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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 |
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Feb 12, 2015 04:30
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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 |
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Feb 12, 2015 11:42
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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.
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Feb 13, 2015 10:15
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Adequate Panther posted:Have you ever had any dangerous/life threatening encounters while shooting? 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 |
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Feb 13, 2015 15:33
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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? 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 |
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Feb 13, 2015 16:00
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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. 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 |
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Feb 14, 2015 02:50
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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.
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Feb 15, 2015 02:51
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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 |
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Feb 15, 2015 03:07
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Desmond posted:This is a cool thread. 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.
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Feb 18, 2015 08:02
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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 |
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Feb 18, 2015 08:20
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Slo-Tek posted:What have you seen that was awesome that didn't turn out on film? And for why? 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.
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Feb 18, 2015 08:50
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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.
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Feb 20, 2015 02:40
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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.
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Feb 20, 2015 03:42
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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.
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Feb 20, 2015 03:48
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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.
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Feb 20, 2015 04:08
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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...
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Feb 20, 2015 04:12
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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. 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.
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Feb 20, 2015 09:41
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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.
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Feb 20, 2015 10:06
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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