Re: Making nature natural

[P3D Marvin Jones <72657.3276@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Some of these "nature" shows are currently being roundly criticized for these 
> filmmaking/production processes, which can deviate quite far from what is
natural 
> and at best represent a recreation or depiction. Only recently have they been 
> compelled to started coming clean and tell us if events were staged or
recreated.
> 
I think you are being much too demanding about "reality." Never in the history
of film has there been, or can there be, a "natural" nature film. It would look
like Andy Warhol's "Empire." The minute someone chooses to point their camera
here rather than there, or the minute someone takes this piece of film and that
piece of film and splices them together, "nature" has been manipulated, in order
to be made into something that an audience would be interested in sitting down
and watching for an hour. The old days when the good people at Disney would nail
an eagle's feet to a branch so he wouldn't fly away, or incinerate a thousand
squirrels to get a forest fire scene are long gone, but every single moment of
every single nature show you watch is entirely manipulated by the filmmakers.
However I don't think, as you seem to suggest, that this is something sinister
or duplicitous. There simply is no other possible way to create a "nature"
documentary that wouldn't involve 18 hours of watching a lion snooze.


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