It may take one monkey an infinite amount of time to type up the complete works of Shakespeare, but it only took 18 months for 11 chimpanzees to make a movie.
BBC is calling the first ever Chimpanzee-made movie “Chimpcam” and will be shown as part of a natural history documentary, Natural World, Wednesday January 27 on BBC Two. The project is led by primatologist Betsy Herrelko, a PhD candidate at the University of Stirling, UK for primate behavior, who began the exercise as a study to see how chimpanzees “perceive the world and each other.”
First, Herrelko gave the chimps in the recently built enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo, UK a touchscreen viewer where the chimps could elect to watch videos of their outside enclosure or the food preparation room. The results have yet to be analyzed, but so far there has been no conclusive evidence as to which video the chimps preferred.
Next, Herrelko introduced a “Chimpcam” which could record video while being safely locked inside of a chimp-proof box. It soon became evident the chimps preferred the Chimpcam viewfinder to the touchscreen, although researchers highly doubt they were trying to film anything specific or understood they were filming anything at all.
Still, it should be interesting to see BBC’s version of Blair Witch Project meets Tarzan and view the world through the eyes, or at least viewfinder, of a chimp.