Film on Nature

Introduction

A documentary film or series on animals, plants, or other non-human living things is known as a nature documentary or wildlife documentary. These films often focus on material captured in the subjects' natural habitats, although they also frequently feature footage of trained or captive animals. Occasionally, they discuss ecosystems or wildlife in connection to humans. The majority of the time, these films are produced for television, especially public broadcasting networks, while some are also produced for the big screen. This genre spread practically concurrently with the creation of internationally disseminated television shows that followed suit.

History

Most people credit Robert J. Flaherty's 1922 feature-length documentary Nanook of the North as the first documentary film. Many years afterward, Walt Disney Productions initiated the practice of releasing nature documentary in serial form in theaters by producing the True-Life Adventures series, which consisted of fourteen full-length and short-length nature films produced between 1948 and 1960. Among the most notable were James Algar's written and directed films The Vanishing Prairie (1955) and The Living Desert (1953).

The first full-length nature-documentary films pioneering colour underwater cinematography were the Italian film Sesto Continente (The Sixth Continent)-1976 and the French film Le Monde du silence (The Silent World) Directed by Folco Quilici Sesto Continente was shot in 1952 and first exhibited to Italian audiences in 1954.The Silent World, shot in 1954 and 1955 by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle, was first released in 1956.

David Attenborough starred in the BBC series Zoo Quest, which debuted in 1954. Additional early nature documentaries include Look, a studio-based BBC magazine program with filmed inserts that Sir Peter Scott hosted from 1955 to 1981, and Fur and Feathers, which aired on CBC from 1955 to 1956 and was hosted by Ian McTaggart-Cowan. The French director Haroun Tazieff's color segment "Volcano" marked the premiere of BBC2's inaugural 50-minute weekly documentary series, The World About Us, in 1967. In 1982, the show's name was changed to The Natural World, and as of 2018, the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol was still producing it. Anglia Television debuted the first installment of the critically acclaimed Survival series in 1961.

El Hombre y la Tierra (The Man and the Earth), a Spanish nature documentary television series produced by TVE and hosted by naturalist Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, ran on 35 mm film from 1974 to 1980. This faced substantial logistical and technological hurdles at the time. The program became well-known around the world.

Many other television networks established their own specialized natural history departments in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Two of these networks are still in operation today; TVNZ's unit in Dunedin, New Zealand, changed its name to "NHNZ," and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Melbourne, Australia, established its own in the same period. Survival, ITV's offering to the genre, grew into a successful single-film series. Eventually, it was dropped when the network unveiled a contentious new schedule that a lot of pundits called "dumbing down".

One of the most significant sources of information about the natural world for modern culture is the proliferation of wildlife and natural history documentaries. However, most film and television reviewers and academics have overlooked them.

Similar to earlier environmental documentaries, the BBC television series Walking With, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, employed animatronics and computer-generated imagery (CGI) to show prehistoric life. Three offshoot series were produced from the original series; Nigel Marven: Chased by Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters: A Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy were two of them. Walking with Cavemen was given by Robert Winston.

There has been debate on the "naturalness" of wildlife documentaries. Some, especially those with animals, have shown video of "natural"-looking incidents that were either produced or created by filmmakers that took place in confinement. In a well-known instance, the filmmakers of Walt Disney's White Wilderness (1959) herded lemmings to their death down a precipice. Examples of these approaches may also be found in contemporary wildlife documentaries, such Blue Planet II (2017) and Hidden Kingdoms (2014). Owing to the challenges associated with site sound recording, sound effects libraries and Foley recording are frequently used in film post-production by nature documentarians. Shots are occasionally created using computer-generated graphics and compositing. Since  filming wild animals sometimes takes weeks or months, the footage must be edited to create the illusion that the story is happening quickly. In order to maximize the audience's engagement with the material, these storylines are also designed to be as engaging as possible—rather than necessarily as a mirror of reality—and frequently include voice-overs in conjunction with powerful, emotive music.

The idea that wild animals may survive and even thrive after coming into contact with predators, even if they suffer potentially fatal injuries, is a criticism leveled at nature films. In addition, they try to minimize the suffering that an individual animal experiences by drawing attention to ideas like the "balance of nature" and "the good of the herd" or by avoiding discussing extremely violent interactions.

Notable Environmental Films

Most nature documentaries are made for television and are usually of 45 to 50 minutes duration but some are made as full-length cinematic presentations. Some of them are:

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
The Vanishing Prairie (1955)
Animals Are Beautiful People (1974)
The Leopard Son (1996)
Winged Migration (2001)
March of the Penguins (2005)
Sharkwater (2007)

Environmental documentaries are often made in the form of short films that are then shown on television or in cinemas. They frequently address the interaction between people and the natural world. Some examples are:

Taiga Life of Agafia (2013)

Canyon Grande (1958)

In 1950, in Beaver Valley (A 45-minute video titled "The Land" was produced in 1942 for the US Department of Agriculture).

The UK's Wildscreen Trust in Bristol hosts the Panda Awards for environmental documentaries every two years.