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flakeloaf posted: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? I've never lost footage because of it, but some shoots have definitely had tensions. Here comes another shark story: When we were filming Great Whites in New Zealand, there was a lot of animosity between the local fishermen and the shark cage operators, to the point where the sharkies wouldn't go ashore if they could help it. If they left their boats unattended, things were liable to go missing. The fishermen's position was that chumming the water made their job more dangerous, since they were abalone divers as opposed to line-and-net fishers. Spearfishing was also popular among recreational divers there. People on the island who helped us did it on the down low, and only sold us fuel once we promised to make a good donation to the local school, which we did. I don't want to paint the people there as hostile. Folks in NZ are by far the kindest, most generous and welcoming people I've ever met in the world. For my part, I think I helped to build some bridges after drunkenly boogieing on down to KC & the Sunshine Band in the local pub. But it mustn't have impressed someone, because we found our inflatable skiff had been cut loose from our boat the next morning. It was brought back to us the next day by a passenger ferry that found it floating out in the shipping lane the the next day. This is a rarity though. Most folks are fascinated by us when we show up, as it looks like the circus has come to town. Either that or they just shrug and get on with things. This is swiftly followed by boredom when they realise that basically all we do is just stand around waiting.
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Feb 21, 2015 04:54
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What would you say is the mix of production vs/post-production wildlife sound used? Have you ever had someone tag along with a parabolic mic?
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Feb 21, 2015 04:58
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Zesty Mordant posted: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? Good question. In an ideal world, every show would be equally entertaining and educational. In practice, it depends on the show. Shows will skew one way or the other depending on how you treat the subject matter, and who's got their hands on the tiller. The executives commissioning you will have a big hand in this as well. So far, I've mostly been on the educational side of things, probably because of my science background. Which is fine when you've got big budgets, but there will come a time very soon when I'll have to go for a more popular, entertainment driven format. I think the trick is to care about the project. I see a lot of people just going through the motions when making their shows. I'm still reasonably young and idealistic, so I've not quite been beaten into a cynical mess yet (people who know me may beg to differ), so I want shows to work as well as they can. But I don't blame people for saying "good enough" on shows that don't quite work. Making programmes is a long and dispiriting process, and it's a miracle some shows get finished at all. Best case scenario for me is a fun, informative show. As I mentioned before, I like to blend comedy into the things I write, which for me is the best way to get that balance right. Bear with me and I will show you my first film about shark nets. It's pretty studenty, but there's a lot in there I'm still very proud of, and it's kind of a mission statement for me it terms of documentary comedy. But I'll let you be the judges. Watch this space.
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Feb 21, 2015 05:10
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thunderspanks posted:What would you say is the mix of production vs/post-production wildlife sound used? Have you ever had someone tag along with a parabolic mic? This is a big gripe of mine. As part of the trend of slashing budgets for documentary films, one of the first things to get cut out has been sound. I've never once been in the field with a dedicated sound operator - everyone from camera ops or (God help us) runners have been expected to fill that role, assuming you even have off-camera sound gear. I'm a (very amateur) field recording enthusiast, so I usually take along a handheld recorder if we have sounds I know we won't be able to replicate. Outside of that, it all comes down to what was recorded on the camera at the time, and whatever sound libraries we have. I've been fortunate to work with companies who had large in-house libraries so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way...
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Feb 21, 2015 05:27
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Fury, thanks for making this thread! My little brother basically idolized Steve Irwin growing up, and has dreamed on hosting a nature show since he was in elementary school. He started filming and putting his stuff up on youtube about two years ago. He has a lot of passion and patience, and has been creating content tirelessly ever since then. He even shot a season of his own show with 25K views per episode on youtube, but he is kind of working in a vacuum and I think it shows in what he produces. I'm his biggest fan, however, and I really want to see him succeed. What advice would you give to someone in his position? Where would someone like him go for mentorship and more experience the wildlife filming industry?
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Feb 21, 2015 06:20
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Leroy Diplowski posted:What advice would you give to someone in his position? Where would someone like him go for mentorship and more experience the wildlife filming industry? Oh boy, I feel weird handing out advice, but I'll give it my best shot. I'm assuming your brother is in high school or thereabouts? First and foremost, keep making films. If he breaks out on YouTube, TV will come to him. He might want to enrol in a filmmaking course, or at least plough through a book on the subject to get familiar with how the industry goes about making films. A science degree is also very useful, but not essential. Most importantly, learn to write well. Part of why I'm able to jump from office to field jobs is because I can string a sentence together and have a good command of vocabulary and grammar. You would be surprised at just how few people in the industry can claim that. Get in touch with the people making the kind of shows you like. Looks at the end credits for the production company name (usually just before the channel name in the Copyright order), and Google them. Once he has their contact details, he should write to their HR department if they have one and ask if they have any internships or training programs, or even if they have any advice of their own. It might be helpful if he has a showreel on YouTube that he can link to. Just don't send unsolicited ideas for shows, whatever you do. There are a lot of unscrupulous types in show development under pressure to sell who would think nothing of taking someone's idea and tweaking it just enough to avoid litigation, before pitching it as their own work. There be dragons. Finally, if he makes it, he should be prepared to start at the bottom and stay there for a good while. Opportunities can be scarce, and getting that first leg up can mean slogging for ages on bad pay. But we do it for the love (or so we tell ourselves). Feel free to PM me your brother's YouTube details, and I could provide feedback if he wants it. I could also pass his work around my office and see what they make of it. Hand on heart I'm not an aforementioned dragon. Hope that's at least of some use. Let me know how he goes. FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 07:09
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OK, as promised, the first documentary I ever made. https://vimeo.com/55558054 It's not shot especially well (my fault), but I had a blast making it and audiences seemed to like it. But goons are a discerning lot, so have at it and let me know what you think.
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Feb 21, 2015 18:12
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Thank you for the thread! I adore nature documentaries, so much so that I named my cat Sir David Cattenborough. I was recently watching the BBC series hidden kingdoms and I noticed that they had several shots taken from under animals as they ran past, so I assume they dug a ditch, put glass over it, and encouraged animals to run/slither over it. Have you ever constructed any kind of crazy blind or other structure in order to get an unusual shot? What frame rate do you typically shoot in? Are you typically using wide-aperture cinema-quality cameras? Have you had the opportunity to try to film in 3d? How often do you work with local filmmakers? I lived in Dar es Salaam for just shy of a year and one of my friends was a guy who filmed wildlife and more mundane stuff on contract for various companies for commercials (one example, they wanted to sell a truck, so they send the truck and a professional driver and then he films them driving around on someone's land that has savannah animals on it.) Are these local experts competition when a network wants to film a show about something and has to consider whether or not to use you or the guy who lives there, or is it not a problem? Lastly, do you enjoy psychedelics? I hate to sound glib, but watching a nature documentary on even a small dose is extremely enjoyable. To me, it is more enjoyable than listening to music or watching videos of fractals or whatever stereotypical thing people do when tripping. If not, again, I hate to sound like a college kid being like "you gotta try it maaan," given the opportunity to do so, I really recommend it. It makes you feel connected to the animals you're viewing on a really neat level that persists even after you sober up. Xibanya fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 18:55
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Have you ever worked in the high Andes?
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Feb 22, 2015 01:20
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Xibanya posted:Have you ever constructed any kind of crazy blind or other structure in order to get an unusual shot? Yeah, we do this a lot if we're trying to get a very stylised shot. Often this will be done with a captive animal, as there is a lot of red tape in doing set ups with wild ones,and often they won't do what you want them to. I'm not saying we use performing animals, just that we take normal critters and set up the best way to shoot what they would do anyway. Yes, it's cheating. But I try to be up front about when I do that sort of thing. My latest doc has a sequence about pangolins, and to get good daytime shots of one, we had to go to a research reserve. We said as much in the narration. But the pangolin still waddled about and climbed trees and generally was as much of a pangolin as it would have been elsewhere, only we we actually able to find it. I know some people have a big problem with this aspect of filmmaking, and I fully understand. But I would also challenge them to show me a fully objective documentary that doesn't rely on some kind of artifice to tell its story. Xibanya posted:What frame rate do you typically shoot in? Are you typically using wide-aperture cinema-quality cameras? Have you had the opportunity to try to film in 3d? 25/50fps, or 24/48 if we're doing an American show. We use broadcast quality cameras (data rate of about 70mbps and higher) for our main cameras, which are not as sophisticated as cinema spec ones, but good enough for TV. Channels will specify what level of camera quality is acceptable. These will be padded out with DSLRs and GoPro cameras for B-roll. I've never shot in 3D, and here's hoping I never have to. I'm not a fan. Xibanya posted:How often do you work with local filmmakers? All the time. They're usually the best option for general location shooting, as they will know all the ins and outs of where they work. If we need specialists, we'll see if they exist at the location, otherwise we'll bring them in. So if there is no Snow Leopard expert camera op in Nepal, we have to get one there. Xibanya posted:Do you enjoy psychedelics? Er, no. But hey, knock yourself out.
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Feb 22, 2015 05:44
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Mortley posted:Have you ever worked in the high Andes? No, not yet. In fact I've never been to South America! I should really do something about that one day...
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Feb 22, 2015 09:15
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Now that I’ve come unstuck, I guess it’s time to pull out the big guns: my David Attenborough stories. One – Sir David Don’t Email We ended up with him narrating our show purely by being overly ambitious. The show is about wildlife in Singapore (not exactly the first place that springs to mind when you think of wildlife), but there was a commissioning round coming up and we had to think of something that would get the show noticed.  “We should really find a big name, like David Attenborough or something”. “Well, I could try David Attenborough…” “What?”The person who taught me camerawork had worked with Sir David on a few shows back in the 80’s and 90’s, and we were good friends. I knew he kept in reasonable contact with DA , and would have had his current details… so I asked. We wrote up an episode outline with all the animals we hoped to get, and some examples of our work. Now we just had to get in touch. Fortunately my friend came through with a postal address and a telephone number. “Doesn’t he have an email?” “Oh no, he doesn’t do computers. He’s got a fax machine, though. You’ll have to call for the number.” The next day I asked around the office about where the fax machine was. It turns out we didn’t have one. Well, there was one, but it had been broken for years and had seen such little use up to that point that nobody had bothered to fix it. So in the end I had start an account with a skype frontend and scan in all the documents. All I had to do was get the number. Waiting until our time-zones were in sync, I tapped out a number with a Richmond area code. A woman’s voice answered the phone, and quite politely read out the number for their fax machine as I punched it into skype. Then it crashed. Typical luck for me, I should have just written it by hand. I rang back again. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. I looked at the clock – it was 10:30am in the uk, tea break time. This was going to take ages now. Then the phone was picked up.  “Oh Hi, I’m sorry, I just called a moment ago to get your fax number, but I managaged to lose it” “Oh.” Said a voice that was not the woman I spoke to earlier. “If you hang on… here it is. It’s 020…”With each number, this voice sounded stranger. Old, firm. Somehow famili-oh my god he’s not just reading that number he’s narrating it. “Oh great, thanks very much for that. I’ll send this through right now.” “Very good, goodbye”.<click>  Now let’s just get this straight- this is a story about someone forgetting a fax number and getting it again. But it didn’t stop me having a little fanboy freakout the moment I put the receiver down. One week later, he was provisionally on board. We got the commission. FURY-161 fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 09:47
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Can't wait to read more DA anecdotes. Why do you think he's such a presence in the field? Are there any younger presenters you could imagine becoming anywhere near as popular?
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Feb 23, 2015 11:46
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David Attenbororough's wildlife work is obviously amazing, but a lot of people don't realise that he was controller of BBC2 in the 60s and oversaw its programming and was pretty instrumental in getting colour television accepted and used after it had just come in. He kept making programmes during this time as well.
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Feb 23, 2015 12:46
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thehustler posted:David Attenbororough's wildlife work is obviously amazing, but a lot of people don't realise that he was controller of BBC2 in the 60s and oversaw its programming and was pretty instrumental in getting colour television accepted and used after it had just come in. Word. No David Attenborough, no Monty Python. That's just how instrumental he had been for the legacy of British TV.
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Feb 23, 2015 14:18
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Hah I didn't realise that. Also this from a Time interview made me laugh:quote:As the head of programming for the BBC, were you responsible for putting Monty Python's Flying Circus on the air?
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Feb 23, 2015 16:43
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David Attenborough is so awesome for many reasons. Also, who would you rather listen to on nature documentary: a sweet genuine British guy or a pumped up sensationalized "woo, look at these dangerous sharks" guy? I like the former.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:03
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To me it is not that sir David is a sweet guy. His power is that he is genuinely interested and awed by the subject matter and you can hear that in his voice. Most other narrators try to either over sensationalise or, in the case of Dutch narrators at least, try to sound too much like a teacher that is trying to be cool... Fury, have you ever worked on a shoot where you thought the animal was going to be boring, but it won you over when you had to spend some time with the subject?
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Feb 23, 2015 23:58
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Desmond posted:David Attenborough is so awesome for many reasons. Also, who would you rather listen to on nature documentary: a sweet genuine British guy or a pumped up sensationalized "woo, look at these dangerous sharks" guy? I like the former. Attenborough each and every time. He just oozes old school class. But I can see how that's not for everyone. I just think a suitable alternative hasn't been found yet. I'm sure someone will come along eventually who could comapre, but it might be a long time before anyone can truly step out of Sir David's shadow. When someone has come to so completely embody an entire genre, its hard to see what the next big thing would look like. There's not replicating what he has done, and it would be a mistake to try to. I look forward to something fresh and different. But hey, he hasn't retired yet, so let's just enjoy everything he gives us, and we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:16
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Jelmylicious posted:Have you ever worked on a shoot where you thought the animal was going to be boring, but it won you over when you had to spend some time with the subject? Otters. There's a family that have moved into one of the city centre waterways in Singapore, and they were elusive, and frankly I didn'tthink they would amount to much. But the channel head went all gushy the moment they heard about them, so that was that. They needed otters, and they needed lots of them. So for months I was up at the crack of dawn prepping the spot where they were most frequently seen. And most days they wouldn't show up. After about a week of this, I finally got a couple of shots. And over that period of time, they were clearly becoming used to seeing me, and gradually venturing closer until the days when they would bob up and down in te water and stare down the lens before splashing off. The footage looked great. But it wasn't until I met up with an amateur photographer who had been following the otters for years that I really got a sense of how cool they were - they were running rings around us, crossing over footpaths, raiding fish ponds and darting through garden bushes, all the while tumbling around and squeaking. I don't normally go in for cute animals, but drat, they were a mischevious bunch and I found myself developing a sneaking admiration for them.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:25
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What did/do you think of the whole Steve Irwin/Crocodile hunter school of TV that (well, at least to me) always seemed rather intrusive on wildlife? I mean, I can't imagine many of those crocodiles were asking to be wrestled ...
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Feb 24, 2015 15:24
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Jelmylicious posted:To me it is not that sir David is a sweet guy. His power is that he is genuinely interested and awed by the subject matter and you can hear that in his voice. Carl Sagan was really likeable as a host for the same reason: He didn't just explain what we were seeing, he shared his fascination with us. Cosmos was basically an hour of him pointing at things and saying "Wow!"
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Feb 24, 2015 18:35
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I think anyone with that sense of wonder, like Sagan or Attenborough, is engaging, even though each is a little different than another. I find that over-sensationalized approach that others use as off-putting, but who knows--maybe it sells more or something.
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Feb 25, 2015 00:45
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Junior G-man posted:What did/do you think of the whole Steve Irwin/Crocodile hunter school of TV that (well, at least to me) always seemed rather intrusive on wildlife? Another ethical minefield, this one. On principle, I’d agree. There’s very little justification for handling, molesting or in any other way directly interfering with your subject. You’re there to document it and its behaviour as it would be were you not present. Obviously that’s a lofty standard that’s impossible to attain in reality; your very presence creates an observer effect. But if you’re there to document something that’s as close to the truth as it can be, then you hand back. If you must set up a shot, you do it in a way that has the absolute minimum of an effect on the subject. At any rate, you get a bad reputation in the business and you can find yourself getting frozen out of work opportunities in the future. But the showman in me knows that seeing people getting up close and personal with these animals really captures imaginations. There’s a reason we all got hooked on Steve Irwin, and once we got past the “look at that nutter messing about with crocodiles”, we did pay a bit of attention the message behind it. Perhaps not enough though. I think Steve Irwin was the exception that proves the rule. He really did know what he was doing, but was great at conveying that mad on-screen persona that kept us coming back for more. Ultimately he did more good than harm. BUT. 99.9% of people have no business interfering with wild animals. I certainly have no intention of following irwin’s route. I might not be anywhere near as successful, but I’ll have a clear conscience.
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Feb 26, 2015 15:29
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Hey, OP, is this your show? http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/david-attenborough-to/1689006.html
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Mar 3, 2015 00:45
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quantumavenger posted:Hey, OP, is this your show? That's the very one! It was formally announced yesterday, and we had a big press conference - a first for me, it was pretty fun. I quite like the conspiracy theory tone of this article: http://mothership.sg/2015/03/sir-david-attenborough-to-narrate-two-part-documentary-on-spore-wildlife-channel-news-asia-finally-reveals/ Oh Singapore...
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Mar 3, 2015 07:34
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Ok, the thread's winding down now, so I though I'd wrap things up with my last Attenborough story. Two – No More Tea For You Fast forward one year. A lot of long, long days in the office, field and editing room. But finally we’re at picture lock, and standing outside a recording studio in London. “What the hell are they thinking?” I’m furious just now. The channel have called with two hours to go until recording, and they want to change the script to the trailers. They haven’t specified what they want the script changed to, just that they don’t want to use the one that they agreed to use two days before. “He’s not going to like this.” Two weeks before, we had been scrabbling around making major last-minute, changes to the cut, as the behest of the same people. What should have been a short trim had become yet another 12 hour day because of a terminally indecisive client. This has to be finished TODAY. If we were able to submit a locked script and cut at least a week in advance, he wouldn’t agree to the job and we’d be all up poo poo creek. Word in the business is he does't suffer fools gladly, and getting a good read out of him is contingent on how happy he is with you. We cut. He liked it. And then we, the director of the first episode and I, were in London. We paid our own way to be there – we would have walked through fire to be there. And it was just as well, because now we had to come up with the script, and he would be here any moment. “…and meet the newest bunch of city slickers in the neighbourhood?” “Yeah that’ll work”. They made us great coffee at the post studio. The reception looked more like a quiet café than a filmmaking hub. The mug had a tiny handle on it and I left it at the side. There was no way I’d be able to hold it properly and not spill with tremors, and at any rate I was not thirsty. The series producer arrived. He had been present on-and-off during the shooting because the bosses couldn’t stump up the cash to have him on location for the whole shooting period, and it was good to see him again out of the context of sweat soaked rainforest. “I was just called about the script” he said. “Us too. We’ve written other draft”. “Oh, so did I”. Communication is not our company’s strong suit. “Well, we’ll just have to print these off and…” There was a face peering through the porthole windows in the studio’s front door. A face I had seen many times for many years. As the door swung forward the face, along with the rest of the man it belonged to, walked through. Half an hour early. David Attenborough is 88 years old. He’s a little stooped, a little stiff, has a discreet hearing aid in one ear. He’s also thoroughly charming, and just lit up the room. This is a face and voice I have grown up with, but never truly equated with a living breathing person. Very suddenly that person was right in front of me, and I couldn’t quite get a grip on the reality of it all. Quick introductions were made, and then we were down the corridor and into the recording suite. “Right, let’s just go over these scripts. It’s a nice little documentary you have.” Sat on a couch, we ran through the lines. Having had the script for a week, David had gone through it to address any issues he had with it. Factual clarity and turns of phrase that has sailed over our heads due to being entrenched in the writing of it were laid bare with politeness and charm. “Perhaps we could change the pig from being ‘curious’ to ‘inquisitive’? Just because of the double meaning.” As we went through the lines, we would get the odd question. “Of course, the pitcher plant does use insects for nutrients, but I know from growing them in my greenhouse, they get my just fine without them.” We were being tested. “That’s true, we can change that. By the way, I have a whole bunch of Nepenthes growing on my balcony at home. We actually used one of them for the bluescreen shot. “Oh really? Which do you have? Did you know I have one named after me?” A very cheeky grin. After that he seemed to relax and trust that we did indeed know what we were talking about. Interesting fact: he hates using the word “design” in the script. It’s a legitimate word to use, but he tries not to have it in the show he narrates. Apparently he gets letters all the time from creationists that pounce every time they happen to hear him say it. “Ha-HA! You said DESIGN! That clearly means you tacitly agree that all creatures in the world are designed through an intelligent process!”. - David got into the booth. The playback was queued up, and the show began. “One degree north of the equator, there is a small island…” I can’t quite put into words what it feels like to have something you have written suddenly brough to life by that voice. For months we had been used to listening to the placeholder narration that was used for the editing process. Then that voice is making every sing word sound fresh, exciting, with a gravitas you never thought those words could convey. He was nailing it. Sir David likes to record in one go. Most of the time you would stop-start on individual lines, but the man is such a pro that he’s able to time it out exactly as written on the page (you provide the timings). If he flubs, you mark it down and go back after. It keeps you on your toes, because while the man is very good at what he does, he isn’t perfect. A mispronunciation here, a wrong emphasis there. I wondered if I could ever find the courage to firmly direct him – because how could you possibly direct a legend? Thing is, legends aren’t necessarily real, and Sir David was really just David – his voice a little older, a little more slurred by age. We were all just people there to do their job. We queue up to do a reatake: “The sea breeze gives the eagle wind beneath its wings”. As we listened over the playback, the sound tech paused the line, rendering it as: “The sea breeze gives the eagle wind-“ Without missing a beat, David replied to himself “Well, it had better take its pills then!” I laughed too hard. And then the recording of my episode was over. I tagged out for my co-director. “Does anyone want any coffee or tea?” I asked I took the orders. “David would you like a tea?” “Oh no, no tea for me” “Right then. No more tea for you.” In the interim we finallised the trailer scripts, and got them printed out as quietly as we could. Trying to concentrate while his narration was going on was a feat. Another ninety minutes later, the recording was wrapped. We convened in the suite, thanked each other, talked about mutual acquaintances and the times my co-director had met David on book tours. “I remember you from that day to this!”. Laughs all round. He signed some promo photos from the show, and we presented him with the gift of some books – one a friend of ours had written about Moas, another about natural history illustrations in the colonial days of Singapore. He seemed genuinely delighted with them. And with a final shake of the hands, he left. Then he came back again. “Sorry, forgot my glasses.” The phrase goes that one should never meet their heroes. Balls to that. David Attenborough lives up to the hype. A kind, sharp, warm and just a little prickly man – one I feel immensely privileged to have worked with, however briefly. He’s showing his age in body – getting up from a sofa was a bit tough – but he was going full steam ahead upstairs. Long may he stay that way. Having him in this world makes me feel happier to be in the same one.
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Mar 3, 2015 08:39
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Thank you for sharing that. As a consumer of entertainment, it heightens my enjoyment to think that the people who made it had a genuine interest in the project, and my theory is that Attenborough is such a wonderful narrator because he is such an avid naturalist. I guess it's that if I have the sensation that something was made cynically if I end up enjoying it I've been manipulated. I'm not even sure what I mean by made cynically since it's all ultimately done for the money. I guess I mean that for a work of entertainment to make money, it doesn't have to be high-quality, it just has to be good enough to a certain benchmark of people, and some nature docs I've seen have given me the impression that they were produced not because they had anything to say but because it would be good enough to enough people that it would be profitable. But then, how does one judge that? As an industry outsider, I can only guess. While I can say "this banal show about (cuddly animal) with a bored-sounding celebrity voice over and nothing new or interesting to say was a cynical cash grab" maybe it really did have a lot of love go into it but it just didn't gel. By the way, how is the narrator chosen? Is it always through agents with someone in mind, are several agents contacted and tryouts done, or is it sometimes a crew member?
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Mar 4, 2015 20:23
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Xibanya posted:As a consumer of entertainment, it heightens my enjoyment to think that the people who made it had a genuine interest in the project, and my theory is that Attenborough is such a wonderful narrator because he is such an avid naturalist. Sir David would talk about nature all day long. Seriously, he absolutely loves it. He could retire tomorrow if he wanted to, but he's 88 and still works because of a genuine love for the subject matter. I have nothing bu the utmost respect for that. Xibanya posted:I guess it's that if I have the sensation that something was made cynically if I end up enjoying it I've been manipulated. Good or bad, it's all manipulation. We're there to tell stories and mess with emotions. There are certainly a lot of docs that get commissioned to be space fillers, or to cash in on a trend and the like. I've worked on a few. Sadly no-one has the money to have an enitre channel dedicated to all mega-productions, all the time. But I've met people who really do try to inject a genuine level of artistry into their Top Ten Countdown clip show. It might be a lost cause, and its certainly easier to just crank out a string of sausages, but it it's nice to know that at least one person on a show is trying. That's not always how it goes. I've seen plentu of folk how have just gone through the motions becuase it means they get a paycheque. If you get mired in a project you have no passion for becuase you need to build up the funds to make the film you acutally want to make, it can be pretty dispiriting. Certainly the channels are all about the bottom line - if our work of art makes money, then great. But spook the advertisers by having a Blake quatation in World's Most Killer Tigers or something. But usually there's somone who's working their arse off on a show to make it work. Doesn't always pan out. Most bad shows were at some point a pretty good show that got lost along the way. Xibanya posted:By the way, how is the narrator chosen? Is it always through agents with someone in mind, are several agents contacted and tryouts done, or is it sometimes a crew member? Most of the time it's kind of an afterthought. You'll go to an agency the company normally deals with and hire an actor through them. Most established companies will have an establihed relationship with a few actors they worked with before and got along with. Otherwide you give the agency a description of what you want, then listen through the demos of the people they pick out for you, and select the one you like best.
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Mar 5, 2015 04:45
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The Critterquest thread pointed me over here, so I'll chime in too. I haven't been working in the field as long as FURY, but I'm starting to to get some high profile clients for filming wildlife on California's far northern coast (Humboldt County and thereabouts). For now, my own work is mostly focusing on the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, so I've kind of developed a reputation as a bird guy. As FURY pointed out, this can be difficult to sell to the television side of the industry, but it's gotten me on board some neat projects covering wetland restoration around Northern California, and I recently had my first BBC gig as a camera operator for a segment on Steller's Jays in an upcoming Chris Packham series. I'm happy to answer any questions about bird/wildlife cinematography or the wildlife and ecology on the redwood coast, if anyone's curious. I also have a question for you, FURY: What kinds of cameras/lenses and underwater enclosures are you using for your underwater work, and what are some good information resources for someone looking to take a step up from using a GoPro for filming aquatic/marine life?
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Mar 16, 2015 23:17
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Moon Potato posted:I also have a question for you, FURY: What kinds of cameras/lenses and underwater enclosures are you using for your underwater work, and what are some good information resources for someone looking to take a step up from using a GoPro for filming aquatic/marine life? Howdy there Moon, please feel free to post any stories and experences! Always good to meet somone else in the business. Underwater rigs are always bloody tricky to work with. First of all, getting a watertight housing for our camera is ludicrously expensive, and one that is worth using is normally going to cost even more than the camera you're using it with. Factor in lighting and you can easily spend upwards of 20 grand for a broadcast rig. In the past i've worked with a few different setups, from gro-pros and a kitbashed DIY job for a handicam that was made of drainpipe and arcrylic. Professionally, I've used Sony Z1 and EX3 with nanoflash recorders, with Sea & Sea and Gates housings respectively. For lighter jobs I've been out with a 5D with an Aquatica housing. Unless you're planning to make a full-time career out of underwater shooting, I'd stick with renting equipment. Broafcast spec cameras are chaning all the time and investing in an UW rig can leave you high and dry once the channels decide they want differenct cameras to shoot their shows. Still, if it's for making your own stuff with the hope of selling it on afterward, a good compact solution would be a Panasonic GH4. 4K and broadcast spec out of the box, and while the housing will still be expensive, it's not quite remortgage-the-house expensive. Aquatica, Sea & Sea and Gates are solid, reliable brands. Avoid Ikelite - they're cheap, and there's a reason for that. As for lenses, stick with wides and macro primes, the faster the better. Workhorse lenses I've usedwith thr 5D are the 16-35mm f2.8 and the 100mm f2.8 macro. Hope that helps a bit. Some decent resources: http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/ https://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/254/the-basics-of-underwater-video http://www.amazon.co.uk/Underwater-...ter+photography What was your setup for the Jays, and how did you go about getting their behaviour? Also, was Packham on the shoot? I hear he's a nice guy.
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Mar 18, 2015 12:34
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I totally forgot to tell you that the Singapore wildlife documentary went to air last week. Website is here: http://wildcity.tv/ It has a few deleted scenes and making of's The show itself should be on demand, but I can't see it anywhere... Will post a link if I see it. You'll probably need a VPN to watch it.
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Mar 18, 2015 12:58
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Thanks for the info on underwater equipment.FURY-161 posted:What was your setup for the Jays, and how did you go about getting their behaviour? Also, was Packham on the shoot? I hear he's a nice guy. Most of the jays we filmed were ones that a Humboldt State University professor had been studying for years, so they were somewhat habituated (they would come to his feeder every morning for peanuts). We were able to film a good portion of what we needed in his back yard, but the one exhibiting the behavior the segment was focused on (imitating the call of a Red-shouldered Hawk) ended up mostly staying in some back yards across a small city park from where we were filming. We ended up having to bait it into the park with peanuts, then we were able to ID it by its leg bands and follow it until we got what we needed. After we got the shots that they wanted, the executive producer decided he really liked what we had filmed and that they would fly Chris Packham out to present the segment. We did two days of shooting with him, divided between presenting the jay segment, filming the introduction to the series in the redwoods and doing some filming on the coast to introduce and conclude other segments. Chris was nice, but he was super jetlagged and I was coming down with a nasty cold, so neither of us were really social butterflies. We did get to chat about bitterns and grebes and share a bit of our photography with each other at a local brewery while all our footage from the shoot was being transferred over to various drives, which was pretty neat. I was able to point him and the producer to a place where they could spot a bittern before they caught their flight the next day. They found one and were pretty excited about it. Our sound guy's girlfriend ended up being on one of the beaches below where we filmed the intro to a segment on orcas, and took this shot of us at work (we're in the upper left) 
Moon Potato fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 19:55
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Awesome thread. I grew up with Attenborough documentaries. My girl and I joke about getting either him or E. O. Wilson to officiate our wedding. I spent a little time in the field with nature documentarians. When I was working on my MS with alligator gar, I took some guy from California out but had no luck getting any on camera. I also was sort of colleagues with a few guys that were on the alligator gar episode of River Monsters. Apparently Jeremy Wade is a bit of a weirdo. FURY-161 posted: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. I'm starting to get things together to do some hobby-level nature videography. Nothing fancy, just for fun and a YouTube channel to dink around with, or stuff to send home to the family to watch. The thing is, I mainly want to do freshwater fish. You mentioned that nobody wants to see fish, and I've always noticed that over the years. It's a drat shame that there's nothing outside of Blue Planet really, and even that was extremely slim on freshwater stuff. There are some outfits that do incredible freshwater work, though, but not with any kind of tv distribution. Freshwaters Illustrated is the main group that springs to mind. These guys are kind of distant colleagues of mine, and have filmed some of my colleagues. I'm very briefly in one of their upcoming videos if that footage makes the cut. My plan is to rig my DSLR for underwater stuff and see where it takes me. I've done a lot of fish work and snorkeling in the Arkansas Ozarks and know where to find lots of awesome fish. I have a nearly non-existent budget, though. What are the absolute basics for rigging a DSLR for hobby-class underwater videography? I know a waterproof housing is key, but them shits is pricey, as you've pointed out above. What are some readily-available rigs that don't cost more than my camera? Are those DiCaPac bag-style housings decent? edit: Freshater Illustrated's Vimeo Channel. Watch their poo poo. HenryJLittlefinger fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Mar 23, 2015 |
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Mar 23, 2015 21:33
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Sad to say, but it's pretty much go big or go home when it comes to housing. Bags are next to useless for anything other than surface level work; they are difficult to see properly, a bitch to press buttons through, forget about manual focus, or indeed anything once it's compressed flush against the camera below 10m. Ikelite will probably be your best route, assuming they make a housing for your dslr. The only other thing I'd suggest for entry-level UW filming would be a gopro 3 or 4, which yield some pretty great quality footage for what they are. Whatever you end up getting, invest in some LED panel lights. They are vital for getting the colour back once you're down below the red attenuation zone. Get an articulated arm to avoid backscatter. Then you're pretty much good to go.
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Mar 24, 2015 12:31
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I'll mostly be doing stuff in wadeable streams, so above the red attenuation zone. Lights would be nice for lighting up cavities in rock and undercut ledges, though. I think I may just get a GoPro and keep the DSLR out of the water. I could buy another motorcycle with the cost of those housings. For thread content, and maybe you already talked about this, but where do you see the future of wildlife documentary going? Climate change has become part of pretty much every one I've seen since Blue Planet, so I imagine that'll be a mainstay. But how will the industry be able to stay engaging without going the route of "10 Most eXXXtreme" and that kind of pap? Also, can you talk about sound some? I came across some videos and interviews with Chris Watson, the guy who did the sound for a bunch of Sir Dave's series and wanted to know about how things work on the productions you've been a part of. Is the sound guy right next to you? Is he off recording his own stuff and then meeting up later?
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Mar 24, 2015 16:04
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What's your opinion on computer-animated dinosaur/prehistoric docs? I'm asking because it seems like with extinct animals, theories about behaviors can be revised and then make documentaries outdated. Also the visuals can become outdated really quickly.
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Mar 24, 2015 22:48
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Kanine posted:What's your opinion on computer-animated dinosaur/prehistoric docs? I'm asking because it seems like with extinct animals, theories about behaviors can be revised and then make documentaries outdated. Also the visuals can become outdated really quickly. Take raptor feathers for example.
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Mar 26, 2015 00:21
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Also, can you talk about sound some? I came across some videos and interviews with Chris Watson, the guy who did the sound for a bunch of Sir Dave's series and wanted to know about how things work on the productions you've been a part of. Is the sound guy right next to you? Is he off recording his own stuff and then meeting up later? I mentioned this in passing a little bit earlier, but for the shows I've worked on there simply hasn't been a sound man. In much the same ways that many journalists are expected to take photos for their articles in order to keep the costs down, camera ops or ther assistants tend to get tasked with getting field sound, usually with nothing more than the mic attached to their camera. It's a disgraceful state of affairs, and the race for the bottom in which commissioners want shows to be made more and more cheaply has created a posionous environment for sound ops. But let's assume you're on a BBC show with a massive budget and can actually afford a dedicated sound operator. Their role will be many and verious, depending on the filming situation. If there's something going on in front of the camera that requires simuktaneous recording of the action and sound, the sound op might well be much closer to the animals with the mic than the camera op to get the clearest possible sound. More often they will wait until the camera op is finished before recording a few minute of sound of the animal. If sound isn't crucial, or the animals is easily scared, they might have a day to themselves to get good sound covereage, but that isn't common. Most often, they'll just be getting wild track - general ambience for the editors to plug in under the main sound mix - which will be a couple of minutes that will be recorded either during or just after the cameras are rolling. From the few times I've done sound on shoot, the hadest par tends to be getting the crew to shut up. That an aircraft noise. Lord, how I loathe the miracle of flight when I'm trying to get clean sound. Chris Watson is a fantastic sound artist (and I mean artist), who just brings so much to whatever production he works with. He has released a few albums of his recordings and soundscapes, and you should really check them out if yo've not heard them. He's on spotify, and I highly recommend listening to "Stepping Into The Dark" with a good set of headphones to get an appreciation for the imageary that good sound recordings can counjure.
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Mar 27, 2015 12:52
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Kanine posted:What's your opinion on computer-animated dinosaur/prehistoric docs? I'm asking because it seems like with extinct animals, theories about behaviors can be revised and then make documentaries outdated. Also the visuals can become outdated really quickly. From a very mercenary point of view, the constant gains in knowledge from paleoentology are brilliant, as it means we always have an excuse to go back to broadcasters and get a new dinosaur show commissioned. But seriously, it just goes with the territory. We get discoveries all the time in all kinds of fields in biology; new species discovered, some go extinct, etc. Expecting your TV show to be a monolithic treatise to last forever will just lead to dissapointment. With luck, you get the opportunity to make something updated. As for CGI, we're pretty much at a point where nearly all the 3D animation on documentaries looks pretty ropey. We're not able to compete with the kind of budgets hollywood is able to command, so we rely on story most of the time, which is why things like the Walking WIth series got so melodramatic. I tend to shy away from 3D if I help it, because 9 times out of 10 it just doesn't look right. But on the other hand, it's really hte only way to address prehistoric creautres in the same way as we can with extant ones. SO if it keeps capturing people's imaginations, I don't see that approach chaning any time soon. Expect a raft of them to follow in the wake of Jurassic World.
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Mar 27, 2015 13:18
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