In 2003, my husband and I were fixers to Nick Upton, a BBC-trained
producer of nature films. We helping him and his camera men work with
Taiwan's scientists and local people to produce the film 'Typhoon
Island.' To this day, I think this film is the best introduction to
Taiwan's geological and ecological diversity. The scientists acting as
advisers were most pleased with their interactions with Nick (who
actually read their papers) and with the scenes portrayed in the film.
On some of his other films, Nick even managed to film behavior that was
suspected but not yet observed.
Almost all the herp shots and night shots were filmed on constructed
sets in labs. Many of the close-ups were filmed in Taipei Zoo. Many of
the mammal shots were of animals raised in captivity since they were
young. Even so, the animals do what animals do. Other than trying to
get frogs to hop at certain times and snakes to slither in certain
directions, hiding raw chicken meat in rotten logs, and offering
branches laden with acorns to captive bears, there wasn't much in the
way of training or manipulating the animals. There is, however, a great
deal to be said for careful editing, especially for scenes that appear
to portray close calls between predators and prey. No animals were hurt
in the making of the film, but the film crew were nearly sucked dry by
mosquitoes and during one on-scene outdoor shoot a skink escaped
captivity, managing to return to where it had been originally captured.
This film has been enormously enjoyed by all age groups in Taiwan. I've
shown it to my undergraduates every semester, because they have such a
poor understanding of their own country's wildlife and environments.
Taiwan's own wildlife photographers, however, have been almost uniformly
critical of the film. Many of them have spent years in the field and
never seen some of the things Nick documented. Nick was accused of
using computer graphics, of training animals, and of filming animals and
places outside Taiwan.
As someone who has spend years trying to observe a rare species in the
field, I can understand the complaints of Taiwan's own photographers.
They spent years trying to film the animals in the wild. Nick, who
spoke no Chinese, spent <6 months in Taiwan, sometimes filming in the
wild, sometimes filming in the zoo or lab, but always filming in a way
most likely to get the shot for the story he was trying to tell. My own
experience is that even when filming animals in the wild, it's hard to
say the animals are truly untouched or unaffected by humans. A little
documentary made by a Taiwanese photographer of my own study species,
Taiwan's mikado pheasant, was mostly filmed in my study site, used
blinds constructed by my research team, and featured animals I had
watched and followed for over two years.
The most important thing I have learned about nature filming is that
when film crews and scientists cooperate, great things can be done and
stories can be told accurately and well. Nick did his homework, finding
out from scientists and local people the times and places where things
were most likely to happen.
CL
who has no problems with hiding jelly beans in carcasses for grizzlies
to find or imitating splashing sounds, who liked the few Steve Irwin
shows she saw, but who has been unimpressed with Bear Grylls type of
man-vs-nature films where the narrator psychs himself up to harassing an
animal.
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Cara Lin Bridgman [email protected]
P.O. Box 013 Shinjhuang http://megaview.com.tw/~caralin
Longjing Township http://www.BugDorm.com
Taichung County 43499
Taiwan Phone: 886-4-2632-5484
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