The wide-angle perspective
Does anyone else here watch those spycam in the wild programs? They’re a BBC thing, shown here on PBS redubbed with a US narrator. (Why redubbed? I have no idea.) I always find them highly interesting and also always wonder if they’re any use to actual scientists or just a bit of entertainment for the rest of us. An article in Outside from last year seems to indicate it’s some of each.
The Spy series began 16 years ago when producer and director John Downer became the first filmmaker to capture life among a pride of lions. He did it by shooting from the point of view of a mobile rock, fondly referred to as Bouldercam. Spy Puffer Fish from his BBC One documentary Dolphins: Spy in the Pod, captured iconic footage revealing how dolphins deliberately get high on puffer fish nerve toxins by chewing on them.
This year’s program is the most ambitious the Spy series has taken on, according to Downer. Filming the 8,000 hours of footage for Spy in the Wild took three years and required the team to travel to 21 different countries, often staying within hundreds of feet of the wildlife they were filming day and night…
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These animatronics are engineered at the intersection of biology, zoology, robotics, and art, to ensure that the spy creatures are as life-like as possible. The team could make the spies move through remote control, and each spy was also equipped with infrared sensors that triggered movement if another animal came near.
Another thing I always wonder is about touch and smell. They may look convincing but how can they smell normal to animals? How can they feel right?
Producer Matthew Gordon, a trained primatologist, worked with Spy Langur in the field. More than filmmakers, the producers are “animal people,” says producer Rob Pilley—biologists, ecologists, and zoologists.
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The team never underestimates animals’ ability to distinguish real wildlife from spy wildlife, so design is meticulous. On spies with fur, like the langur pictured, a synthetic coat is punched hair-by-hair into the silicone frame. Out in the field, the team will go so far as to apply Vaseline to the creature’s eyes and nose to give them a realistic luster.
Spy Meerkat was the first to be created for the series. Meerkats are very territorial, so those that smell like outsiders are immediately unwelcome. Producers had to rub droppings collected from their chosen clan onto the spy in order to have any chance at success.
Ah! That’s what I was wondering. There’s a bit in the one I saw yesterday evening where a beaver sniffs a spycam beaver but the narrator doesn’t say anything like “spycam beaver was of course well saturated with waterproof beaver scent before release.”
Sometimes an animal would anoint their own smell onto the remote camera devices, as in the case of the Arctic wolves. The wolves would urinate and roll on the equipment, happily incorporating it into their territory, much to the delight of producer Philip Dalton. No pheromones were used during filming, but the spies often became masked in the smell of their environment as they became covered in dirt, mud, and dust.
The way elephant keepers smell strongly of elephant within seconds of starting the day. Why? Because those trunks go all over you first thing, nostrils first.
This new frontier of study has gained considerable support among scientists like anthropologist Jill Pruetz, who was shown footage of a spy chimpanzee in Senegal. She was astounded at seeing the apes so close. When researching in the field, Pruetz normally shadows the apes at a minimum distance of 20 meters away to avoid affecting their behavior by the transmission of pathogens. She felt that the wide-angle perspective of the remote cameras in the heart of the troop was valuable, as she had never seen the chimps looking quite so human before.
Behind the program is a big team of trackers and field guides, like Birutė Galdikas, who studies orangutans in Borneo and whose local knowledge proves useful when looking for certains types of behavior. Producers also consulted with scientists before deploying the spy into the wild to maximize success.
That’s the kind of thing I’ve been wondering about. Interesting.
Because American commentary needs to be high speed, gee-whizz and hyped up. British commentary is slower and lower-key with plenty of pauses, more like a Richie Benaud cricket commentary. Just go to YouTube and compare videos featuring David Attenborough with ones by Ze Frank.
Brits have been known to find the American style a bit grating. Presumably Americans fall asleep or change channel if exposed to the British style.
The American style is a bit grating. I’ve always loved watching David Attenborough.
I have never heard of this.
guest – I recommend it. It’s at least interesting and entertaining, and maybe somewhat informative.
Coel yes, but I’m not sure that’s the reason in this case. I think maybe the US commentary on this series is more arch, more cutesie, more jokey, rather than faster. At any rate it’s much too arch and cutesie for my taste. There’s even a maddening “playful” musical background for much of the episode I saw last night – UGH.
You’re dead right about gee-whiz though. That music was gratingly gee-whiz – turn it OFF. I did in fact mute the sound several times.
I was curious in watching an episode with a robotic whale, and I don’t now recall which species it was but I think perhaps it was a right whale. What I didn’t understand was that a mother found a robotic whale near her pod, and introduced herself with a series of clicks, and then introduced it to her calf. But I wondered why it was fooled since it hasn’t been programmed to respond in kind with it’s own clicks. Are whales that easily fooled? I was frustrated that the show didn’t even address this sort of question that would seem so elementary. I had a similar question about a robotic camera octopus, since they seem to communicate by shimmering colors through their chromatophores. The robot didn’t have any chromatophores that I could tell, so it coudn’t be programmed to simulate conversation, yet the octopuses accepted it as one of of their own.
David Attenborough is the most beloved Brit alive, and the nation will go into mourning when he finally dies.
His breathy voice with its pauses is much imitated. “We have here… the bloke who does not.. stand his round. … We observe him… withdrawing a little from the group… not meeting the eyes.. of those who have… already put their hands in their….. pockets.”
His nature programmes are magnificent, but I can no longer watch them. They all seem like elegies of what we are losing, and losing very quickly.
Mike, yes, I often have questions of that kind. Why isn’t it confusing to the gorillas that the spycam baby gorilla doesn’t respond to their vocalizations? PBS seems to assume that its audience is very dimwitted.
KBPlayer – same. I can’t listen to him at all now, his voice sounds so fragile.
The scientific study of animal behavior is interesting, but camera traps are also used by hunters, trappers, and fisherman as tools to locate and study animal behavior. Camera traps have also been integrated into remote control hunting. What people find entertaining is curious in itself.
@9 Fishermen, not fisherman, oops. Is fishermen sexist in the way mailmen is? Anglers?