Come Follow the Rain with us
As many of you know we, Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak of Planet Fungi, are passionate about fungi. For over a decade, we’ve been documenting fungi in photographs and videos across Asia, Chile and Australasia.
Many of you have seen our time-lapses of fungi growing in David Attenborough's Planet Earth 2, or featured in the Netflix documentary Fantastic Fungi, or on our own YouTube Channel. Or perhaps you know some of Stephen's macro photographs from international nature journals.
Our website has just had a new makeover (as you would have noticed) so have fun exploring the new content and design.
And, you can also find us on Instagram and YouTube - @Planet_Fungi.
We document fungi because humans are only just starting to understand how important fungi are to life on our planet and how critical they are in protecting us from the impacts of climate change. We realise now that without fungi, the world as we know it would not exist - forests would not exist, and we would not exist. Now the push is on to document as many species as possible, as fast as possible. Raising awareness about fungi is critical to achieving that goal.
We are in post-production on our new documentary – an Australian fungi safari called Follow the Rain.
In one of the wettest years Australia has ever seen, we followed in the path of the rain to document the fungi that emerged, some of them rare, some very transient and some new to science.
We educate by blending the amazing footage of our time-lapses of fungi growing with a fungi adventure where we meet people in ancient and wild landscapes, who explain the science of fungi.
Some of the adventures in the documentary are a journey into the world of zombie hunting, unearthing the hidden trading deals between fungi and trees, following a 10-year investigation to name a new species, and revealing the fungal life of a desert. We also go behind the scenes into our world of fungi photography and time-lapse, sharing what we discover along the way.
So far, we have self-funded our film shoot and editing. Now we are seeking your help to make this documentary as beautiful and powerful as it can be.
We are looking for funding for final post-production - including a musical collaboration with the brilliant composer Romano Crivici and musician Carla Thackrah.
The elements of post-production this crowdfunding will help pay for are:
Colour grade
Sound mix
Graphics, and
Music composition and production
By sharing the stunning beauty of fungi, and how important it is to Life on the Earth, we hope to bring more attention to this magnificent Kingdom of Life.
Anything you can spare for this crowdfunding campaign will help us achieve this mission.
We thank you in advance for your ongoing support.
Stephen and Catherine.
