her down, well think again. What a fantastic and fascinating episode. So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Erin Ranney. 

Erin Ranney, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? 

Good. Thank you so much for having me. 

It's a pleasure. Thank you for your time today. As a way of a frame, I wanted to really get into all the great work that you've done, particularly on the Queens project, your cinematography around capturing the female matriarchy and the animal kingdom.

Before we come on to that, that's probably the crux of today, but I want to kind of step back a bit through your career, just intrigued in terms of how you got to where you are today and all like the great stuff that you're doing, but maybe rolling back to you grew up between Alaska and Washington state, is that right?

Yeah, so I was born in Alaska. My dad's side is all from Alaska. He grew up there. And when I was in elementary school, we moved down to Washington state where my mom's from. Her family had a tree farm and one of the houses opened up on it and my grandpa was alone on the tree farm. So we ended up moving down here and then just spent summers going up to Alaska commercial fishing.

Yeah. What age were you kind of moved to Washington and were you quite young or? 

Yeah, I think I was six when we moved down. I didn't want to leave  But it ended up being one of the best things I could have ever asked for my grandpa And I got to be so close and he was my absolute hero I always tell my parents I can't thank them enough for making that decision to leave 

Yeah.

What was growing up like there in that part of the world in terms of like access to the wild more so and wildlife experiences and stuff and because your family sound like they were quite adventurous. 

Yeah. I mean, I am extremely fortunate and privileged in the sense that I grew up in a forest practically.

Our tree farm is a small tree farm, but Yeah, it's amazing. It's got all different stages and ages of forest and then getting to go to Alaska and the beaches and see the bears. So I was just constantly surrounded by wildlife and by natural areas and also had quite a bit of freedom. My parents are pretty laid back, so they were really into like nurturing that curiosity and letting me go explore.

And I think I stressed them out a few times, but they were pretty good about it. 

Yeah. What was your first ever bear encounter like then? Like, even if it was from afar, what age were you? 

I don't even remember it. It was so early. I do remember my dad talks about this time that he came back to our remote cabin and I was probably like two or three and my grandpa couldn't find me.

And my dad was really, really stressed out and they were looking for me and I came toddling back and I had decided to go to the outhouse by myself, but they were worried I had gotten eaten by there.  

So I think I read,  and I think you are as well, you're involved in the fishing industry then as well. Are you a fisherwoman?

Yeah, so I'm a third generation commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay, Alaska. So we fish off the Igigic River so that in the Igigic district, we're not in the river, but we're on the outskirts of it. So my grandparents, well, my grandma just stopped fishing last year and my aunts and my dad and my sisters all fish.

So we grew up in that fishery and it's the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. So just the other year, we had over 78 million sockeye salmon coming into that bay.  

Wow. And when you say like commercial fishing, how does that work then and operate? Is it like boats or are you on, how does that industry work?

Cause I'm not familiar with it too much. 

It's okay. So in Bristol Bay, there's two main types of fishing in the Sockeye fishery and it's set netting or drifting. Drifting, you're in 32 foot boats and you have a gill net and you have to stay with the net and you put it out and you catch them that way. Set netting.

You're fishing with tides. So you actually have screw anchors that are in the ground with lines and you're fishing as the water comes in and out. So my family's done both, but now most of us set net.  

Is it competitive? That fishing? 

Set netting isn't as competitive because you can't move. You're kind of stuck in your little plot of land.

Drifting is definitely more competitive. I say we have some family rivalries as well, as much as we're like a co op, we all like to. tease each other about who's catching the most. So, so 

who is the best fisher man or fisher woman in the rainy? 

Admittedly, probably my dad. He's been doing it longer than most of us.

So, and he's just like, I've never seen someone keep that amount of excitement about something. He's been doing it by himself since he was 13 and he just never gets tired of it. He's so excited.  

What age did you get involved in that then? Because I imagine it's quite tough and dangerous to an extent as well.

I mean, we always joke we started fishing before we could walk, so we called it fish camp. We used to have a fish camp out in another river system, so I was out there when I was tiny. I started fishing Bristol Bay in my very early teens. 

Did you think you would ever have a career in that, like a permanent career?

What was your aspirations when you were younger? 

It's just part of what you do. I think it was just so normalized. Like at first it was to help, like we always would save our money for college. Well, at first it was, at the end of the season you got to pick a toy. That was when you were tiny and you were just pulling the weeds out of the net.

But then it became, you know, this is going to pay for college.  It's only six weeks a year, our season. So it's just a nice backup. And there's no electricity, no internet, no cell phone. We're in a cabin all together, out in the boats together. So it's a really good family time as well. Fantastic. 

What time of the year is that then, Erin?

When are your six weeks? mid June to end of July. Ah, so it's not long, well a couple of months or so. Were you involved in the last run here? 

Yeah. 

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Successful? 

Yeah. 

Good fun? 

Yeah, I mean, we had a couple record breaking seasons before in terms of the fish run broke. massive records. So this was more of an average season and it felt a bit slow because of that.

How does, because obviously with the bears feast on the salmon, so what's that like in that territory? Do you get much visibility? 

Well, you get bears around. Yeah, you do get bears around. They're not really too big of an issue during the season. There's so much fish around. They're more of an issue after we leave.

They like to break into our cabins. So we've got all sorts of bear proofing methods for our cabins and they. They don't always work. We have come back to our cabin completely with a wall partially down and everything's hibernated in it for the year. One was so bad we had to burn it down. So yeah.  

Sounds exciting as well as terrifying.

So rolling forward then Erin, because you took So you took up studies, didn't you, in Washington around ecology before moving on into the filmmaking. So how did you make that leap from being like a teenager or whatever into that? Was that something that interested you as a kid studying ecology or? 

I knew I wanted to study or do something with animals and because of where I lived, I thought the only option was being a veterinarian.

So I originally went to school for veterinary science. I was pre vet for two years and I hated it, so I was in a fly fishing class and like a one credit fly fishing class and I was in it with a Lynx, he's a master's student studying Lynx and he told me I should switch to ecology, so I did that afternoon and dropped physics and  I loved it, I thought it was, it was so fun and the program was great.

Yeah, is that where you were studying or you had hands on experience like with rehabilitation of animals and stuff? 

Yeah, yeah, so they have some great programs at Washington State. They have a raptor facility where they rehab birds of prey. They had deer facility where they did research on deer. There's a bear facility where they research bears.

The program itself was very hands on. We went and camped in Montana and did research learning to do field research. We shot net guns. We did all sorts. So it was a really good program.  

And then you can moved on into was it Madagascar? You've done some field work. Was that part of the same curriculum as part of your 

No, so I was hired as a field technician for a grad student out of Virginia Tech, so she was doing field research on lemurs.

She was awesome. She's a really cool scientist. So I was doing just the grunt work in Madagascar with her, and I just I just so happened to pick up a Costco camera pack, it was this blue Pentax, and took it with me and I just completely fell in love with photography there. And my boss actually had a long lens for it and she let me borrow it and just, yeah, fell in love with it.

Was that the first time you got into photography then? 

Yeah. I mean, I had taken photos of friends and stuff, but never really gotten into it. Like I would say that was the first moment that it all really connected. 

What was Madagascar like then? Because I've never been, but an abundance of wildlife. It's so diverse, isn't it?

What was that experience like? 

The area we were in was really amazing. It was beautiful. We camped in a rainforest. It was my first big trip abroad. I'd been on family vacations to Canada and Mexico, but It was my first time going abroad and it was amazing and the people were so nice who we worked with and it was a really good experience.

What was your fieldwork objectives? Were you doing like just photography on the side and got the bug for it or was that part of your research or? 

Yes, that was on the side. So I was just helping do transects and stuff. We had camera traps and stuff. I was just helping her collect data. 

What animals did you encounter?

You said lemurs? Yeah, lots of lemurs. 

Infosa and stuff. Yeah. 

Did you capture the aye aye? 

No, we didn't. Not the aye aye. But that's something that's definitely on my wish list to film. 

Yeah. I think they're nocturnal anyway, aren't they? So quite a challenge in terms of capturing them.  Yeah. So you've jumped into that, picked up a camera, got a bug for it, and then you went on to study filmmaking.

Is that the path that you took after that in the UK? 

Yeah. So I applied to two different programs. I applied to the University of West England and I applied to the University of Salford. They both have masters in some type of wildlife filming. I didn't get into University of West England, but I did get into Salford.

So I packed my bags, I'd never been to England, and moved over for the year and studied that. I do tell people too, like, I did all sorts of jobs to help pay for it, so I was a nanny for three months and I did a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, it was cool, I'd never been there and it was very different.  

Yeah, I used to work in Manchester.

I still travel there quite a bit. What was your experience like in Salford, Manchester? I 

enjoyed the experience overall. I will say like the initial driving into Salford. I was a bit shocked. I think it's because I don't live in a city and it's a very much a city and it's very claustrophobic feeling when I first got there, but I ended up loving it.

I had great housemates. I had great classmates. I really enjoyed it. 

How long were you there for? 12 months. 12 months. And was that a documentary filmmaking course then? 

No, it was a master's in wildlife documentary production. 

Did you get the kind of fieldwork assignments as part of that course then? What was your course?

Yeah, we did three films I think it was. Our first one was a short film that included human interactions in a group. So we made that one in a group. Our second one was just like a wildlife focused one. A short film. And then our third one was our final project. It was about a 12 minute film and we had to do all the parts of it and go make this film that was like 12 minutes long.

Was that based on UK wildlife then? 

No. So I went to Alaska to film mine. Ah, 

fantastic. Is that what you filmed? Was it wild Alaska or grizzly encounters? I think a couple of your earlier projects.  

That was later. Yeah. So that was later. I, um, went back and that was my first camera assistant, like paid camera assistant job was called grizzly. 

How do you come about some technical skills to one side? How do you come about filming grizzlies? I mean, being in proximity to grizzlies, because I've seen some of the footage, is terrifying. It's terrifying, but exciting and exhilarating at the same time. How do you navigate that without getting eaten? 

Well, most of the filming that we do commercially, so for the film When I'm hired for shoots, we're mostly in Katmai National Park or Lake Clark National Park. And most of those, the bears are pretty used to people. The guides there have done a really good job of creating this atmosphere where the bear doesn't even really notice you.

They also have a massive food abundance there. Like, I would never approach a bear. I wouldn't do the same thing in Katmai that I would do in Montana. Inland grizzly bears have less food sources. They don't have these big salmon runs. So you treat every bear in every different area differently. Yeah, you are patient.

You don't like go towards them and push them and you just pay really close attention to the behavior. 

In terms of like the dynamics of whether they're males or mothers. Cubs or young cubs or teenagers and stuff. If you had to navigate those different dynamics, because I can imagine that could be very different.

Motherly cubs and stuff. 

Yeah,  it's definitely different. No, that's right. I would say the most difficult ones tend to be the teenage boys. They love to push limits. They love to test you and see. How far they can get moms with cubs are pretty big into self preservation, and a lot of times they'll actually come around groups of people in these areas in Katmai because the big males don't really come into these groups.

So it's what people believe is the humans are kind of a bouncer of the big males that might eat their cubs. So you definitely approach it differently and again, I'd say the teenagers are usually the ones that you have to be really careful with because they're just pushing boundaries constantly. 

Is that becoming a bit of a specialty for you in terms of like filming bears?

Because I know you've done a bit of that on Queens, which we'll come on to. 

Yeah. I mean, I think I've filmed bears every single summer since I started, whether it was camera assisting when I first started or filming on my own. So I think every. single northern summer. I have had a bear shoe 

rolling back a little bit.

So in terms of accumulating all your skills in the field, in terms of like the technical side of it, how is that came about? If you had mentors and stuff to help you build upon that over the years? 

Yeah, I've been really fortunate. I've had quite a few good mentors. My first mentor was Mark Emery. He bases out of Alaska and out of Florida.

And I met him at Jackson Wild, and it turned out his wife does our fishing announcements. So I recognized her voice. Before I, I couldn't really place where I recognized her voice from, but I could tell that I knew it. So my first mentor was Mark. I worked, interned with him, and then my first camera assisting job was with him.

And then I assisted, I think assisting, camera assisting is a, an amazing way to build skills. Because you're learning little. tips and tricks in the field that you only gain by experience and you're learning them from each different camera man or woman. So yeah, I found that that was really, really good.

And then I've had people I've considered great mentors. John Aitchinson is one of them. He's an incredibly talented cinematographer for wildlife. I had the chance to learn from Ivan. He's a documentary filmmaker. He used to work for red. He gave me my first lessons on red, which was really cool. So I've been really fortunate to have extremely supportive mentors in my life.

Yeah. I think I read or seen somewhere a fact that was also mentioned on Queens. You're part of the girls who click is that networking stuff. You want to tell us a little bit about that. I think that quite fascinating. Is that a bit of a networking group for females?  

Yeah, so there's two different groups that I work with.

So girls who click is a really amazing nonprofit that Susie set up. She's a professional wildlife photographer. She was noticing this massive lack of women in both wildlife photography and wildlife filming. And we do through girls who click, we do free workshops for young girls and young women. And then we have an ambassador program where.

Young girls or young women will apply for these spots and they'll get mentored by a professional. They'll get some kit and they'll, yeah, have a year with a professional mentor. So that's Girls Who Click and the application is actually open right now. So if anyone's interested,  um, that ambassador program is excellent.

Fantastic. 

Yeah. And then the other one, I founded wildlife cameramen community with. Sarah Jane Walsh and that's just a volunteer thing where we have this big network. It's a Facebook group and we do free masterclasses, free workshops. We're really lucky to be working with Wild Motion. That's Brian Henderson and he helps us get Reducation class spots and Wildstar Academy has supported some of our work.

So yeah, a mix of both of them, but it's really that big lack of women in the field. That we're trying to, you know, give them the tools to get those jobs. 

Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. I've got a little girl as well. She's nine years old and she loves doing all the adventure stuff with me. And she, we, I mean, I'm not a camera person at all.

I mean, we do have a DSLR and she's been. We do a lot of exercises sometimes, you go to the woods and have a challenge to document the 10, whatever it is. And she's kind of, so I'm trying to let her find her way a little bit. So things like this are very inspiring and encouraging as well. So 

yeah, we'll definitely check out girls who click because she'll be getting close to the age in the next few years where she can start taking place in those.

And they're so fun. And all of our ambassadors have. friends that are also ambassadors and people who are like minded. That makes me happy to hear. 

Wonderful. So rolling forward again, you've done so many things. I think kind of struggled really to, with the exception of Queens, because that's what I wanted to get into, but there's so many other fantastic stuff that you've done and a lot of good accolades and awards as well, Erin.

But The Nautilus Live, you know, deep sea water and the expeditions on that. How did your internship come about with that? Because that's a complete departure from filming in Alaska. 

Yeah. So, um, they open an internship program every year and it's for video engineering, ROV engineering, navigation and science.

And I had met someone who had done the internship and she encouraged me to apply and I did apply. And the amazing thing is, is it's a paid internship, which you don't often get in video. And I ended up getting it, the video engineering one. And I went on the ship, learned how to use all the video engineering equipment.

You're hands on right away. Eventually After I did that internship, I got contracted as a video engineer on future expeditions. It's usually like three weeks to five weeks expeditions. I try to do one a year. Some years, like when Queens was about, I was a bit too busy, but I am headed back on the Nautilus in a month or so.

Wow. 

And where have you been? Has it been around? Because for those that Do you want to give the cliff notes then for those that don't know what Nautilus Ocean Exploration is? 

So it's a deep sea exploration ship. So Nautilus is the name of the ship and it's by the Ocean Exploration Trust. Bob Ballard, who found the Titanic is one of the lead people for it.

And yeah, we go on just different expeditions. Sometimes you're looking for certain things. Other times you're doing biodiversity surveys. Sometimes you're looking at seamounts, like there's all different kinds of things that you're doing. And you're also mapping the seafloor as well. It's pretty exciting.

So I've gotten to do quite a few fun ones and it's just an amazing team. You're with these incredible scientists, these incredible ROV pilots. The ship crew is awesome. Yeah, it's really cool.  

What is it like when you're getting the data back? Because surely you must be coming across visuals and data that's got your head scratching a little bit, wondering what are these organisms and marine life and whatever else.

Yeah, so you're on top of the ship and it's almost like this big shipping container. And so that's the control van. And you're all plugged into mics. So the front row is the video engineers, ROV pilots, navigator. The back row is the scientists, the science communicator. And you're live streamed the entire time.

Yeah, you see things and luckily you've got a team of professionals behind you who, scientists, who can usually right away tell you what type of deep sea sponge this is. And it is really fun because the Nautilus, you can watch their live stream on YouTube, but if you ever watch it. If there's something exciting, the scientists don't hold it back.

They show their excitement. I really like that. It makes it real. It's real people who are excited about things they're studying. 

Yeah, I was on the website and they build up to this just looking around again. And I see there was a live broadcast on at the minute. 

Yeah. 

So I don't know where they are, but I mean, that must be I 

think they're over by Guam right now.

Yeah. Whereabouts did you get to go in the world? Was it around the Pacific or somewhere? 

Yeah, so around Hawaii, I've done it around Mexico as well and then this next one I'll be in 

Palau. And where, sorry? Palau. Where's 

that? Um, so they're heading from Guam to Palau, so it's in that big island. Oh, all right.

Okay. Fantastic. How are your sea legs? I imagine they must be pretty good. being brought up in Alaska. I 

mean, knock on wood, um, they are very good. I've only been seasick for about an hour once on a 50 foot sailboat in the South Atlantic. That's the only time I've ever been seasick and I think that might have been not just seasickness.

So, I tend to do pretty well. I don't know how people go on those trips who do get seasick because it's pretty miserable. 

Yeah, I know. I've been seasick twice, I think, in my life and it was in the North Atlantic. Oh, no. It was pretty horrendous, but yeah. Fantastic. So let's switch over to Queen's because that is, I'm kind of itching to talk about it.

Taking a note of this because I found this equal parts funny, but at the same time, it kind of hits the mark. Screen Rant in their review called this a visually sumptuous pulse pounding series. I didn't quite know what to make of that, but You must be pretty proud to be part of that series. 

Yeah, I was definitely proud.

This series did some pretty incredible things. Yeah, it gave people the opportunity. Some of the producers had kids during it and they were still able to be out there producing. I think Vanessa, the head of Wildstar, had a really great vision and I think she's very forward thinking and it was It's really cool to get to work for her.

Yeah. Just a great team. I have made great friends. Faith Musambi and I talk all the time still 

and just, yeah, 

I had never filmed out of a vehicle before, so I got to do that. I've never filmed at night before, so I got to do that. So there were a lot of firsts.  

Yeah, and for those that may not realize it was an all female crew production and also filming the female leaders and the matriarchy.

Yeah. 

So the cinematography team wasn't all female, but the production team was, so all the producers were. Yeah. So we had a lot of, as they said, male allies who helped teach skills that we didn't have enough women with those skills. So like GSS and shot over. Tom Walker, Johnny Rogers. They, they, yeah, 

yeah.

How did the opportunity come about?  How did you get involved? 

I had just come off a six month personal project. I was following stories of my family in Alaska. Literally got off this small bush plane, headed to Jackson Wilds, so two days after I landed, drove down to Jackson Wilds and I had a meeting with Sophie Darlington about it, and then I had a meeting with Sophie and Vanessa and I had to show, I didn't have a showreel cause I had just been out in the field so I had to show my rushes and explain why I chose to do each of those shots and then I was offered the job.

Oh fantastic. Was 

that the first time you'd met Sophie Darlington? No, I'd 

met her before but this was like my first big interaction with her. 

Yeah, and what was that like then in terms of, were you filming with Sophie or not? 

So COVID kind of messed things up. We were supposed to be spending a lot more time together.

We had a few days together in the field and she taught me quite a bit on how to do car shoots and she reviewed rushes from afar but because of COVID we ended up not. Um, actually getting too much time in the field together. 

So who were you in the field with when you were filming? 

So quite a few different people for bears.

It was John Shire and I shot all of the bear episode, like the bear part of the coastal Queens episode. So we spent quite a bit of time together. He's an amazing cinematographer and then I was with quite a few different people in the field. Tanzania. I was with Tom Walker and Sophie for a couple of days, Kenya.

I was with Johnny Rogers.  few others, quite a few others. Um, yeah, I don't want to forget too many 

names. So yeah, if you think back in that, cause I think for me, I like the elephant scenes, uh, particularly the ones, the scene with the hyenas and that was quite a traumatic scene with a kind of baby elephant.

You feel that he's. I think it was a he or she but it was about to succumb to that and then get saved and it's quite a dramatic scene. How did you find filming elephants and stuff? How do you deal with that when you're witnessing that? What kind of range of emotions are you dealing with? Because you don't want to get involved with that but it must be tough to watch.

Yeah you can't. I wasn't filming during the night hyena stuff with the elephants. I think that would have been pretty hard. I was filming when the bear cub goes in the river. And that's pretty sad. For bears, you see a male bear honing on cubs. You know what's going to happen or what they're going to try to do.

So that's pretty sad. There's nothing you can do. It was my first time filming elephants. And I got to film the part where you first meet the baby elephant. We tried to film a birth. That didn't happen.  But we did get the elephant very shortly after she was born. She still had part of her umbilical cord.

And yeah, the elephants are such amazing animals. They're incredibly intelligent. And You just get, I get attached. I don't know if every camera person gets attached, but I definitely get attached. And I have those days where I'm like, that was a pretty sad day. Like I didn't enjoy that day, but then you have really rewarding days where you get to see the elephant has zoomies because it's so excited to see other little elephants or, you know, whatever it might be.

You just have to balance those good days and bad days. 

Yeah, but I think it's fascinating that when it was born, the baby elephant, how steady it was on its feet. It was just kind of trotting about, quite the thing. It's such a, I mean, it's literally minutes and hours born and it's just trotting about. It's fantastic.

The human babies look so slow.  

Yeah. I know, exactly. Hearing you say about the zoomies, I've got a two and a half month old puppy and he's  The zoomies are just, he gets them about four times a day at the moment and it's just crazy, the place is in chaos downstairs. 

Brave man.  

Yeah. So what was your fondest memories then looking back on filming Queens?

Because it was over quite a long period of time, wasn't it? It was a multi year project. 

I would say one of my Favorite memories was filming with Sammy and faith. So Sammy was my technical driver and guide faith was directing. And it's my first time with elephants. I'm with Sammy and faith, two people who know they're both Kenyan.

They both know these elephants and their country and this environment so well. And I think that was a pretty special moment for me. And one that I won't forget because I was completely immersed in. A whole new world and I had these amazing people teaching me about it. People often don't send me to warm places and  they tend not to send me.

I'd never been on a shoot in Africa. I'd never been on a shoot obviously in Kenya and it was such an amazing experience to be there filming elephants with those two. 

What was your logistics like in the field, Erin? So when you're out there in Kenya, Filton, did you just have like a base camp where you would retreat to at times?

Or were you actually camping out in the vehicle at all? Or how did that operate in the field? 

So, in Kenya we were at a lodge. In Tanzania we were in tents. It's up at the top of the crater. In Alaska, for bears, we were either on a boat or in tanks. Wow. So, a mixture. A whole variety. 

And how do you find that comparing to North America, to Alaska, you know, different weather, obviously different animals, really.

Would you have a preference or you just, does it not matter?  

I mean, I feel like I need to be careful because I would like to be sent to more warm places.  I do really love the camping and I really do love the hiking in with the bears and stuff. It's a lot different than when you're driving up to an elephant.

But yeah, I like them both for different reasons. That's my diplomatic answer.  

If you had the pick of any project or adventure, where would you love to go? If you could snap your fingers and go somewhere. Where would you go next? 

I'd love to film sloth bears. That's like high, high up there. There's eight different species of bears and I've only filmed two of the eight.

So I'd love to go see more of them. Excellent. 

Fantastic. Have you got any projects lined up imminently or are you? Yeah, 

yeah I do. So a lot of them are on NDAs so I can't say too much. I just finished working on Secrets of Penguins this last winter. Very excited about that one. 

Was that in the Falklands by any chance?

I did film some in the Falklands and I was in some other places as well.  Oh. But I am excited for that one. Birdie Gregory will be hosting it. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, he's done be It should be good. 

Yeah. Have you done much work with Bertie then? His work's fantastic. So I actually 

didn't do any work with him this time.

He wasn't on the shoots I was on, but I was his camera assistant. I think it would've been six or seven years ago. I camera assisted for him in South Georgia. Oh, wow. So that was my first time down to the Falkland Islands and in that area. That's amazing. 

Done some brilliant stuff, Bertie. And if you ever watch this, which I very much doubt, then I would love to get in. 

I've reached out to him a couple of times, but he's a busy man. He's a 

very busy man. 

Have you been this far down to Antarctica? 

I have not. I've been almost there, but not quite there. My husband works there, so he just left for there. A couple days ago, he's flying a plane from Canada down to Antarctica, but I have not been down there.

Yeah. I've seen on Instagram actually the twin otters at the airport, so what does your husband do? He's a twin otter pilot. Oh, is he a pilot? Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Amazing. Yep. 

Excellent. 

How long is he away to Antarctica for? 

Six months. Six 

months. 

He'll stay down there and he'll shuttle around scientists. Ah, 

fantastic.

Moving on a little bit, you touched on your passion project, Six Months My Alaskan Journey. I tried to find the full video of that. I could only find trailers. Has it been released or? It hasn't, no. 

No, it hasn't been released. It's just doing the film festival circuit at the moment. 

Right. 

Hopefully it'll be out on something sooner than later.

Yeah. 

What was your objectives in doing that? Because it was very remote over six months. And were you tracing part of your family lineage and stories? 

So my grandma was one of the early women bush pilots in Alaska. I'd grown up hearing stories from her and my dad and my uncle about all these places and this amazing wildlife and these adventures.

And they're really quiet people. Like they're very humble. It's hard to pull out stories. But I decided, you know, while I can and while I can still show them what I've seen, I'm gonna go and go back to the places that they used to adventure in and film it. 

What do your family think of what you're doing now?

Are they supportive? Proud? 

Oh, they're so supportive. Yeah, they're so supportive. I'm so fortunate when it comes to family. They're very proud and very, very supportive. 

And 

I only stress them out occasionally.  

I mean, going and filming bears, I think, if my daughter was to go and do that, I don't know how I would be feeling a bit uptight over that.

Well, funny 

enough, that's like the least of their worries. They're fine with bears. My dad was the Coast Guard rescue officer for Alaska, so he dealt with a lot of boat rescues. Oh, okay. So I think his least liked shoots are when I'm in small boats in like the South Atlantic. I think that stresses him out way more than bears do.

Do you ever go north into Canada into polar bear territory or trying to film polar bears at all? I 

haven't yet. I haven't with polar bears. I have gone north and filmed wolves and caribou, but I haven't had a polar bear shoot yet. I was supposed to and COVID messed it up, but yeah, I haven't had one 

since. 

Excellent. Being mindful and respectful of time Erin, can you step through Queen's passion project and it's probably worth stepping into some of the closing traditions maybe. So there's three actually, so traditions we've got on the show, one of which is a pay it forward, the 

other is a 

call to adventure and then we've got some quick fire, light hearted fun, I think to kind of try and round out 

the 

session.

Start with pay it forward suggestion. So that's an opportunity for you to raise awareness for any good projects, you know, whether it's conservation, charity, what would you say is a pay it forward suggestion? 

My two pay it forwards would be Defend Yakutat. It's a small non profit that's working to sustain grounds in Yakutat, Alaska.

And then United Tribes of Bristol Bay is another one. was a group that's been fighting against the pebble mine being put in Bristol Bay, Alaska. So those would be my two pay it forwards. 

Okay, fantastic. And what was the first one you need to help spell that for us? 

Defend Yakutat. It's Y A K U T A T. Yeah, we'll 

get that listed and linked.

So that it doesn't go awry. Excellent. Thank you. Very worthy. And a call to adventure. So an opportunity to suggest an adventure activity, a place or something to get people inspired to go and do something  adventurous. That 

one I was having a hard time. I think I always tell people just to get out and explore your backyard.

Like you've never been there. I think one of the best things you can do is take someone. who's visiting around your own backyard and you'll end up finding all sorts of new  adventures. 

I mean that comes up quite regularly exploring your local areas and I've actually created a little tool that is going to publish soon that allows people to put their wherever they are in the world into this little tool and it can map out some  cool little things for you to do in your local area.

Excellent. And then the final section, which is more for the subscribers, is a bit of a light hearted, quick fire, 10 questions, no pressure. And we'll just look at my notes here. So one through 10. So the first one, a dinner party. If you could invite two guests dead or alive, who would they be? 

Ooh, that's really hard.

Dinner party. Is it supposed to be rapid fire and I'm going to be really slow?  

Well, it doesn't need to be rapid fire. You can pass if you struggle, but yeah, if you could invite anyone, any two people dead or alive, who would they be? 

Pass for now. I'll think about that one. 

Question two.  What's the craziest or funniest story or encounter that you've ever had or been told?

My funniest encounter, which was funny after the fact, was when I was going to the bathroom in Katmai during the shoot, and I had my pants down and a bear decided to come right up behind me and there was really nothing I could do other than try to stay on balance and not fall over while I was trying to scare it off. 

So that would be, it's funny looking back on it, maybe not so funny in the 

moment. Excellent. So three, Any hidden talents that we don't know about? 

I was a champion chicken shower throughout my childhood. What? 

What 

was a 

chicken shower?  

There's a kids club in the states called 4 H and you can show animals or bake or do archery.

It's all these different things. So I showed chickens because my parents told me it was cooler than showing horses.  Turns out they were just too cheap for horses. So I showed chickens for 10 years.  

Excellent. I've never heard that before. That's fantastic. If you could be any animal for a day, what would you be and why? 

A bear because you get to eat a lot. Yeah.  

Suspended. That would be the case. What's your favorite movie? 

My favorite movie? I don't know if I have one favorite one. I've recently, it's more just 'cause it's recent. My husband and I watched all of the Star Wars in chronological order during CO Uh, so I'd say, I'd say some of the Star Wars movies are up there. 

Excellent, good choice. Favourite book? 

Favourite book, maybe The Green Mile  or Carnivore Minds or Braiding Sweetgrass, a bunch of different.  

Fantastic, I haven't heard of the last two. What was the last music gig that you went to? 

I just went to an artist named Jordi in Calgary, Canada. with my friend Jen. 

Any good? Yeah, I loved it. It was 

fun. 

Excellent. 

Yeah, I'd never heard of him before, but I had a great time. 

Fantastic. What scares you? 

What scares me? 

Other than bears approaching you on the toilet. 

No, that's still not there. Skydiving. I'll never skydive. 

Skydive. Touché. The same. I will never skydive.  The best advice you've ever received?

Lift as you climb. Always be lifting up other people even when you're not where you want to be yet. 

Yep. 

Excellent. Profound. 

I like that. I really like that. And who would play Erin Ranney  in the movie of your life? 

Problem is, I don't really know many actresses, so  I don't actually know many. I'm going to have to pass because 

Yeah, you can get to pass on that as well.

Excellent. So that's two passes. That's eight out of ten, I think. That'll do. That's all right. This has been excellent. Thank you Erin. Thank you. I've really enjoyed picking your brain. As we're kind of closing out then, where can people find out more about Erin Ranney and all your fantastic projects? 

I have a website, erinRanney.

com or you can follow my Instagram and it's at E period Ranney and it looks like Ranny. It's spelled a bit funny. 

Yeah. We'll get that listed so that people don't need to type, they can just click on the links and the graphics and stuff. So thank you very much Erin. This has been wonderful. Oh, thank you so much.

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit adventurediaries. com slash podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul.

Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.