Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Hello goons!

So I have a fairly unusual line of work - I make wildlife documentaries for a living. I work in TV, which doubtless someone has already written about here. But nature shows have their own particular quirks that set them apart even form other documentaries, and I thought I'd hold forth.


This isn't me, but I have done this

What do you do?
Right now, I'm just coming off my second directing gig. Still a relative newcomer to the industry, I've had a lot of different roles in quite a short space of time: researcher, developer, camera operator, writer, diver, editor and director. It can be quite a mixed bag, especially when you're working in the small time end of the business - which I definitely am.

Generally I tend to ping pong back and forth between the office-based side of the job and the "glamorous" bit where girzzled camera ops hike around getting sweaty and wait for days on end to get the perfect shot of an elusive critter.

How did you get into this?
Lagely by accident. I consider myslef a lapsed biologist - thats what I have formal training in. But once the recession hit, I found myself having to diversify a bit. I had done a lot of student film as an undergrad, and always wanted to bring together the science and creative bits that interested me. That led to a course in science communication, which led to a filmmaking course, which led to a short film, which led to an internship with a production company. Once in, I ended up developing pitches for shows, and actually got one commissioned by a channel.

What have you made?
I've had a very small influence with quite a lot of shows, but nothing I could really claim as "my own". That said, if you live in New Zealand, you might have seen one recently about marine life there, which I worked a lot on. Right now I'm just finishing up a show about wildlife in Singapore. David Attenborough is narrating!

How do you film animals?
Point your camera at it and press Record. That's about all that each shoot has in common, because every animal is its own challenge. Some a far easier than others to get good shots of, and not always the ones you expect. Generally the rule of thumb tends to be that if you think a critter will be easy to film, it really, really won't.

The other common denominator is waiting. Animals do things at their own whims, and even with the best preparation and research, you will wait and wait and wait and wait, sometimes for months before that dynamite bit of behaviour you've been trying to film will ever happen. Then your battery will die. But every so often, you manage to record gold.


This is all pretty generic, so I open the floor to you. What would you like to know about this?

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Feb 12, 2015

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Lord Windy
Mar 26, 2010
Someone needs to get David Attenborough to record every single word in the English language, along with all the Latin names of animals multiple times so that when he finally shuffles off the mortal coil he can still narrate shows.

Because I don't think I could watch a nature documentary without him narrating.

What is your favourite animal and have you tried to convince anyone to let you do a documentary about that animal?

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Absolutely this. I know Tom Baker did something similar for British Telecom about 10 years back, so it would just be a matter of convincing him to do it... And paying his fee.

Later on I should tell you about doing a recording session with the great man.

As for animals, I will walk through fire to film sharks. Which is a bit passe in nature circles, but I've had a life long fascination with them.

I really want to film Angel Sharks, which are bottom dwelling ambush predators and move with astonishing speed. The last time anyone filmed them decently was back in 1992 ("Sharks On Their Best Behaviour", hard to find these days) so I'd love to shoot it in 4K slo mo. Some day...

So far my other pet loves haven't needed much convincing: great white sharks in New Zealand, pitcher plants in Singapore. Both are quite unusual and engaging in their contexts, so they were an easy sell. That's a good rule of thumb to being able to film a beastie - make sure it's interesting enough and if the budget is there, you'll have a good chance of shooting it.

EDIT: Here's a recut of the angel shark footage. I can't find the original documentary online, which is a shame because the sound design and music was just fantastic. But the footage is still superb: http://youtu.be/wtM0WiU8Cks

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Feb 20, 2015

BONESAWWWWWW
Dec 23, 2009


Could you share more about the writing/office parts of the job? Do you write "scene of shark doing a backflip" and then go find it? Or do many rewrites come after the shots after you realize you have a shot of a backflipping shark?

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

BONESAWWWWWW posted:

Could you share more about the writing/office parts of the job? Do you write "scene of shark doing a backflip" and then go find it? Or do many rewrites come after the shots after you realize you have a shot of a backflipping shark?

In short, both things can happen.

Writing shows, as I have experienced it, is a bit of an odd process compared to scripting more straightforward documentaries. Assuming the original intention is to write a show about said shark doing a backflip, you do as much research as possible, build up contacts and talk to the experts to be as certain as possible that you have a good chance of filming your backflipping shark. Once youre sure it's achieveble, you write it into the script. Ideally, the cramera crew films exactly what you wrote. But since this almost never happens, a rewrite is usually necessary just before or during the edit. Usually it's not too much of a hassle

However, what can also happen is that you're making your shark documentary and you get some awesome footage of your shark doing a backfilp that you weren't expecting. That behaviour is dynamite, no-one has ever filmed it before, so of course you shoot as much of it as possible. It's then the writer/researcher's job to weave that into the script as best they can. If your camera op is worth their salt, they will have shot a lot of stuff around the backfilm that you can cut together to make a good story out of it, and the script will write itself. That's the best case scenario, though. More often you might have to write yourself out of a corner - because you never leave good footage on the cutting room floor if you can help it.

Adequate Panther
Oct 28, 2013

Have you ever had any dangerous/life threatening encounters while shooting?

What was the most exciting moment of your career so far?

Lord Windy
Mar 26, 2010
You seem to like the ocean, would you jump at the chance to go in one of those diving bells that take you really deep to film?

I love those documentaries, I watch everyone I can get my hands on. But I don't think I'd ever want to go down there, I'm scared of the giant squids and whatever else might be lurking.

Fragrag
Aug 3, 2007
The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.
I'm thinking of TV documentaries like River Monsters where there is a host that's leading thr viewer through the narrative. Do you have any experience with these? There are scenes where he walks around local fish markets and ask locals about whatever fish killed a guy several months before.
Are these visits planned? As in, while it may appear they just randomly picked the person to interview, he or she was already lined up before by researchers?

Also in River Monsters, there are cheesy dramatizations which seemed to have been made locally. Does the crew come in with a requirement to make some dramatizations but then create a script on site depending on how the interviews go? Because that's how it looks like.

thehustler
Apr 17, 2004

I am very curious about this little crescendo
Fancy doing a gear post in the cinematography thread?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3144982

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Adequate Panther posted:

Have you ever had any dangerous/life threatening encounters while shooting?

What was the most exciting moment of your career so far?

I've been quite light on the danger, which is just the way I like it. If you've ended up in jeopardy on the job, you or someone on the production has almost certainly ballsed something up.

As was the case with the last time something happened to me: a group of us were filming colugos (a "flying lemur", which neither flies or is a lemur), which only come out at night. We were filming after hours in a park where they happen to be common and we knew that area well. However, the park had been closed for the past week due to renovations.

The colugos live in trees, so to spot them we had to shine our torches up. So while two of us were filming one colugo, I spread out along the paths to spot the next one for them. Walking in the dark and craning up the whole time, my eyes were not on the path. Until I stepped on something soft. And heard what sounded like a big hollow breath. Jumping back, I whipped the torch down to see a Wagler's Pit Viper high tail it off into a bush. I think I yelled something like "OHJESUSFUCK!". The rest of the team thought it was a dog barking.



Those snakes can put you in the hospital. I count myself quite luckily, and shan't be making such a stupid mistake again. I certainly feel much more sorry for the snake.


As for the best things, diving with great whites and recording with Attenborough are in a dead tie.

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Feb 20, 2015

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Lord Windy posted:

You seem to like the ocean, would you jump at the chance to go in one of those diving bells that take you really deep to film?

I love those documentaries, I watch everyone I can get my hands on. But I don't think I'd ever want to go down there, I'm scared of the giant squids and whatever else might be lurking.

Love the ocean. I grew up on the coast and would worry my folks every summer with how far out I would snorkel. Plus I would drag them to every aquarium we ever went near.

So yeah, I would hop in a submersible lickety split! Cramped, cold and with little chance of seeing anything as they are, the opportunity to go down that deep is still something that definitely appeals to me.

And if only you could see a giant squid... They're very shy creatures if sighting are anything to go by - we've only just begun to be able to film wild, healthy individuals, an even then it has only been twice. Considering we've been able to dive deep for nearly 60 years, it tells you a lot about how hard it is to film things down there.

I see a lot of "gently caress the ocean" chatter when people see pictures of angler fish and gulper eels and the like. What they don't tell you is that most of the time, these animals are really small. Like, finger length most of the time, arm length at the outside. Being big isn't a good evolutionary strategy when there's ten tons of pressure per square centimeter. But yeah they look freaky to be sure, but in the pitch black, looks hardly matter. Plus I think they're adorable.

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Feb 14, 2015

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Fragrag posted:

I'm thinking of TV documentaries like River Monsters where there is a host that's leading thr viewer through the narrative. Do you have any experience with these? There are scenes where he walks around local fish markets and ask locals about whatever fish killed a guy several months before.
Are these visits planned? As in, while it may appear they just randomly picked the person to interview, he or she was already lined up before by researchers?

Also in River Monsters, there are cheesy dramatizations which seemed to have been made locally. Does the crew come in with a requirement to make some dramatizations but then create a script on site depending on how the interviews go? Because that's how it looks like.

OK, let's go behind the curtain...
River Monsters and a lot of shows like it tend to be quite heavily scripted - in that the crews go out to their locations with quite a tight shooting schedule and a very proscribed plan. The shoots tend to divide along the lines of the wild stuff they don't have mich control over, and everything else, which will be very well planned.

So scenes where the crew just happen upon one person who just happens to have a harrowing story about the fish they're looking for? Their researcher was down there the day before scoping for potential candidates who had a story to tell / looked good on camera / both. They may even have read about said person well beforehand. That said, while filming, some random person may come up and tell them a better story, but it's not a common occurence. In any case they would have to fact check it. Unless it's for the history channel.

Scripting everything that far ahead seems like cheating, and in a sense it is, but these crews will be on tight deadlines, so being able to shoot in the most efficient way possible is the order of the day.

Different shows have different ethos, though. River Monsters is planned to within an inch of its life, but rival shows like Monster Fish play it a bit more fast and loose, concentrating more on the animal that the stories around it and consequently come off as more honest.

As for re-creations, a lot of the time they're made just by plucking locals for an afternoon and filming in a very quick and dirty fashion. Again, the script will probably be based on news reports, or ideally an eyewitness account gathered beforehand. But if the interview turns up a specific detail that the makers think is worth including in the recreation, then they'll likely toss it into the mix on shoot day.

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Feb 14, 2015

Homeless Bebe
Jul 15, 2012
I've always imagined shooting wildlife scenes includes lot of traveling to get out in the wild, then a lot of waiting to get a few minutes of film. I.e a lot of work. Is this true?

Arnold of Soissons
Mar 4, 2011

by XyloJW
You hear that lots of nature filming is helped along by the people doing the filming. How much do you interact with the animals behind the camera to get them to do what you want on film? (ie food, proding, moving them to another spot etc)

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Homeless Bebe posted:

I've always imagined shooting wildlife scenes includes lot of traveling to get out in the wild, then a lot of waiting to get a few minutes of film. I.e a lot of work. Is this true?

Yeah, that's pretty much the case. The travel time will depend upon the species though - sometimes you'll be filming animals that are used to seeing humans (makes getting close much easier), or live in or next to a human environment, so you don't have to go quite as far off the beaten track. But waiting is an absolute given. Animals work on animal time, and that fascinating bit of behaviour you're there to film is often just a blip in their daily routine of sleeping, eating, and generally milling around. So you have to work to their schedule - 9-5 just doesn't exist in this line of work. Getting up well before dawn is very common.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Arnold of Soissons posted:

You hear that lots of nature filming is helped along by the people doing the filming. How much do you interact with the animals behind the camera to get them to do what you want on film? (ie food, proding, moving them to another spot etc)

This is a big ethical quandry in the industry. Back in the old days, a lot of filmmakers would have thought nothing of punting a bunch of lemmings off a cliff to get a shot, but those days are long gone. The mandate today is that what happens in front of the camera has to be 100% authentic, and we all strive for that. In any event, there's no choice: you can't just rock up to a protected species and expect to be able to pick it up and place it where the shot looks nicest, or feed one animal to another animal. If you want the animal to do something, you wait for it do do it of its own accord. It's only TV.

That said, there are a few things you can do to improve your odds. Example: you want your animal to move over to the left where the light is just perfect. While you can't chase it over there, you can position someone over to the right so that the animal will be less inclined to move in the wrong direction. You might try leaving a little food to encourage movment or behaviour, but only if that will not adversely affect the animal or modify its behaviour to a dangerous degree (think chumming for sharks, although even that it proving controversial these days).

But there is such a high expectation to obtain natural behaviour, and so many protections in place for animals that manipulating then just to get a shot is so ethically beyond the pale that it is scarcely worth doing.

And then you see crap like Discovery's "Eaten Alive", where all of the above goes straight out the window. I have no idea how a show like that got the legal clearance to be so intrusive and put their subject animal in the way of so much potential harm, but it makes me ashamed to be in the same industry.

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Feb 15, 2015

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
This is a cool thread.

I and my husband and our moms went up to Bella Coola this past summer to get into the wild. We went on a raft (with a guide) down the Atnarko River in northern British Columbia. This is about as isolated as I've ever been. The only way to the area are expensive ferries, float planes, or a scary drive (we took the drive). We were watching for grizzlies and ravens and salmon. We were a tiny bit early, for the salmon typically come back up the river later in the summer or fall, but I had to be home by the end of August. My husband got some video of a grizzly coming upriver, but it didn't get too close to us. It was kind of scary though.

Kudos on working with David Attenborough .

What's the favorite place you've filmed so far, and your favorite animal to film so far (besides the sharks?).

invision
Mar 2, 2009

I DIDN'T GET ENOUGH RAPE LAST TIME, MAY I HAVE SOME MORE?
What is your favorite movie of all time, and why is it Strange Wilderness?

Slo-Tek
Jun 8, 2001

WINDOWS 98 BEAT HIS FRIEND WITH A SHOVEL
What have you seen that was awesome that didn't turn out on film? And for why?

What does a pitch look like? Do you show up with a trifold foam-core and say "I think the world is ready for Oarfish!". What are the budgets like? Do they say "ok, oarfish, here is half a mil, we need a minimum of 47 minutes of usable oarfish footage" or which? Does your B-roll stuff end up on stock sites? Do you end up buying off stock sites?

Also, you should do a documentary on Saturniids. There doesn't appear to be such a thing, and it would be a sweet topic. Tons of great "The Greatest Scent Tracker In The WORLD!" bullet points, and pretty colors, and unshitty to work with.

Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Feb 18, 2015

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Desmond posted:

This is a cool thread.

I and my husband and our moms went up to Bella Coola this past summer to get into the wild. We went on a raft (with a guide) down the Atnarko River in northern British Columbia. This is about as isolated as I've ever been. The only way to the area are expensive ferries, float planes, or a scary drive (we took the drive). We were watching for grizzlies and ravens and salmon. We were a tiny bit early, for the salmon typically come back up the river later in the summer or fall, but I had to be home by the end of August. My husband got some video of a grizzly coming upriver, but it didn't get too close to us. It was kind of scary though.

Kudos on working with David Attenborough .

What's the favorite place you've filmed so far, and your favorite animal to film so far (besides the sharks?).

That's really cool. I've always wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. I'm quite ambivalent about grizzlies - it's clearly quite easy to approach them and get great closeups and behaviour, as Timothy Treadwell proved, but alas he also proved they can have hair-triggers and be leathal the moment you read the signals wrong or become complacent. That's an important thing to remember with wildlife, they exist independently of your preconceptions of them. Which is to say you can experience awe while you're with them, but you also need to constantly aware that these are creatures that oparate on a somewhat mechanistic level, and can very easily hurt you if you don't accept that fact.

Favourite places... Stewart Island in New Zealand is utterly magical, it really feels like a primodeal outpost at the edge of the world, and has such brilliant wildlife. Watching Kiwis waddle around the beach was very special for me. I'me very fond of the outer Hebredies for similar reasons. Closer to the more traditional notion of the exoitc, Borneo is hard to top for the sheer scale and diversity of life, both in the forests and on the reefs.

Favorite animal.. hmm... Filming Sea Lions in NZ was pretty special, and about the closest I;ve got to any animals iwthout protection. You lie down flat (submissive, non-threatening posture for sea lions) and eventually they'll quite sleepily flop up to you and check you out. Smelling an animal's breath right next to you is the definition of a close encounter in my book. Certainly when even the females weigh twice as much as you and could easily crush or maul you if they had a mind to (and boy, they can move much faster and farther than you would expect), you have a brilliant sense of terror and privilage all at once.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

invision posted:

What is your favorite movie of all time, and why is it Strange Wilderness?

I'm assuming you mean documentary? Beacuse my username and avatar is a dead givaway about my favorite movies...

I'm quite fond of older documentaries that were made before a lot of the smash-cut, speed-ramped fare that we have today. Which is not to say I hate films today, but rather I appreciate the effort that had to go into making films with all the many limitations that were standard back then and modern filmmakers don't have to contend with.

Of that lot, I have a love for Peter Gimbel's seminal "Blue Water, White Death" (oh look at that, another film about sharks), which has this wonderfully roung'n'ready grindhouse quality to it. Also, it appears to have a lot of the aesthetic that Wes Anderson would dip into when he made "The Life Aquatic".

I love Werner Herzog's documentaries just for his wonderfully askew take on the world, and of those I find "Encounters at the End of the World" to be totally ethralling (though Grizzly Man is more accessible)

In more general documentary terms, I'm always intrigued by what Adam Curtis makes, even if I don't fully understand them on the first pass.

This could turn into a very lengthy PYF list very quickly, so I'll curtail this here, unless you want a watchlist for later.

EDIT: Do you know, I'd never even heard of Stange Wilderness until you mentioned it here. Took a look at the trailer, and it seems like it could be a cheap laugh. But I've never heard anyone else in the industry talk about it, and usually when we get skewered in pop culture it filters back to us eventually (I worked somewhere that did a knockoff "I shouldn't be alive" show, and we all got a good laugh out of that South Park episode).

FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Feb 18, 2015

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Slo-Tek posted:

What have you seen that was awesome that didn't turn out on film? And for why?

What does a pitch look like? Do you show up with a trifold foam-core and say "I think the world is ready for Oarfish!". What are the budgets like? Do they say "ok, oarfish, here is half a mil, we need a minimum of 47 minutes of usable oarfish footage" or which? Does your B-roll stuff end up on stock sites? Do you end up buying off stock sites?

Also, you should do a documentary on Saturniids. There doesn't appear to be such a thing, and it would be a sweet topic. Tons of great "The Greatest Scent Tracker In The WORLD!" bullet points, and pretty colors, and unshitty to work with.

Ah, failure. I can't say that I've shot anything that just didn't work when we brought it back - usually things are so scripted that you can always cut them together. More often you fail becuae the critter you were after just didn't show up, or you couldn't get enough footage, rather than the footage itself was bad. What I see more often is whole sequences being left on the cutting room floor because of the whims of the people running the channel. Usually the executive branch have no idea about making programmes (they will have trained in running businesses, not filmmaking), and just don't like an animal. There's also a recieved wisdom in the business that certain animals simply don't sell - don't bother trying to get a show about birds off the ground, for example. Apparently the audience will capriciously switch channels at the mere hint of feathers and beak. I suppose it would explain what happened to that Mike Tyson show a while back...

Piches happen many ways, but it usually boils down to either:
- A channel wants a show (or more shows) about a certain topic and will ask for submissions based on that
- We come up with a show that we think would be a good fit for a certain channel and will ask them if they would be interested

After that, there will be a bit of back and forth between us and the channel about what the show should be and what it should contain, and provided that goes well and nobody has a radical change of mind at the last possible minute (yeah, good luck with that), you'll get commissioned to make the show.

Budgets... oh boy. Basically the budget is usually "not enough". It's a constant race to the bottom with channels wanting things to be made ever more cheaply. Even on the kinds of shows that once commanded huge budgets - the "Blue Chip" shows - there's a depressing trend to cut corners and deliver more modest shows with the same kind of production value. They call it "Blue Cheap" and while it is allowing younger, smaller and scrappier companies to play in the big leauges, overrall I think it's dragging the quality of shows down.

That said, there are still stalwarts like the BBC who are able to get mega-budgets together for shoots that last years, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Let's take a real world example: show I'm prepping, 3x 50min, shot in 4k - the budget for that is roughly USD150,000 per show, which is not a lot once you factor in equipment and post production concerns. This one in particular would require a lot of specialist photography too, which would also take a hefty chunk.

We use B-roll all the time, for the same budgetary reasons. Either we send someone to shoot it (usually an assistant camera op) while the main show is shot, or buy in the footage from a stock library - whatever is cheaper. If we have shot a lot of B-Roll and it's general enough we will then sell it as stock (provided we own the rights, some channels will grab exclusive rights for footage, but it doesn't happen often). As yeah, we look at all the usual places for stock (shutterstock, etc), but there are plenty of specialist archives we look at too if we need to.

Slo-Tek
Jun 8, 2001

WINDOWS 98 BEAT HIS FRIEND WITH A SHOVEL

FURY-161 posted:

There's also a recieved wisdom in the business that certain animals simply don't sell - don't bother trying to get a show about birds off the ground, for example. Apparently the audience will capriciously switch channels at the mere hint of feathers and beak.

That is fascinating. Is Sir David the only person with enough juice to get a bird show made then? I'd be really interested in hearing more of what everybody knows about the viewing public and market conditions. Do you have any horrible cliche things that professionals loath, but you gotta put in, because it is what the public demands?

Lord Windy
Mar 26, 2010
Try and pitch a show about that baby bird that vomits orange gunk at predator birds, that then proceed to drown when they try to wash it off in the ocean. Mostly because I find it hilarious.

Other than sea lions, do many animals forgo their instincts and try to inspect your or your crew while shooting?

invision
Mar 2, 2009

I DIDN'T GET ENOUGH RAPE LAST TIME, MAY I HAVE SOME MORE?

FURY-161 posted:



EDIT: Do you know, I'd never even heard of Stange Wilderness until you mentioned it here. Took a look at the trailer, and it seems like it could be a cheap laugh. But I've never heard anyone else in the industry talk about it, and usually when we get skewered in pop culture it filters back to us eventually (I worked somewhere that did a knockoff "I shouldn't be alive" show, and we all got a good laugh out of that South Park episode).

Will you make a documentary about you and/or your crew watching and reacting to strange wilderness?

Nierbo
Dec 5, 2010

sup brah?
Why is this thread stickied?

Slo-Tek
Jun 8, 2001

WINDOWS 98 BEAT HIS FRIEND WITH A SHOVEL

Nierbo posted:

Why is this thread stickied?

Dunno, I might have fumbled it. Or it might just be the most interesting subject for a non-megathread in ask/tell in a good long while.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

FURY-161 posted:

That's really cool. I've always wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. I'm quite ambivalent about grizzlies - it's clearly quite easy to approach them and get great closeups and behaviour, as Timothy Treadwell proved, but alas he also proved they can have hair-triggers and be leathal the moment you read the signals wrong or become complacent. That's an important thing to remember with wildlife, they exist independently of your preconceptions of them. Which is to say you can experience awe while you're with them, but you also need to constantly aware that these are creatures that oparate on a somewhat mechanistic level, and can very easily hurt you if you don't accept that fact.
I felt safer being with a seasoned biologist and rafting guide who runs grizzly watching tours all the time. I don't think they've ever had any incidents, but they also coach us in being very quiet when we see a grizzly, and not making sudden movements or sounds. The bears are there for the salmon, not for the people! I couldn't recommend this part of the country enough though.

I'm jealous that you got to film in New Zealand. It seems (from LotR) one of the most beautiful places on earth, though honestly having this British Columbia beauty in my back yard, I have no room to want more.

I thought of another question. For the programs and documentaries you've worked on, what is the main point of them? I just wondered if they were more about "oh look at this cute and crazy bird mating dance" or if any of them had the main goal of pointing out rare or critical species/habitat that were in danger due to human activity--more of a precautionary documentary?

invision
Mar 2, 2009

I DIDN'T GET ENOUGH RAPE LAST TIME, MAY I HAVE SOME MORE?
Okay, so real actual question this time: Are there any "behind-the-scenes" type documentaries about what you guys do? I think that would be really interesting.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Slo-Tek posted:

Is Sir David the only person with enough juice to get a bird show made then? I'd be really interested in hearing more of what everybody knows about the viewing public and market conditions. Do you have any horrible cliche things that professionals loath, but you gotta put in, because it is what the public demands?

Big names will definitely get shows made. If you can come to a channel with Attenborough already attached, you've pretty much got an automatic green light on your hands. Likewise if you've got a Hollywood star to participate, or one of the major nonfiction hosts (Steve Irwin is the last one who springs to mind),you will have a much easier time with the commissioning process.

If you're going with less well known or unknown talent, you'll have to submit an example of their work alongside your pitch document, or shoot a sizzle reel (usually a 2-3 minute mock up of the show) to give them an idea of what they're like.

Unproven talent is a risky business. Often commissioners will say the talent doesn't fit the channel, or they swap them for one of their go-to hosts at some point in pre production. Becoming a host seems to occur by accident. There's no formal pool of new talent to pick from, usually programme makers will find them by seeing media savvy academics on the news, or entertainers expressing an interest in science or wildlife.

The Market: four legs good, no legs bad. Animals that are traditionally relatable (mammals basically) are easy to sell. All the rest must have a definite fascination factor that is either "Ew", "Argh" or "Weird" : disgusting, fear inducing or... weird.

So people won't watch fish, but sharks are scary so you can do them. Snakes will get people's attention, lizards not so much. And so on. If you want to do your fish/lizard show, you basically have to mix it in with another more charismatic animal, and make it the show's subplot. For example there was a great show about cichlids in Lake Tanginiqua that had brilliant footage that demonstrated the diversity of species unlike anything that had been filmed before, and the only way the show could be broadcast was if they split the episode time between that and a family of chimpanzees. Which is fine, but I've seen so many chimp docs...

This of course is all your, the viewer's, fault. Start watching more fish shows, Neilsen families!


Clichés: This started in the American channels, but has spread over many nations now - endlessly recapping/teasing the events of a show before and after each commercial break. Because apparently you all are completely unable to follow a story.

Also, blowing the money shot. You might notice that the coolest shot of the show is shown up front, and multiple times in an episode. It's basically us and the channel begging you not to change or turn off. Which is fine apart from the fact that when the shot finally occurs in context, all emotional impact is completely lost.

Channels have no respect for viewers outside of your ability to bring in ratings, which is how we all survive, but their attitudes and attempts to attract viewers seem hopelessly outdated and frankly nihilistic.

... that got a bit ranty.

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words
Do you see a difference between sources? In the US, it seems like NatGeo Wild and the Smithsonian Channel are moving into the educational niche that all the old educational channels have been fleeing. I know I've recently watched their programs about turkeys, deer, ducks, other stuff that you wouldn't find on Animal Planet.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Desmond posted:

For the programs and documentaries you've worked on, what is the main point of them? I just wondered if they were more about "oh look at this cute and crazy bird mating dance" or if any of them had the main goal of pointing out rare or critical species/habitat that were in danger due to human activity--more of a precautionary documentary?

Above every other thing, a show has to have a good story. Filming a bit of new behaviour is all well and good, but if there is no story there to engage the viewer on an emotional level and confer meaning to the images and facts, then the film has gone nowhere.

So while the main purpose may be to see a bird of paradise's mating display, you have to craft a narrative that leads up to that, and decide what you are actually saying with it.

Same goes with filming the last of a species or habitat. If it's not completely spectacular, you need story to show why it's important and the viewer (and your commissioner) should care.

None of the shows I've worked on have had an explicitly conservationist bent, though that certainly arises naturally as a result of documenting rare things. So far it has been more about surprising the audience with unexpected diversity, woven together with stories that piece together to make an overarching narrative about the environment as a whole.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

invision posted:

Okay, so real actual question this time: Are there any "behind-the-scenes" type documentaries about what you guys do? I think that would be really interesting.

I don't think there is a specific documentary about the business. There are plenty shorts that get made with bigger shows about how certain sequences get made. Most of the landmark BBC shows have these made as standard, and are tagged on at the end of the show. You'll probably find them on YouTube.

Apart from the fieldwork, there wouldn't be much about the process that would be exciting to document; just increasingly stressed people working very long hours in offices and editing rooms.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Anne Whateley posted:

Do you see a difference between sources? In the US, it seems like NatGeo Wild and the Smithsonian Channel are moving into the educational niche that all the old educational channels have been fleeing. I know I've recently watched their programs about turkeys, deer, ducks, other stuff that you wouldn't find on Animal Planet.

There are definite, tangible differences between networks, both in terms of programming and culture. It's true that the channels have been scrambling around for different audiences, in often hilarious ways.

I recall hearing a memo from animal planet that they didn't want any more shows without people in them. If you look at their output, you'll see most of their stuff is hosted. Some gonk with a focus group probably came up with the notion that their audience liked animals, but just not enough to be able to handle them without the constant reassurance of a human presence.

It's always nice to work for the channels targeting educational content, as they tend to have a science background and understand where we're coming from. They also know their stuff in terms of TV, so they can be the hardest to impress.

Nat Geo for instance have very high standards, especially when it comes to the facts you put in their show: every definitive statement has to be backed up with two independent sources. Effectively their shows are peer reviewed. Unless you're on top of your game, you can end up in hot water and have to drastically rewrite and reedit a show because of those standards.

Generally, when I hear from channels, there always seems to be an undercurrent of hysterical panic to get audiences, ANY audiences, to watch. They're well aware that their market share has been hugely eroded by the internet, but few have a solid idea about what to do about it. Hence you get the History Channel as it exists today, or bullshit mock-docs on Discovery. Since we can't compete with fiction on TV, every trick in the book is being wheeled out. Personally, I'm not sure how much TV as we know it has left in it.

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Slo-Tek posted:

Dunno, I might have fumbled it. Or it might just be the most interesting subject for a non-megathread in ask/tell in a good long while.

Gosh, thanks. I'll try not to plunge this into a chasm of boring now. If I hadn't already...

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Lord Windy posted:

Try and pitch a show about that baby bird that vomits orange gunk at predator birds, that then proceed to drown when they try to wash it off in the ocean. Mostly because I find it hilarious.

Other than sea lions, do many animals forgo their instincts and try to inspect your or your crew while shooting?

Sorry, missed this one.
I think that bird is a Skua. They live all around the coast back where I'm from. I recall a tale from university where some drunken freshers managed to get to close to a nestling and were doused in its vomit. The stench was so appalling and unremovable that they ended up burning their clothes.

I'm not sure if I'd characterise animals getting close to people as forgoing instinct. If they're bigger and stronger than a human, they tend not to run away. If you're quiet and still and not presenting an obvious threat, many animals are prepared to get close to you, provided you wait for them.

I think the most quick to take to us in the field were long tailed macaques. The troop I followed for a few months were used to getting handouts from tourists, and could become pretty aggressive if you obviously had food. But they let us get very close, and soon got to know us enough that the waiting time to move in close got quicker and quicker.

Then there was a family of otters that for whatever reason moved into a city centre waterway, and had very little fear of people. They would always stop to have a good look at our camera before quickly getting bored of us.

Lord Windy
Mar 26, 2010
How would you go about doing your documentaries without television? Do you think you could convince some VOD service like Netflix to fund things you wouldn't be able to get funding for in TV?

FURY-161
Dec 28, 2005

Lord Windy posted:

How would you go about doing your documentaries without television? Do you think you could convince some VOD service like Netflix to fund things you wouldn't be able to get funding for in TV?

With difficulty. At least for now.
I'm not really at the level where I could approach one of those content providers, but it's something I keep suggesting to my company.

But I reckon it's only a matter of time before you start getting VOD exclusive documentaries. Drama is proving the model works, so they'll inevitably start looking at riskier programming. If you can stump up the budget for CGI heavy fantasy epics, it's not much of a stretch to fund a big wildlife doc. All that needs to happen is for Netflix and the like to realise there is a market for it. Let them know!

I'd be happy to work under that model and be freer from the advertising driven model we're all chained to. I think the only problem is that financial returns on documentaries are never going to come close to that of fiction. I know plenty of folk who have had docs with a cinematic release and only just broke even when it was all over.

But we also need to diversify. The output is pretty samey right now and needs a kick up the backside, and VOD could be the venue for it. Personally I think there's a lot of scope to blend this genre with comedy. I've been toying with the idea of doing funny dissections of docs in a similar manner to YMS, but time never allows. Free idea there if you want it.

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

FURY-161 posted:

There's also a recieved wisdom in the business that certain animals simply don't sell - don't bother trying to get a show about birds off the ground, for example. Apparently the audience will capriciously switch channels at the mere hint of feathers and beak.

Bird behaviour is fascinating and antelopes are not. Except for dik-diks :3:

Exotic animals mean exotic locations and that means people who might not understand you or particularly like what you're doing. Any stores of the "I didn't get the rhino tape, but I have some shaky shots of some guys with very big rifles" variety?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

doug fuckey
Jun 7, 2007

hella greenbacks
Given what you've said about format cliches/constraints, do you believe your line of work to be more entertainment or education? Do you wish it was more one than the other?

  • Locked thread