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The logistics involved in getting suitable vehicles, camping equipment, filming equipment and everyone involved to the village of Benchagi were complicated and extensive.

Zab, our fixer, was fantastic and helped enourmously in sourcing as much as possible in Ethiopia.

The crew arrived in Benchagi ahead of the athletes in two tranches, to enable the weight of our camera equipment to be spread across two flights in small Cessna planes.

We flew from Addis Ababa for two hours to a tiny grass strip outside a village near Tulgit.

From there, we unloaded our equipment into 4x4 vehicles that had spent the past two days driving all of our camping equipment by road.

The journey to Benchagi was very bumpy, taking about an hour and a half on steadily deteriorating dirt tracks.

Benchagi is situated at the top of a steep hill. We camped at the bottom out of the way, but as a result had to endure a 30-minute hike up to the village, several times a day.

Shooting whilst camping holds its own challenges.

Our generator was running for several hours a day.

We had to re-charge camera batteries, but we had to be careful to conserve fuel to ensure we had enough for the vehicles, for the drive back to Addis Ababa.

With all equipment being kept in a tent, keeping things clean wasn't easy.

Keeping ourselves clean was even harder!

We often finished shooting after nightfall, meaning a 20-minute walk to the river to wash wasn't very practical.

We rigged up a shower hanging from a tree, with a tarpaulin wrapped round it for a modicum of privacy. It felt very strange using very warm shower gel (having been in my tent all day) with freezing cold water.

The less said about the toilet facilities the better. Let's just say it involved a hole, some tarpaulin, a spade and some balancing skills.

To keep us going during long work days, we brought a cook with us from Addis Ababa, called Asis.

Asis was fantastic, buying virtually everything from the locals, and even cooking bread daily in an oven he'd dug into the ground with Tume, his Suri assistant.

The one thing I didn't quite get used to was seeing my dinner alive and tied up near the camp in the morning, only for it to disappear and be served on my plate in the evening.

Overall it was an amazing experience.

Although it was several solid weeks of long hours and hard work, both before and during the shoot, it was worth it...

And it certainly reminded me of how privileged we were to be let into the lives of the Suri for that period of time.

Tim Pyke, Production Co-ordinator

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