Tricks Nature Documentaries Use to Attract You
Deep down, you probably understand that nature documentaries are not literal documentaries of real life events in nature. It turns out that many of the tricks and techniques used in Hollywood films apply to documentaries about nature – even if the footage is real.
If you are familiar with filmmaking and especially how documentaries are made, then many of the techniques probably won’t surprise you. But understanding the techniques used in the documentary will help you understand when what you are shown may not be exactly what happened. Director Simon Cade recently shared some of these tricks in a popular video that is gaining traction. For example, some methods include:
- Adding Sound Effects : Documentary filmmakers can only get close to the wild without being disturbed, which often means they can’t capture good sound with snapshots. Telescopic lenses are especially important in nature films, so they literally can’t record distant animal sounds. The corresponding sounds are added later, usually using clips created in the studio.
- Editing footage to showcase the scenario : Wildlife photography takes days, if not weeks or months, which means filmmakers have plenty of material to work with. They take all of that footage and together edit a sequence of events that didn’t actually happen around the same time to show you the full situation and story (like two men fight and then the winner leaves with a woman, for example).
- Storytelling : To draw you in, the documentary can be drafted so that you build a story in which you root for one of the animals shown (usually cute, furry) so that you get emotionally invested. Of course, some documentaries don’t talk about the predator’s children he must feed, or what happens if he doesn’t get food. Music is also often used to influence your emotions and the tone of what you watch, as in any filmmaking.
While there have been instances in nature documentaries where animals have been harmed or even killed, the most famous of them in a 1958 Disney production , the attitude and respect for animals has improved significantly. Some documentaries also create a studio habitat or other unnatural environment to capture footage that would otherwise be impossible (especially for very small creatures and stop-motion scenes).
Simon Cade’s suggestion that nature documentaries are “fake” is a gross exaggeration, but if you’re concerned about how editing and other techniques are used to influence the way you look at wildlife (especially predators) do your own research after watching documentaries. to learn more about the bad guys and their place in life.