Sunday, April 18, 2010
The fake nature documentary that spawned myths
Douche recently brought up this video:
Because the above clip is obviously staged (note the convenient camera placement in the water cave) I did some detective work, and apparently it is from controversial and at least partly staged 'documentary' Animals Are Beautiful People. However the technique in the clip might be a valid way of trapping monkeys, but I can't find any firm sources.
This documentary also produced the famous drunk animals video, sadly this also seems to be a myth according to various sources (1, 2).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Good work anyway, because it's not a reliable source any more.
I'm also still somewhat torn either way.
The BBC isn't known for staging animal footage like that. AFAIK their nature docs usually film animals just doing their thing, this is also evident if you watching "making of" BBC docs.
I can image they paid a bushman to act in their story. The director wasn't a documentary maker before or after this film. Made mostly adventure/comedy/drama.
The watering hole even looks like a studio. Also it might be a trained baboon because real ones are fucking scary, aggressive and have huge biting teeth.
Staging animal footage like what? The BBC does not hire bushmen to do tricks like that. But the BBC does use all kind of "tricks". It, for example, has a camera attached to a snake climbing a tree, while the zoomed-out shot of the snake climbing the tree does not show the camera. This, of course, does not mean that snakes don't climb trees.
The last making of I saw was a clearly staged time-lapse. The BBC is also accused of using zoo animals in the Blue Planet, staging a cobra encounter and Attenborough used zoo footage of a polar bear birth. http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/cruelcamera/fakery.html
Their stories are still true though, but not all filmed at the same time. They combine a lot of material from different events to show one event, which is often quite clear. I don't care as long as they don't tell lies.
Like intoxicating elephants and maybe the other bush creatures with alcohol. Burning a huge weaver birds' nest. Or were they just lucky to witness the drop that sets of a very rare event.
I love the lemming part of that link you posted. I knew about, but it always makes me laugh. A documentary maker throwing lemmings of a cliff...
Ha, they also set fire to a nest?! Very unlikely to occur naturally.
The suicide lemmings are a classic :) I would love to see the making of.
Post a Comment