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Are the sounds in Planet Earth real?

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Shit like above is why I don't really enjoy documentaries anymore. Too much manipulation of the storytelling where the final result can hardly be considered "real" anymore.

No one wants to watch the thousands of hours of raw nature footage that they capture to make an hour long special though.

If you have ever spent time in forests, you would know that it's mostly boring. Even in tropical forests, animals arent constantly filling your view with cool displays.
 
Shit like above is why I don't really enjoy documentaries anymore. Too much manipulation of the storytelling where the final result can hardly be considered "real" anymore.

Thing is that animals, insects, and whatever else really don't like humans and they don't like weird shit like cameras and microphones. You go on location yourself to film something and the majority of the time everything will avoid you. You place a camera out in the wild and it will rarely film the entire sequence of anything of particular note happening. You will get a jaguar walking by if you are lucky but you won't get a jaguar stalking it's prey, making the kill, then eating it somewhere.

Nature shows always make it seem like a jungle is teeming with life at every turn but if you walk around in there EVERYTHING is going to see you before you see it and will go the opposite direction or continue to blend on so well that you don't notice it. That doesn't make for good TV. Even things that make a lot of noise like howler monkeys are very hard to spot even while they are howling.
 
Thing is that animals, insects, and whatever else really don't like humans and they don't like weird shit like cameras and microphones. You go location yourself to film something and the majority of the time everything will avoid you. You place a camera out in the wild and it will rarely film the entire sequence of anything of particular note happening. You will get a jaguar walking by of you are lucky but you won't get a jaguar stalking it's prey, making the kill, then eating it somewhere.

Nature shows always make it seem like a jungle is teeming with life at every turn but if you walk around in there EVERYTHING is going to see you before you see it and will go the opposite direction or continue to blend on so well that you don't notice it. That doesn't make for good TV. Even things that make a lot of noise like howler monkeys are very hard to spot even while they are howling.
Animals are so insecure, for real, sort out your self-esteem issues jaguars.
 
Every time you move around, you are your own personal foley artist.

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I dub this "The Most Underrated Post of March". Thank you for that haha.
 
If you like the textured, intricate audio backdrops made for these specials, I'd highly recommend checking out field recordings sometime! One of my favorite artists, Chris Watson, has some interviews and talks available where he details his recording techniques, which he then processes into soundscapes, utilizing sound sources from multiple locations to give an immense amount of depth to a scene. Obviously, the production itself is layered in such a way that tracks aren't 1:1 recreations of moments in time, but collages that represent an area within track time limitations.

His bandcamp is missing a few of his best albums, but Outside the Circle of Fire is a great place to start.
 
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