Making nature documentaries: scripting then filming or the other way?
In nature documentaries, do the crews agree on a general script then set out to film the scenes that illustrate the script? Or do they film what they can (animals / weather don't always cooperate, etc) then, at editing, see what script is supportable given the footage?
If possible, I prefer please answers about the making of an actual nature documentary.
Best Answer
This article is a very interesting read on nature documentaries.
It seems that yes, generally, a nature documentary does at least some scripting first. For example, on the BBC's documentary series 'The Hunt':
The Hunt took three years to film; the beautiful sequence of a blue whale eating krill took two years. The first year, the water was too murky for any of the footage to be usable.
From this source on the making of Planet Earth and Planet Earth II:
Anderson, a part-time mountaineer, had been one of the crew who, 10 years ago in the mountains of ?Pakistan, captured on video a snow leopard hunting — the first ever footage of its kind — for the first Planet Earth. For the sequel, he was expected to pull it off again, this time tracking down those rarest of central Asian predators in the mountains of Ladakh in India.
Also, for less big productions (from the first article again):
Small budgets and limited time mean that filmmakers use captive animals for hunts, chum waters to send sharks into feeding frenzies, and otherwise sensationalize footage, giving audiences a false impression of animal behavior.
I also once watched 'Wilde dieren in Wildlands', a making of a nature documentary made by a Dutch Zoo. Here, they had a very clear idea of what they wanted to film: leaf-cutter ants transporting leafs and naked mole-rats huddling together for warmth amongst others. It was interesting to see how the cameramen would go about staging such shots. Again, this confirms that the general idea about which shots to include comes first, and the actual trying to film those shots latesr.
Pictures about "Making nature documentaries: scripting then filming or the other way?"
How do you structure a nature documentary?
How to write a successful wildlife documentary storyHow do you write a documentary script before shooting?
Here are 7 steps on how to write a documentary script:Do you write scripts for documentaries?
Much like a narrative film, any type of documentary you make will require its own documentary film script.What is documentary scripting?
As the name implies, documentary scripts are generally long-form. They contain anything from roughly 300 words (2 minutes when read at a normal pace) to 7500 words (50 minutes when read at a normal pace for a TV documentary). Documentary voice over scripts are mostly written with video in mind.How To Make A Wildlife Documentary
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Answer 2
Well there is only so much you can plan ahead.
Just look at David Attenborough's experience with baby gorillas.
There is a youtube video of him and the crew thinking back to that time. I think it more or less speaks for itself:
You can plan to get close, you can plan to be accepted by the gorillas. The rest is up to the gorillas.
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