Posts tagged "documentary"

Polar bears aren't just smarter than the average bear; they like their privacy too. As BBC cinematographers learned in the video above, just because you've cleverly disguised spy cameras as icebergs, snowballs, etc., that doesn't mean you're going to get footage of a polar bear's most tender and candid moments.

"Of all the subjects ever filmed by spy cams, the polar bear has shown the greatest curiosity and intelligence," explains a narrator from the BBC's upcoming documentary "Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice." As the BBC crew struggled to capture the polar bears in their natural state, the crew's hidden cameras faced a life-and-death struggle of their own.

Designing the spy-cams to withstand the punishing, arctic conditions of the Svalbard Islands, engineers may have underestimated the abuse that a nosy polar bear can deal out. In one clip, the BBC's "snow-cam" was destroyed by a curious young male. In another, a different young male, mystified by the mobile camera setup, chases down the crew's ski-mounted "blizzard-cam."

As clever as these spy camera designs are, the bears seemed to recognize that something weird was up. Next time, researchers might want to try a different approach, as these super-curious bears aren't easily tricked. On the upside, the BBC narrator notes, the polar bear's intense curiosity is perhaps the species' "best hope for the future."

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Sometimes, good friends like to give each other baths. But get your mind out of the gutter -- we're just talking about interspecies animal pals, like Hoppy the deer, who likes to make sure his feline friend, Tiptree, is clean as a whistle.

Hoppy himself is an especially worshipped creature. He was found abandoned as a fawn on the doorstep of loving couple, Tony and Amanda. There's even a documentary about him! So let's celebrate Hoppy, not only for his being in the care of a caring couple, but also for his kinship with that sweet tabby!

A group of chimpanzees at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland have been handed special cameras in order to capture footage for a BBC2 nature documentary called "The Chimpcam Project," playing across the pond.

After Primatologist Betsy Herrelko came up with the idea, each of the eleven furry primates was handed -- wait for it -- a Chimpcam (housed inside a box for protection) in order to record as much of a first-hand portrayal as humanly possible, documenting their lifestyle in an eighteen-month-long study for the two-part series.

Stars of the doc include Cindy, Ricky, Emma, David, Kilimi, Kindia, Liberius, Lucy, Lyndsey, and Qafzeh, all of whom we like to think are famous enough to not need last names. (Also, they're chimps).

Just over four years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and left a path of devastation. The displacement of families was one tragedy, while the staggering number of abandoned pets was another. "An American Opera: The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever" is the story of what happened to those animals when everyone fled. But don't worry -- there are smiles among the tears.

Paw Nation chatted with director Tom McPhee, who filled us in on his motivations, the biggest challenges he faced in making his multi-award winning film, and which part of the documentary still makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

McPhee didn't originally go down to Louisiana for the animals. "I had just wrapped up a job and was starting to plan for a new one, but after the storm hit and I heard Mayor Nagin fall apart, I realized, 'I don't have to do this next thing tomorrow,'" the director tells Paw Nation.

He headed south and wound up in Gonzalez, Louisiana, at the Dixon Expo Center. "There were probably 2,200 refugees, but they'd been there for a while already," says McPhee. "There was every emergency group you could imagine there, and they had it under control."

That's when McPhee heard a sound that would change his life.

"There was this rumble growing, and it got louder and louder. It was the dogs on the other side of the facility," recalls McPhee. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of lost pets barking, crying, and generally looking very confused as they were brought in by volunteers, one by one.

"In that moment, I knew this was why we were there. It was like a huge flash of light, and it gave me a defined purpose. I could clearly see how this would take the next three years of my life," McPhee recounts. The director, who had a camera on him, began photographing every animal that came through the facility in order to create a database of lost pets hoping to reconnect with their owners.

Cat ladies get a bad rap and an upcoming documentary doesn't help break the stereotype of spinsters and their unhealthy relationship with cats.

Cat Ladies is a one hour glimpse within the litter-filled lives of four women who surround themselves with furry felines. As the movie's site says, "It's not the number of cats that defines someone as a 'cat lady', but rather their attachment, or non-attachment, to human beings. They create a world with their cats in which they are accepted and in control -- a world where they ultimately have value."

Ontario's TVO is scheduled to screen the movie Wednesday September 23 at 10pm and Sunday Sep 27 at 10:30pm.