It was a bit unsettling to see a crocodile occupy the same several square meters of ocean where I’d swam only a few days before. The croc must have been over ten feet in length and appeared suddenly and silently in the surf near the beach. He was probably chasing after a morning meal of…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Discovery Channel’s reluctance to air the climate change episode of the Frozen Planet series–an episode they helped fund. I asked that we label this act ‘unsustainable nature filmmaking’ because Discovery had failed to use its bully pulpit to protect the species that feature heavily in its films. An…
Filmmaking, like any other craft, is best learned by doing rather than reading. The reason? You need to fail–a lot. Along the way, you learn the tricks to overcome the many obstacles thrown at you throughout the filmmaking process. As someone once told me, at its heart, filmmaking is “an exercise in creative problem solving.”…
On Tuesday the Daily Mail reported that the Discovery Channel will not broadcast the final episode of the popular Frozen Planet series in the U.S. Why? Because the show deals with climate change, an emerging threat to animals living in the subzero regions of our planet. Apparently, Discovery thinks this topic will offend the political…
In the last chapter of his book In the Blink of an Eye (Viking, 2001) film editor Walter Murch explores the possibilities inherent in the digital future of film editing. He predicts film editors will be able to manipulate moving images in much the same way sound editors manipulate many layers of sound: Up until…