Tuppence Stone Go back to People
Tuppence Stone, Producer/Director, Human Planet Deserts and Grasslands
Tuppence has a passion for the natural world and a fascination with how we humans interact with it. With a 1st class Zoology degree from Oxford University and an M.A. in Anthropology from SOAS she made her first film for the BBC and Royal Geographic Society at 21. She has been on scientific expeditions to Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Amazon and Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast of Chile. Tuppence has now spent almost 2 decades making documentaries around the globe – from Comic Relief in Mozambique to the wildlife of Japan. Juggling her passion for challenging film-making with a growing family, Human Planet is the production on which her zoology and anthropology finally meet.
At 19 studying birds of paradise in PNG, her research station was caught up in the middle of a tribal war, with arrows flying. She was also lost in the Amazon while studying wasps – her radio went down and she became disorientated. Fortunately she had the bright idea of using the buttress roots of a great tree as a jungle drum; her guides heard it and found her.
On Human Planet the hairiest moment was when the Tubu chief in the remote Sahara demanded more money and threatened to burn the rushes tapes if she didn’t pay up. After tense negotiations she kept the rushes, but slept with them and a big stick in her tent after that.
For Tuppence, ‘In a world where so much cultural diversity is disappearing, Human Planet is a snapshot of how remarkable and diverse our intimate knowledge of nature is at the beginning of the 21st century.’
Tuppence has a passion for the natural world and a fascination with how we humans interact with it. With a 1st class Zoology degree from Oxford University and an M.A. in Anthropology from SOAS she made her first film for the BBC and Royal Geographic Society at 21. She has been on scientific expeditions to Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Amazon and Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast of Chile. Tuppence has now spent almost 2 decades making documentaries around the globe – from Comic Relief in Mozambique to the wildlife of Japan. Juggling her passion for challenging film-making with a growing family, Human Planet is the production on which her zoology and anthropology finally meet.
At 19 studying birds of paradise in PNG, her research station was caught up in the middle of a tribal war, with arrows flying. She was also lost in the Amazon while studying wasps – her radio went down and she became disorientated. Fortunately she had the bright idea of using the buttress roots of a great tree as a jungle drum; her guides heard it and found her.
On Human Planet the hairiest moment was when the Tubu chief in the remote Sahara demanded more money and threatened to burn the rushes tapes if she didn’t pay up. After tense negotiations she kept the rushes, but slept with them and a big stick in her tent after that.
For Tuppence, ‘In a world where so much cultural diversity is disappearing, Human Planet is a snapshot of how remarkable and diverse our intimate knowledge of nature is at the beginning of the 21st century.’
