Random Shocking Facts About Nature Documentaries That Prove They Are Deceiving You (12 items)

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  (#2) Can’t Find A Zoo and Your Subject Is MIA? F*ck It, Just Use CGI

  The 2009 documentary Turtle: The Incredible Journey seems to follow one female turtle as she moves through the slow stages of life. The documentary’s hair-raising action and passionate tale of one turtle’s life got rave reviews, especially for a film classified as a documentary. 

  Of course, when prompted the film’s director not only admitted that a) it’s not the same turtle throughout the film, b) a lot of the film was shot in an enclosed tank, and c) computers were used to spice the film up.

  In fact, one special effects employee listed the following work on Turtle: “Besides final modeling and texturing and animation of three photorealistic 3-D hero turtle characters indistinguishable in every way from real turtles, I modeled textured and animated blue sharks and composited and supervised almost 100 photorealistic documentary realism shots.”

  To be fair, the CGI in these films is often so good that it can fool actual wildlife experts.
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  (#11) Not Showing Hyena Theft Is A Lie Of Omission

  No matter how unobtrusive a film crew attempts to be in the wild, they’re still stomping all over someone else’s neighborhood and, as a result, there’s inevitable interaction that goes undocumented.

  One of the most constant annoyances in the African wilderness, says filmmaker Sarah Peat, is the hyena. “The thing we have yet to outwit is a hyena, because they constantly nick our kit … They take the motion detectors and they took five trail cams … Hyenas just yank them out of the ground and take them off and play with them for a bit.”

  Why hasn’t the world been gifted that footage?
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  (#7) Documentaries, Sponsoring Animal Murder Since The Dawn Of The Camera

  Several wildlife experts (including the guys who did Wild Discovery) admitted to staging their action scenes, even at the cost of a wild animal’s life.

  In one example, a photographer for LIFE magazine once transported and unleashed a captured leopard on a group of baboons whose biggest crime was chilling out in the wrong place at the wrong time. After releasing the leopard, the photographer wrote, “most of the time the leopard would chase the baboons and they would run off and climb trees. I had photographed all this. But for some reason one baboon didn't get off. It turned and faced the leopard, and the leopard killed it. We didn't know that this was going to happen. I just turned on the camera motor, and I got this terrific shot of this confrontation.”
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  (#9) Most Of The Sounds Are Flat Out Fake

  The fact is, audio technology has only come so far in its time on the planet. Also, it’s actually super hard to mic a bear. As a result, to help the audience feel like they’re right their with the bear, the filmmakers might have to fudge the details.

  The world of fake sound effects is still alive and well, even in the world of nature documentaries. When you hear a bear slapping his paw into a stream or you hear the rustling of grass as a cheetah moves stealthily, that’s probably the work of a sound guy.
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  (#6) Nope, That’s Not The Inside Of An Ant Hill

  For photographers who get the semi-onerous task of filming insects in their natural habitats, there are some things the audience demands that simply aren't possible. 

  For example, when you see the inside of that wasp’s nest or ant hill, it’s likely a homegrown nest shot in a super controlled environment. Says cameraman Martin Dohrn, “Is it cheating? It is and it isn’t … If you want to film inside a nest, it's an important part of the story. You need to see how the queen is groomed by the workers. You couldn't possibly explain any behavior without that.”
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  (#12) Wait, CGI In A Nature Doc?

  It's pretty common for even the most well-done docs to use some sort of CGI. But the ones that do it right are open and outright about when they're using CGI to recreate something or graphics to enhance the story they're trying to tell. But not all nature documentaries are as honest.

  Simon Cade of DSLRGuide pointed out some documentary filmmakers can be sneaky with how they use CGI. While he doesn't hold it against them, it does seem troubling that a project priding itself on showing "raw" nature is using CGI technology in questionable ways.

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