Chris Palmer has seen entire forests in Montana and Wyoming laid bare by loggers.

The devastation left the animals on the mountainsides stunned and confused.

In the Florida Everglades National Park, he witnessed human destruction in another of one of nature’s habitats.

Palmer decided he wanted to show these troubling images to everyone and his solution was to make wildlife documentaries.

‘We feel pretty confident that films, if they’re created well, do have an impact on people. We think films on conservation need to be part of the general campaign,’ said Palmer, who has produced Oscar and Emmy-nominated documentaries.

Palmer, whose documentaries now appear in IMAX theatres and on TV, talked about his work Wednesday at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The wildlife film producer gave a short presentation on making his documentaries, and shared behind-the-scenes secrets about what a successful film is in front of about 40 people in the Marshall Hall auditorium.

Making a documentary with animals requires patience. And plenty of it. Wildlife is unpredictable and cost is high to keep the cameras rolling. The average cost of an IMAX documentary is about $10 million. It can take up to seven or eight years to finish.

‘This is typical of wildlife filmmaking. You spend about a week working for 30 seconds,’ of film, he said. ‘It’s very frustrating. You can spend days getting useless information.’

While filming ‘Whales’ off the coast of Hawaii, Palmer went to tremendous lengths to get the shots he needed.

The humpback whales were frightened of bubbles from the divers’ scuba tanks. In order to keep going, his cameraman Al would just hold his breath.

Al would stay underwater as long as possible then drop the camera and race to the surface. The camera was rigged to be buoyant enough to come up as well.

‘We would first rescue the camera and then we would rescue Al because the camera was worth more,’ Palmer said.

Other times, the animals wouldn’t cooperate at all and he resorted to buying stock footage, like he did for ‘Wolves.’ He found it impossible to shoot the wolves in the wild. Palmer also didn’t want to make the wolves too comfortable around humans, making them easier targets for would-be hunters.

Editing the films also can be a strenuous process. Elaborate prey-hunter scenes are shot out of continuity, and the hunter frequently fails to capture his prey, he said.

After the talk, Katherine Perti, a junior history major, discovered that a lot of wildlife filmmaking isn’t what it seems. She said what struck her most was how the sounds of the animals were added after the shoot. And how some of the sounds are fabricated.

‘The fact that someone’s arm being dipped in a basin was used for a grizzly bear drinking, that was interesting,’ Perti said.

Palmer told the audience he received a similar reaction from his wife. He recalled bringing home his grizzly bear documentary to show her. She was impressed with the scene where the bear stops at a creek to drink.

She asked Palmer how he managed to capture both the sight and the sound. Palmer told her the sound had been added afterwards and wasn’t the actual noise the bear made. He remembers her being shocked and a bit irked.

‘If you didn’t have that sound though, they’d tune into American Idol,’ he said during the presentation. ‘It’s very temping to take shortcuts. I’m afraid that’s the reality of wildlife films. I’m not particularly proud of it. It’s an area for debate and I think it should debate more often.’

Michael Kelleher, Director of Renewable Energy Systems at ESF and one of the people responsible for bringing Palmer, said he believes anyone who knows the ‘truth’ behind documentary filmmaking isn’t likely to take the movie’s message less seriously.

‘I think what’s good is that these films kind of have a balance of excitement and interest, Kelleher said. ‘I think people will come to appreciate ‘boring nature’ as well.’

Palmer said he isn’t afraid to use anything to get his audience involved with saving the environment. He’s used celebrity narrators in his films, from Patrick Stewart to Pierce Brosnan.

He chose to document wildlife and animals because people can connect with the creatures. It allows them to focus on the problem visually.

And Palmer isn’t dissuaded by what some may view as flaws in documenting wildlife. He has a clear purpose. He stated it again and again Wednesday.

‘The whole point of these films is to promote conservation,’ he said. ‘I don’t care about films. I care about what films could do to people.’

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on February 18, 2009 at 12:00 pm