Video: How Nature Documentaries Are Really Made

Industry April, 26 2017 Glib Savchenko

Simon Cade analyses Planet Earth II by the BBC to show how the creators of nature documentaries sometimes sacrifice accuracy to entertain the audience.

Simon Cade, a British video blogger who specializes in analysing how movies are made, posted a six-minute video, where he explained how the makers of nature documentaries deceive viewers by skilfully using sound and video editing, Digg writes.

First, Cade says that filmmakers use studio sound effects, then he explains how they turn tens of hours of footage into exciting and impressive scenes of fight and chase.

At the same time, Cade says that we shouldn’t accuse the authors of nature documentaries of lying. In his opinion, they are merely trying to entertain the viewers, by making the story on screen more interesting and intriguing.

The author of the video says there are two extremes, the first — showing everything exactly as it is. “Wouldn’t that just be a 24-hour live stream of nature? I couldn’t watch that for very long,” he says. “Of course, on the other extreme there are nature documentaries that have really misled the audience. Like using computer generated images without telling anyone. I think that BBC shows are pretty well-balanced between accuracy and entertainment.”