By Ben Zand, filmmaker and founder of ZANDLAND
HUMAN is ZANDLAND’s self-funded, independently produced documentary series that explores the world’s biggest issues by meeting the people living them. There are no commissioners, no networks calling the shots, just us backing ourselves, being as efficient as possible, and making our own creative and editorial decisions. It’s an experiment in creative freedom: the freedom to move fast, take risks, and tell stories the way we believe they should be told.
The Bayaka episode is the fourth episode we’ll have released after documentaries embedded in a whites-only town, a nudist retreat and around Israel and Palestine. The episode began with one question: if the modern world is making so many of us anxious, restless, and disconnected, is there value in giving it all up, even briefly, and returning to the way humans once lived? Scientists call it “evolutionary mismatch”: the idea that our brains evolved for movement, nature, and community, but we’ve built a sedentary, screen-based world they were never designed for. So we set out to see what happens when you meet people who still live close to that original human design.
That mission took us deep into the Central African Republic to spend time with the Bayaka, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer communities on Earth.
A hybrid look: cinematic but human
Because HUMAN sits somewhere between cinematic documentary and YouTube travel storytelling, our visual style had to do both. We wanted the scale and beauty of a film, but also the rawness and intimacy of a vlog.
We built our kit list around that philosophy. The Ronin 4D was our A-cam, compact but cinematic, with its in-built gimbal giving us the freedom to move smoothly through the rainforest without extra rigging. It let us capture the forest’s texture, the swirl of a Jengi ceremony, and the rhythm of people building a hut from nothing but leaves and laughter.
To balance that, we carried a Sony FX3, small, fast, handheld, perfect for moments of real travel-doc chaos: wading through rivers, laughing with the crew, turning the camera on ourselves.
That combination, a gimbal-stabilised cinematic eye and a handheld YouTube immediacy, became the grammar of the film (and the subsequent series). It’s a visual language we’ve been refining across HUMAN: adventure and intimacy living side by side, bound together by the same big question.
Finding the story on the forest floor
When we finally reached the Bayaka village after three flights and 28 hours, we met Ngbanda, hunter, teacher, philosopher. He explained that the forest provides everything: food, shelter, meaning. We followed him through the jungle as he showed us how to survive, how to read the forest floor, and how to live in rhythm with nature – complete with the abundance of leeches that were no match for my pulled up socks.
At a nearby lake, we filmed an unforgettable scene of water drumming, a polyrhythmic ritual where women make music using nothing but their hands and the surface of the water. What starts as a few beats becomes a whole village performance. Later, we witnessed the Jengi dance, where the spirit of the forest appears in a blur of raffia and song. These are moments that can’t be staged or scripted; our job was to stay quiet, keep the camera rolling and let real life breathe. HUMAN is designed to do what it says on the tin, to be a uniquely human and authentic series, and this ep was perfect for it.
Shooting in extreme conditions
Filming in the Congo Basin means everything practical becomes creative: keeping batteries alive, protecting data from humidity, recording clean sound in a forest that never goes silent. We travelled light, had contingencies with a small solar setup, and carried backups of backups.
And although HUMAN is entirely self-funded, without any commissioners or broadcasters behind it, we still approach every shoot with the same rigour as we would on a major network production. Safety, legality and editorial compliance are non-negotiable: from risk assessments and consent protocols to legal review and safeguarding. The only difference is that we own it all, the mistakes, the breakthroughs, and the creative choices.
Natural light did most of the heavy lifting; when it dipped, we embraced the mood rather than fight it. The result is a film that looks and feels alive, imperfect, handheld, but honest.
What we learned
The Bayaka’s happiness isn’t mystical; it’s structural. Their lives are built around movement, shared food, communal music and deep connection, all the things we’ve slowly stripped out of ours. When we asked Barthelemy, another member of the community, the secret to happiness, he smiled: “Honey.” Funny, but true. Sweetness earned through effort, shared with your people.
They also spoke of fear, of young people being pulled away by modern life, of traditions fading. The Bayaka’s resilience is a daily negotiation, not a fairy tale. Our role was to document, not romanticise; to ask what their world can teach ours without pretending we could swap one for the other.
Why HUMAN matters
Each HUMAN film is both an investigation and an experiment. We go to places that reveal something about being alive right now, and we do it on our own terms. Being self-funded gives us creative control but demands discipline: limited kit, small crews, and decisions that have to work first time.
This trip wasn’t about running away from the modern world, but about seeing what’s missing from it. It wasn’t about disappearing, but I did come back knowing that happiness looks a lot like the Bayaka’s way of life: movement, nature, food, laughter, purpose, and people. It’s what we’re wired for.
If the HUMAN Bayaka episode achieves anything, we hope it gives viewers about 20 minutes of forest air, and a reminder to pause, look around, and, as gen-zed would say, touch grass.
HUMAN Bayaka premieres on YouTube on Thursday 30th October.
Jon Creamer
Share this story
