I was up in Churchill, Manitoba this past summer, home to many polar bears. Some locals told me stories about film makers who come to the North with their "the bears are all dying" narrative already set, and being very distraught when they couldn't be taken to a skinny polar bear, because they were, indeed, all fat at that time of year.
The tricks behind nature documentaries
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Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#22I think that the title of this HN posting is misleading. The actual title of the article is Wildlife filmmaker Chris Palmer shows that animals are often set up to succeed
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#23Some of these examples are silly. Adding sound effects (Foley) is completely standard practice. The fact that Winged Migration involves training birds to fly next to cameras is fully documented in the "making of" feature on the Winged Migration DVD and was never hidden.
On the other hand giving multiple animals a single name and pretending there's an unbroken drama is disturbing because it genuinely distorts stories and might teach the wrong lesson, for example that a species is doing fine, when in fact it's facing major obstacles.
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#24"Survivorman" is much more tame than "Man vs Wild", but I doubt "Survivorman" would actually get more rating. Who would want to watch a guy starve half of the time and subsists himself on the small flora and fauna he can catch? Nobody. But it's much more realistic and I think much more informative.
I always wish they would make clear "rules of engagement" in shows like Man vs Wild. In other words the crew is not allowed to provide any assistance or interference until the person trying to survive says its an emergency, and they would show that moment on film. That would add drama and achieve a clearer view of what the experience is really like.
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#25Regarding Man v.s. Wild: The entire premise of the show is false. They claim to drop Bear Grylls in some remote location where he has to make it back to civilization. But in reality they seem to just drive around and film him doing stunts, see e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is Worse, a lot of the behavior on that show is terrible survival behavior. E.g. when they did the episode in Iceland Grylls at on…
Any more examples of terrible survival behavior?
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#26I've heard Chris speak and he's a fascinating guy. I haven't bought my copy yet but I imagine the book is a great read based on his engaging speaking style.
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#27This is sad. What made environmental programs worse for me is the human interaction (and human interest) stories that they try to create. Usually it is a person catching or wrestling with a wild animal (they usually try to justify this for some obscure reason instead of admitting it is for television). Probably the best example of this is Steve Irwin's shows. But this probably just mirrors what people want. Everythin…
I believe there's definitely a role for "curated" [to tie it back to another ongoing discussion] nature/environmental programs, but I really like your idea of an HD watering hole feed. Does anybody know of anything like it? Something that could just be left to run on your TV and maybe you might happen to catch something amazing if you looked up at just the right time?
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#28This is sad. What made environmental programs worse for me is the human interaction (and human interest) stories that they try to create. Usually it is a person catching or wrestling with a wild animal (they usually try to justify this for some obscure reason instead of admitting it is for television). Probably the best example of this is Steve Irwin's shows. But this probably just mirrors what people want. Everythin…
That would be an improvement over something some cable tv systems once did in small communities. If a town had one nearby full-power analog tv station, analog signals carried on the same channel on cable would often get interference. Even if the same station was carried, the differing time delays would cause the video to appear in different positions on a scan line causing ghosts. In the later days, the channel would typically carry public service text, community access programs, or guide listings.
But in the early days it'd be things like weather guages next to an aquarium with the camera panning back and forth.
Maybe by 2012 someone can do a video with (Tina Fey) Sara Palin shown secretly hunting down the last bear in Alaska or something... chase a Russian bear on an iceberg and wrestle for oil rights?
BearGate, the Sara Palin conspiracy
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#29Regarding Man v.s. Wild: The entire premise of the show is false. They claim to drop Bear Grylls in some remote location where he has to make it back to civilization. But in reality they seem to just drive around and film him doing stunts, see e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is Worse, a lot of the behavior on that show is terrible survival behavior. E.g. when they did the episode in Iceland Grylls at on…
Any more examples of terrible survival behavior?
Yes, I liked the one where Mr. Grylls jumps into a glacier tunnel to make his way towards the waterfall.
Re: The tricks behind nature documentaries
#30I wonder if one can define a loose version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for all documentaries: the more closely involved the film-maker is to the action, the more he/she influences it. A scene which vividly comes to mind is in Harlan County, USA , where the film-maker gets shot at (!) by one of the anti-union thugs.
That is a good movie. Highly recommended. It records a glimpse of the American history that many have ignored or forgotten.