Nigel Marvin

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The Early Days

Born in 1960, Nigel Marven showed early promise as a budding naturalist. He ran a hamster colony at age eight and raced stick insects along his mother's clothesline by the time he was nine. In his early teens, Nigel had graduated to larger creatures, keeping a caiman, magpie and boa constrictors in his parents' house. He even saved a freshwater eel from being jellied, housing it in the bathtub. When anyone needed a bath, the slippery creature was put in a bucket.

Family holidays in the Mediterranean became zoological expeditions as young Nigel scampered over the countryside, pillowcase in hand, catching snakes and lizards for study and then release.

Once his school studies were over, Nigel spent a year traveling throughout America, where he met hellbenders and amphiumas in the wild (both kinds of salamanders). Returning to the UK, he moved to study botany and zoology at Bristol University. This proved to be the ideal place for him to pursue his interest in the natural world at an academic level, and secondly, Bristol is the world capital of wildlife filmmaking.

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Breaking into Television

While he was researching for a masters degree on the grazing interactions between limpets and diatoms (microscopic algae), Nigel got his first break in television. A BBC program called Galactic Garden needed someone to wrangle worms in front of the camera. Working in BBC Bristol's macro studio, Nigel learned the grammar of filmmaking from cameraman Alan Hayward.

Nigel's first full-time television job was as a researcher on David Attenborough's First Eden series about the Mediterranean region. This was a dream come true because David always had been a BBC hero of Nigel's.

Because of Nigel's experience with Mediterranean wildlife, the BBC Drama Department in London asked him to be an assistant producer on a 10-part serialization based on Gerald Durrell's book My Family and Other Animals. This was a second dream come true for Nigel. My Family and Other Animals was his favorite book, and he met Gerald and his wife, Lee, when they visited the set. Filming took place over five months on the Greek island of Corfu.

Nigel directed the fight scene between "Geronimo" the gecko and a praying mantis. He also oversaw magpie and barn owl flight sequences plus many other animals including "Madame Cyclops," the one-eyed tortoise.

Presenting his own Films

Nigel continued to work at the BBC for well over a decade, in this time producing many primetime wildlife films including Incredible Journeys and Life of Birds. He eventually left to join Granada Television, where he continued to produce cutting-edge wildlife films but also found a new role in front of the camera. Five years later, Nigel now is running his own production company, Image Impact, and making films that are screened all over the world.

For more information on Nigel or Image Impact please visit the Web site www.nigelmarven.com (Note: you are leaving animalplanet.com).