EXOTIC ADVENTURES WITH ANIMAL PLANET'S `CAUGHT'.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

If you were to call Vanessa Garnick on her cell phone, the mating call of a Costa Rican tree frog would go off in her pocket.

That's if she's able to get a signal, because as a naturalist she just might be in the jungles of Costa Rica among real tree frogs when that call is trying to come in.

Garnick, 28, and filmmaker Tristan Bayer, 29, are bringing the wilds of the world to the small screen with ``Caught in the Moment,'' a new Animal Planet series tailored for the wired and multimedia savvy MTV audience.

The series is not just another show that makes high schoolers yawn through a post-lunch biology class. ``Caught'' is about showing rarely seen animals in their native habitats, and also about the thrill -- or the hours of patience -- involved in the video hunting.

Every episode ends in a customized music video featuring up-and-coming artists and footage from whatever far-flung location Bayer and Garnick have featured.

Bayer, son of wildlife documentarian Wolfgang Bayer, says he was born into his career.

``I was on location with my dad when I was 2 weeks old, in Canada,'' he said. ``And then I was in Africa for about a year when I was 8 months old. So the first words I was learning were the African names of animals as we were scouting them.''

He first met Garnick when both were toddlers, when Wolfgang Bayer used the Garnick family dude ranch in Jackson, Wyo., as a base for filming bison, wolves and other animals in nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Bayer said when he was a young boy he had a variety of dreams for his future, including becoming an astronaut and animator. It wasn't until he was 12, earning his first credit as assistant cameraman on one of his dad's films in Patagonia and writing an article for Ranger Rick magazine, that he knew what he wanted to do when he grew up.

``I was writing, I was taking pictures, I was producing this little multimedia thing for my class, and I was like, yes, this is what I want to do. This is awesome.''

Bayer, whose home was in Jackson, reconnected in a high school art class with Garnick, who had become a seasoned backpacker and even raised orphaned bison and moose by bottle-feeding them. By age 16 they were making little films together, shorts that combined their love of the outdoors and their artistic appetites. They dated in high school, but they say their relationship these days is that of best friends and professional partners.

``Caught in the Moment,'' they say, was 10 years in the planning, with Garnick working nature's calendar against travel tips from the Internet.

``I became like an addict to cheap airline flights,'' she says. ``I would search the Internet and go, `OK, it's really cheap to go to Japan right now, and right now is the perfect time of year when the snow monkeys are getting in the hot springs, and the cranes are doing their mating dance, and so we have it all in our favor.' Cheap flights and animal action. It's mostly about what's going on when and where.''

The series shows just how much planning, preparation and quiet waiting go into catching video of exotic animals, whether it's a giant otter in a crystal-clear river in Brazil or a spirit bear in British Columbia.

``It's so about patience,'' Bayer said. ``It's easy for me because I love just being out there anyway. But when you're sitting around waiting for a spirit bear, and there are only 400 of them in the world, it's all about the waiting.''

Even the itineraries can be exhausting. ``For the spirit bear, we had to take a regular flight on a regular airplane, then we took a 20-seater flight, then we took a six-seater flight, then we took a float plane, then we took a boat ride in, like, this mini sardine boat for two hours, and then we took a kayak.''

Yes, they found their bear. ``It just appeared out of the mist one day,'' Bayer said. ``It was magical, absolutely.''

The schedule, though, does not allow much time for patience.

Wolfgang Bayer had up to six months to capture footage for an episode of ``Wild, Wild World of Animals.'' ``Caught in the Moment'' allots 12 days of shooting per episode for 10 episodes.

Going into the wild around the world often means trying new and unusual foods, the sort one kid might dare another to try, in an effort to get along with the locals.

``I ate a chocolate-covered cockroach once in Africa,'' Garnick said.

``I'm not really a bug eater.''

``I ate crickets in Thailand,'' Bayer said. ``You have to remember to take the legs off, because if it goes down the wrong way, they have those really sharp barbs, and people die all the time just getting crickets stuck in their throats. Just a little tidbit if you guys are into eating them.''

The episodes are educational. For instance, Garnick says maybe a viewer in Georgia will think twice about that bag of potato chips in the pantry if he knew how the palm oil plantations used by chip manufacturers are destroying so many creatures' habitats.

``That is the whole idea of the show, to market to a whole new generation of people and get them back interested in wildlife and conservation,'' she says.

``Without finger-pointing or anything like that,'' Bayer adds. ``Just by immersing them in the feeling of being a part of something that's important.''

Bayer and Garnick say they'd love to keep filming wildlife for a young, hip audience, even when they are no longer ``hottie connies,'' as extremely photogenic conservationists are called.

``I'm a filmmaker, and we're like a conduit to the audience as far as getting the camera to the right place and getting the right images,'' Bayer said. ``And for me that's the most important.''

``Wildlife will never go out of style,'' Garnick said. ``We're just bringing it to the people.''

Valerie Kuklenski [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT

What: Two young filmmakers capture rare wild animal behaviors.

Where: Animal Planet.

When: 9 p.m. Monday.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover color) call of the wild

Tristan Bayer and Vanessa Garnick seek out the exotic for Animal Planet

(2 -- color) no caption (Tristan Bayer and Vanessa Garnick)

(3 -- 6 -- color) In Japan, snow monkeys bathe in hot springs on Hokkaido Island, at top; red Crowned cranes spar, at left; and a young Stellar's Sea Eagle seemingly poses for the camera, above. Below left, Tristan Bayer photographs Langur Monkeys in Jodhpur, India.

(7 -- 8 -- color) At left, a tree sillhouetted against the sky in Costa Rica, home to this young Howler monkey, below shot by Tristan Bayer.