The Battle to Beat Malaria in extreme close up

interview and copy written for VMI

The team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have developed and tested a new malaria vaccine and BBC cameras were tracking their progress all the way.

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The inside story can be seen in Horizon: The Battle to Beat Malaria, a 1×60’ film for BBC Two and iPlayer, made by Wingspan Productions, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, and ARTE France, in association with BBC and NOVA/GBH.

Filmed with privileged access over several years to key scientists on four continents, the BBC doc features extreme close-up details of Anopheles, a genus of mosquito, as well as slow motion and stylised scenes for the programme titles shot by specialist cinematographer Robert Hollingworth (A Real Bug’s Life).

Clearly a malarial species shouldn’t be let out of the lab even under controlled conditions so instead Hollingworth spent a week filming in labs at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with scientists.

Aside from their size and rapid movement insects filming a mosquito is tricky because they need the right environment to perform the feeding behaviour required by documentary director Cat Gale. Temperatures that are too hot or too cold would kill them too.

“That’s challenging because high-speed photography needs a lot of light,” says Hollingworth.

He got around this in a variety of ways including using cold LED lights additionally modified with a dichroic reflector so that that the light is directed onto the subject and the heat away from the insect. Heat gels also helped cut out heat emitting infrared light.

“Our other secret weapon is the amazing animal wrangler Dr Tim Cockerill who has various methods for keeping the mosquitos alive so that they can cope for short periods under the lights.”

From VMI Bristol Hollingworth sourced a RED-RAPTOR 8K S35 shooting 100fps, an InfiniProbe TS160 Macro Variable Magnification Lens and a Phantom VEO 4K shooting 1000fps and HD 2000fps. 

“The RAPTOR performs superbly at high ISO and also has a crop factor which is valuable for macro photography,” the DP explains. “The InfiniProbe does pretty much all of the work because you need high magnification and you also need to be able to focus. Using any other kind of macro lenses would be problematic in an environment which is tight yet with a subject that is moving so much.”

The DOP was assisted by Focus Puller / 1st AC Henry Keep (A Real Bug’s Life). “While Henry is focusing the InfiniProbe I’m flying the camera so between the two of us we’re able to follow the mosquito. The InfiniProbe is very useful because it focuses like a normal lens but gives you microscopic level magnification. The trick is to constantly be making sure the insect’s eyes and proboscis are pin-sharp otherwise we haven’t got the shot.”

There were three types of shots which Gale briefed Hollingworth to record. Some were documentary-style explanatory shots of the mosquito feeding on blood or sitting on someone’s arm.

A second group for the title sequence were more much more stylized. For these they placed the insect on small pieces of coloured mirror which meant they could play with reflections and capture inverted shots of the mosquito.

“The pieces of mirror sat on a turntable so we were able to rotate the mosquito 360 degrees. The camera itself was sitting on a motion control system so I could reframe the camera and I could rotate the subject. That enabled us to make stylized shots around the entire animal and capture different angles to explain different parts of its body.”

A third set of assets were high speed shots of the mosquito flying in mid-air. These relied on the expertise of Cockerill who was able to tether the tiny creature using a hair or thread of cotton. The other end of the tether was held in place by tiny clips or tweezers itself attached to a mechanical arm which kept the mosquito in front of the lens even when it ‘flew’.

Exactly how Cockerill does this is kept a mystery. Even Hollingworth wasn’t allowed in the room while he was ‘tethering’ the tiny creature.

“As you can imagine tethering a mosquito is incredibly hard and I don’t know anyone other than Tim who is able to do it.”

The whole sequence was shot on a portable stage the size of a closed MacBook Pro. Believe it or not the mosquito is not the smallest living thing Hollingworth has filmed. “I once filmed a single cell single cell amoeba. By comparison a mosquito is pretty large.”

Malaria currently sickens more than 200 million people – and kills more than 600,000 – every year, making it one of the world’s deadliest diseases. The vast majority of victims are children under 5 years old.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, dubbed R21/Matrix-M© aims to be the first to meet the World Health Organization’s target of 75% efficacy at preventing the disease.

The cameras were rolling for moments of high emotion, including when the initial Phase 3 trial results land—revealing its potential over time to save the lives of millions of children.

Archie Baron, Executive Producer for Wingspan Productions, commented: “Stories don’t get any bigger than this. So it was the documentary privilege and responsibility of a lifetime for us to be with the amazing scientists in Oxford and their international colleagues chronicling the key moments of the development of a vaccine with the potential to save literally millions of lives.”

Head of HHMI Tangled Bank Studios Jared Lipworth notes, “Our mission is to show, through visually and emotionally powerful stories, how scientific discoveries get made and how science can improve our lives. This film does that in spades, and we are honored to play a part in bring it to the world.