How are wild and sometimes dangerous animals in documentaries filmed so close and at so many different angles without noticing the camera operator?
In: Biology
Either incredibly precise lenses with amazing zoom to make it look way closer than it actually is, or remote cameras that are left unattended to collect footage.
they’re not so close. they use big ass zoom lenses. just because the shot looks like the lion fills up the screen doesn’t mean the photographer isn’t half a mile away.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLq-xHSgT5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLq-xHSgT5s)
What the first comment said ^ and also VERY brave photographers/videographers.
These guys will bury themselves in dirt/leaves, paint themselves with camouflage, have giant fake rocks/trees to hide inside of. Some even go as far as to create replicas of the animals they are taking photos of to hide inside of and blend in (like rhinos, see Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls for a hilarious, teensy tiny bit accurate example)
It’s all a lie. The government puts out “nature documentaries” to keep middle citizens like you content with their lives and to distract you from what’s really going on. It’s all high grade CGI not available to the public. You think lions and tigers are real? Ha! Wake up!
/s
I’ve worked on camera and off-camera on various nature docs and I have a lot of friends and acquaintances in the business.
Most of what you see has been faked in one sense or another. Captive or acclimated animals are filmed. There are wolves in a 20 acre enclosure that you can either film or buy footage of. Tearing road-kill apart and looking very wild. There’s a whole book on wolves that National Geographic sells which was photographed this way. It is very easy to keep the fence just out of the shot.
There are exceptions. What the Jouberts do is amazing, and it takes sitting there for months filming stuff. That is rare.
Read “Shooting in the Wild,” by Chris Palmer for a really detailed description of how most of what you have seen in documentaries was faked.
I will say that I have guested on “Bizarre Foods” with Andrew Zimmern and while I banked pigeons and snails in advance for us to cook and eat, we didn’t fake anything and I was never pressured to fake anything.
This video is about a camera man attempting to video tape a Canadian lynx.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HujyOjjpZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HujyOjjpZY)
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