Being a wildlife photographer or videographer also means that you have to be prepared for curveballs from your subjects. But these twists can often result in some amazing footage, as a documentary filmmaking crew found out in Sri Lanka.

During the filming of the documentary commissioned by Sri Lanka’s Tourism Bureau, a group of cheeky monkeys stole the cameras from the crew and scurried away to film their own videos. They unscrewed the cameras from their stands and recorded themselves in extreme close-ups.

Meanwhile, the crew hilariously scrambled to film their antics using their personal cameras. The tourism bureau posted a video, complete with behind the scenes commentary from a crew member as the entire incident unfolded. Watch out for the candid shots the monkeys captured of themselves.

Nicola Brown, who directed and produced the short film, told the Daily Mail, “Sri Lanka is such a beautiful country with incredible wildlife and we thought a great way of telling its story visually would be from the perspective of its animals.”

She added, “To achieve this, we utilised natural history filming techniques and technology to capture an immersive view of Sri Lanka that would put the viewer in their world. We also had an opportunity to put the cameras in the animal’s world – literally.”