As discussed in the recent lecture on the 11th of October, I wanted to look into how Nature Documentaries were faked in order to seem more immersive and captivating, and how legitimate Dan and Darrins claims were.
At first, I looked at the standard news articles with headlines blaring “These are some sketchy ways nature documentaries are actually filmed”. It communicates that often animals are placed in artificial situations where a predator and prey event will take place, and often some seemingly natural curious animal behavior is faked by adding stimuli to peak the animals interest.
“To get a shot of a bear sniffing what looks like a fresh kill, filmmakers might place some jellybeans or M&Ms in a roadkill carcass to spark the bears’ interest. Often this is acknowledged in a credit at the end of the production.”
Even the use of Computer Generated Imagery was reported to have been used, as well as noises being added back at the studio. I wanted to know that this wasn’t all unsupported claims however, so I did some searching for more reputable reports. I found an extract from a book Chris Palmer, a Hong Kong born English environmental and wildlife film producer wrote about Steve Irwin, about how often presenters would be portraying animals in a negative light, and planting the idea that it was okay to provoke them, and create interactions hat can be “physical, confrontational, and extremely stressful for both parties. Chris talks about how Audiences are misled about the personalities that film producers depict them as. (1)
Jan-Christopher Horak talks about the moral dilemna, where humans simply see animals as subjects of interest, and how film and media can bring attention to the way that animals are being poorly treated. Horak goes on to explain the relevence of Nature Documentaries after the 1970’s, when the importance of the enviornment was realised and ecology of nature was endangered. Because of this, often Wildlife films were shown in a positive light, displaying complexity and intelligence, which was more difficult to do in the wild, especially because animals relied on the consumptions of other animals to survive. This meant that many of the animals were intentionally domesticated, and many shots were actually indeed unnatural. Movies like Animals Are Beautiful People (1974) were created, personifying animals and having them relate to a wide audience, and trying to connect with the audience emotionally. (2)
Wildlife film and photography do indeed bend the rules where necessary, simply due to the deadlines that are set for the film creators and directors, as wildlife capture is a tedious process that requires time and money that us busy humans just don’t have.
- Palmer. C, 2015, Confessions of a Wildlife Filmmaker: The Challenges of Staying Honest in an Industry Where Ratings Are King
- Horak, J.C, 2006, Wildlife documentaries: from classical forms to reality TV
