Nature Filmmaking

[Tom Lowe]

Other than that, my friend Howard Hall wrote a very good answer for you here:

http://www.howardhall.com/stories/breakingin.html

I couldn't put it better.

Amazing article. I highly suggest that everyone read this, regardless of whether you have interest in underwater or not.

"...make no mistake, the only sincere form of flattery is a check."

Hahaha.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Oh and Meryem, I think we are in very different areas of filmmaking which is perhaps where our perceptions are slightly different - I've never really done "adventure films" - only commercials and blue-chip natural history, so I'm sure the barriers to entry are different. Gibby's advice and yours are probably far more appropriate in that field. I would agree that we should all encourage newcomers as much as possible. There is a severe lack of really good people, particularly in the high-end wildlife game.

This raises a very interesting point about what is the genre of "nature filmmaking" (Peter's original question)? I used "adventure film" only because that is the moniker of the film festival.

But there are all of these great film festivals -- the mountain film festivals in particular, Banff, Telluride, and this "Adventure Film" festival in Boulder are cross-genre festivals that incorporate mountain sports (climbing, skiing, etc. but also urban sports like parkour and slacklining), natural history -- the Ken Burns National Parks piece was the centerpiece at Telluride Mountainfilm this year, natural science, travel narratives, environmental and conservation films, wildlife filmmaking.

One of my panelists for this year's Adventure Film workshop is the DP of "The Cove" - certainly a wildlife film, a travel film, and a conservation film, but also a cross-genre piece that is being billed as a "eco-thriller" -- and probably one of the bigger success stories of the year.

There are the blue chip fests like Wildscreen and Jackson Hole that are able to sustain a focus on a single and specific genres, for the most part, because that fits the needs of the broadcasters. But there are whole other aspects to nature filmmaking and I think that, outside of broadcasting, the field is much broader and cross-genre.

We've worked with two different NSF-funded productions and done broadcast work for several sports organizations, and also worked on several conservation films, and several interesting commercial jobs that took me into unique landscapes (one in Bhutan) and I consider all of these forms of "nature filmmaking"

...more because of what I was doing, running around in the wild shooting, sometimes humans, sometimes landscapes, sometimes natural activities, etc. -- more so than because of the perceived genre.

Anyway, I'm saying too much - just that I think the genre of "nature filmmaking" is primarily only clear-cut in the blue-chip broadcasting world -- and everywhere else, there is a lot of genre mixing and multiple audiences, clients, and consumers who need these types of productions for a range of applications.

Oh, and - awesome article, Pawel - thanks for contributing it...

This is a very interesting discussion - thanks to all who are contributing...

 

[D'Arcy Foley-Dawson]

i personally would love to see more of this - well, as meryem points out, it is hard to fit it into the mould of a genre - nature filmmaking; exhibited in theatres. not being familiar with the american market i can only speak of my own, the very small australian theatrical market. pretty much the only place you can regularly go and learn about animals or nature in a cinematic environment is IMAX, and i think there's only two of them in australia, melbourne and sydney.

i genuinely believe that introducing children to more nature documentaries, at a younger age, and maintaining that exposure to wildlife as they grow up, is a necessary part of their education. it develops an interest in, fascination with, passion for the world around them in a way that the greatest works of traditional cinema can not/will not. i believe you can't help be fascinated by the way a pride of lions operate or the mysterious forms of life occupying our oceans, but a lot of people lose this fascination and sense of wonder as they age because they are conditioned to do so. or rather, they're conditioned to become far more interested exclusively in human affairs, often very banal expressions of this like reality television (where it seems the producers work very hard to remove as much humanity as possible from the final product).

i love the idea of being able to walk into a cinema just as i do now and having the same amount of choice but for exclusively nature films. obviously this still constitutes a niche market and you'd have to accept there's going to be a lot of noisy school kids there in great numbers, but it's a dream of mine. it would be a lovely 'palate cleanser' to always watching other humans pretending to be other people following a pre-determined narrative on the screen. just go and watch lions or tigers for a couple hours.

 

[mike holding]

D'Arcy
You are so right - kids should be exposed to this kind of entertainment instead of the unmitigated crap they are force-fed on at the moment. Getting people to actually do something about global warming today would have been SO much easier if we'd been properly educated on TV for the last 20 years, and the Planet would be better off for it. I'm sure all of us who make films about the natural world will continue to push hard to see this kind of film being part of the mix at any local movie theater - right now its a tough call, but the films I mentioned illustrate that the numbers can work if marketed properly. 'Earth' has grossed over $200 million to date - that's good box office, (especially for a "documentary"), by anyone's standards!

Can't wait to see "The Cove" - from what I have heard, this is exactly the kind of "crossover" film we should be pushing for.

 

[David Rasberry]

Watched Earth on PPV satellite the other night. Amazing beautiful film. Never showed up in the theaters around here though. 54 screens within 25 miles all playing the same 8 movies. What a waste.

 

[mike holding]

Hi David
Shame you missed it on the big screen - it launched in the USA in 1,800 theaters earlier this year- where are you based?

 

[David Rasberry]

Hi David
Shame you missed it on the big screen - it launched in the USA in 1,800 theaters earlier this year- where are you based?

Northwest SC,near Greenville. It probably did show here if it had that big a release and I just missed it. Would have only been here for a week most likely.

One of the personal projects I will do with Scarlet is document some of the impacts that global warming is having on the Southern Appalachians. The Blue Ridge mountains where I live are historically classified as temperate rain forest. We are in an unprecedented 10 year drought that has left the area nearly 25 feet short of its normal rainfall totals over that span of time.

 

[mike holding]

Nerves of steel

Nerves of steel

On revisiting the original question in this post, I remembered that a while ago I wrote a short piece for a book on wildlife filmmaking - for anyone looking at getting into this business, the first and last paragraph of that article would be our advice ...

---------

So you want to be a wildlife film producer. Why? Why would you want to get into a field of endeavour that requires monumental amounts of thankless work, 16 hour days, no weekends, rare holidays, endless haggling with boneheaded customs officials in seedy third-world border posts, inordinate amounts of trivial paperwork, bombardments of mosquitoes, hundreds of consecutive four o’clock wakeup calls, cold, heat, dust, rain, flies, snakes, mud, broken equipment, nights spent wedged in thorn trees surrounded by lions, waiting on deserted bush airstrips for rickety planes that don’t arrive? There seems to be no comfortable answer, and yet if you ask us to swap what we do for anything else, the retort would be a resounding “NO!”

----

Our ground-level entry advice would be this. Gain as much experience as you can, in as many aspects of any part of the film business as possible, in the shortest possible time. Never, ever, pass up an opportunity to learn, to gain new experience, however menial the task may seem. (We’ve done our time sweeping stage-set floors, making midnight coffee for cantankerous crews, washing cars, fetching pizza, you name it!) Don’t ever believe that wildlife filmmaking will be glamorous – it’s not. Don’t wait for lucky breaks – create them! If in doubt-just do it! Do anything legal to get yourself into a position where you can gather new skills. Work harder than everyone else - simple maths says that if you are prepared to work 16 hours a day, you will learn twice as much as those that settle back after an eight-hour shift. Diligence, patience, attention to detail, respect for experienced people, unquenchable enthusiasm, good humour, good manners and a passion for film are essential too. Learn skills outside the ambit of wildlife filmmaking - the gap between wildlife documentary and feature film narrows every day. Study fine art and literature and mythology and poetry and great movies – they will enrich your films. And perhaps most important - learn to love stories, story telling, and storytellers. It’s what you want to be.

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

Getting back to Peter's original question, I think, the most difficult part is to get started as Meryem suggested. A unique idea or contacts to people working already in the field may help there. Stilll, I guess some luck is also needed, but I like also to think that luck is the sister/brother of diligence. And when one gets a chance the key issue is to realize a well done job is the entry ticket for the next one.

The good thing is that cameras like Scarlet will open opportunities as getting started will not depend that much on funding.

 

[Liam Hall]

I like also to think that luck is the sister/brother of diligence.

The harder I work, the luckier I get. (G.Player).

 

[Myles]

One potential idea is to forget National Geographic, BBC etc. and define your own niche.

Somewhat intimidated by the challenge of getting my footage aired on TV, I've started working on educational wildlife DVD's for local primary schools. I'm also a primary school teacher with links to these schools - so I offer a comprehensive educational experience with workshops in the schools designed to respond to children's love of nature.

I get instant feedback from this experience, and really feel that I'm doing something valuable which extends my teaching and helps refine my film-making capabilities. Possibly getting footage aired on the Discovery Channel is equally rewarding (and surely better paid) - but for the time being I'm happy being directly involved with my (tiny) audience. It's also a great way to learn; children tend to give very honest feedback and they have loads of ideas. I'm also getting involved with the community in a meaningful way rather than working in isolation.

As to learning/networking, a few thoughts:

If you're in the UK, you could try a course at Wildeye. I took a sound recording course there with Chris Watson. They also organise sound recording trips to various international locations.
If you feel like heading out to South Africa, you could try a course Wildlife Film Academy. I've taken the course and would recommend it if you're a bit of a novice (as I am) and feel like spending some time in Kruger National Park and learning about the local (and ample) wildlife.

Although I haven't been to any yet (because I can't afford it), I'm told festivals are an excellent place to network. Wild Talk Africa - in SA, and Wildscreen (Bristol, UK) are supposed to be amazing.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Really? I find the folks that I know in this industry to be much warmer than this description, much more willing to help the other person get a leg up, if they have the will, the integrity, and the talent. Maybe that is just the community that I live in, but I hang out with a lot of these types of shooters, some of whom operate at the highest levels...

Every shooter that I know would agree that the pathway to being a good shooter is to shoot, not by making tea and carrying boxes. As long as you have access to a camera, any kind of camera, shooting is something that you can ALWAYS do in your own time, on your own dime, and learn to do better.

Mentorship is great, but if your mentorship consists of making tea and carrying boxes, then, I would say, you would be better off shooting anyway, hellooooo....

And - sorry for the delayed response, Tom, I just saw this thread again and didn't realize you had directed a question to me - but, yes, by "shops," I mean production companies - find the movies that you like, find out who makes those movies, track them down, and talk to them about what they do and see if you jive. We don't do Discovery or Nat Geo, like, say Serac Adventure or Sender Films in my area (usually once a shop starts down that road, then that is all they do...), but I'm shooting a Grand Canyon doc, editing a doc on Tibet, and shooting a sports documentary that will require traveling to Mexico. We get a lot--A LOT!-- of this type of work, but we don't put ourselves out as specialists in this niche - it is just who we are.

Some shops will be more open to this approach than others, but you'll figure out who you will vibe with, very quickly. I find that if you have some great work behind you, you have the true fire in the belly for your craft, and you know your stuff (and YOU definitely seem to...), then you will find good people, and they will find you.

Attend stuff like this, ask questions, and meet people:

http://redpinestudios.wordpress.com...lm-festival-outdoor-video-producers-workshop/

Better yet, find a similar festival near you, and organize one of these. I have met a ton of people in my filmmaking community from organizing this forum for the past three years. You meet the panelists, the audience members, you get your name out...and it is a bit of work, but it is also a lot of fun. When you give a little bit to your community, they begin to seek you out.

People here in Montreal anyway, are much nicer than that too if they know you respect them and are willing to give as much as you take.

One should not set out expecting to be treated like garbage, otherwise life might meet one's expectations.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

One potential idea is to forget National Geographic, BBC etc. and define your own niche.

Somewhat intimidated by the challenge of getting my footage aired on TV, I've started working on educational wildlife DVD's for local primary schools. I'm also a primary school teacher with links to these schools - so I offer a comprehensive educational experience with workshops in the schools designed to respond to children's love of nature.

I get instant feedback from this experience, and really feel that I'm doing something valuable which extends my teaching and helps refine my film-making capabilities. Possibly getting footage aired on the Discovery Channel is equally rewarding (and surely better paid) - but for the time being I'm happy being directly involved with my (tiny) audience. It's also a great way to learn; children tend to give very honest feedback and they have loads of ideas. I'm also getting involved with the community in a meaningful way rather than working in isolation.

As to learning/networking, a few thoughts:

If you're in the UK, you could try a course at Wildeye. I took a sound recording course there with Chris Watson. They also organise sound recording trips to various international locations.
If you feel like heading out to South Africa, you could try a course Wildlife Film Academy. I've taken the course and would recommend it if you're a bit of a novice (as I am) and feel like spending some time in Kruger National Park and learning about the local (and ample) wildlife.

Although I haven't been to any yet (because I can't afford it), I'm told festivals are an excellent place to network. Wild Talk Africa - in SA, and Wildscreen (Bristol, UK) are supposed to be amazing.

It sounds like you, in fact, have an enviable life.

 

[Christian Munoz D]

Wow! I don’t know how I pass over this thread!!

I think every key on this niche has been explained and very well from my fellow wildlife filmmakers. I just like to share some of my experience on this business.
Back in the nineties I was the only producer of “pure” natural history in Chile, my home country. I produced for some of the main shows on the Chilean television and I have my own Prime time show for two years. In 1999 I finished my first one-hour documentary out of my own pocket, shot on Super 16, Betacam, and miniDV for over a period of 3 years in the Atacama desert.

“Atacama: The Flowering Desert” was the winner of the Newcomer Award at the “Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival” and finalist at the “Wildscreen Wildlife Film Festival” among others. All the doors were open automatically (and Tom you will experience this yourself after the release of "Southwest Light")...I was invited to England to spend several weeks with industry professionals at Partridge Films, Anglia TV, BBC, Oxford Scientific Films. I did have the opportunity to meet great people like Mike Linley, Sean Morris, Andrew Buchanan, Sir David Attenborough, Hugh Miles and many others that help me with my career.

The main obstacle for me was living in Chile, too far away from the heart of natural history productions. For that reason I moved to the US in 2003 and start working and networking with professionals not only in wildlife filmmaking, also the film, TV and internet industry. Now I own a small production and post-production company here in Massachusetts and I am producing a wide range of projects from wildlife and features films to internet and music videos. All shot on my Red One and in a few months with my Epic-X :smiley:

 

[Steve Gibby]

Christian,

Thanks for explaining your nature production roots. Having recently worked in Chile with Red One, documenting Peregrine Falcons, I was way impressed with the many nature production options there - mountains, deserts, seashore - Chile reminded me completely of California in that regard.

I'd like to see your Atacama desert production. Part of our crew in this last Chile trip documented Peregrine falcons with Red One in the Atacama, before continuing the trip farther south to where we were at the time of the earthquake and tsunamis - in the coastal sand dune fields just north of Constitution.

All production work centers around networking. Essentially that's one of the things we're doing when we're here on Red User. I'll always be happy to network and form alliances with any of you here who work in nature and wildlife production - because those genres are my favorite of all the genres I work in! Another of my favorite genres to work in, which is very closely associated, is adventure travel. Aren't we all adventure travelers when we trek out into the wilderness to document nature and wildlife? Yes...

Have fun out there Christian, and the rest of you. Documenting the natural world for generations to come is a passion, and in my mind an obligation. In my opinion we don't necessarily have to be outwardly "green" in the scripting of our productions - the beautiful images we shoot inherently move viewers to want to do their part in preserving nature.

I never wanted to work in genres of production which simply entertain people - and I haven't. My goal is "edutainment", where the audience is simultaneously educated and entertained. Top quality nature and wildlife productions do just that - educate and entertain - and now they can be financially viable too, after the success of March of the Penguins, Planet Earth, etc.