El 0-5 Colombia vs Argentina y las elecciones presidenciales 1994-1998

"Flying birds are filmed from model aircraft, parascenders and moving vehicles. Lions are tracked by specially developed camera buggy disguised as an animal. Periscopes and probe lenses, fibre optic light guides, miniature and remote cameras all become normal tools of the trade. Time lapse and high speed cameras are used as never before; and x-ray, infra-red and ultraviolet cameras are brought in from the fields of medicine. To further help the viewer experience the sights, sounds and impressions of the sensory worlds of animals, a new form of video effects has been devised to replace conventional graphics, and the sound track is specially treated. Even the title music is composed entirely of animal sound" (Press Release:Supersense).

As soon as you start watching an episode of Supersenseit is clear that you are in a new arena for natural history film-making. Gone are the clear titles of Life on Earth with their assured, confident, yet staid graphics of global unity; in its place we have an equally positive, yet more impressionistic, sequence of animal metamorphosis and video effects, overlaid by modern music. The series opens not with the usual introductory shots featuring David Attenborough on location and in camera, but with a taste of what is to come. We begin by flying alongside birds over a gaudy fairground. We enter into the scene through a variety of senses and different animal guises, moving beyond an assured naturalism, into a sensory realm, to look at the world and ourselves through the senses of other animals aided by expressive graphics, point of view shots, dramatic sequences and unusual camera angles. Thus begins the dizzy journey through the sights, sounds, scents, time perceptions, sixth senses and psychology of the animal kingdom. Drawing upon new developments in animal neurology and psychology, as much as natural history, through stories which take us into the heart of how the world is experienced by animals the programmes extends the perceptions of what it means to be human. The programmes are narrated by Andrew Sachs27, but it is the pictures that dominate. The series is a roller coaster ride of moving cameras, time lapse and slow motion, wide angle close-ups, tight

27_{Despite his prominent position in British sitcom mythology playing the waiter Manuel in the series} Faulty Towers, Andrew Sachs voice-overs are distinct for their lack of character association which has enabled him to contribute narratives to a variety of documentary projects.

editing, punctuated by the occasional atmospheric shot as the sun burns through the top of the frame. Overlaid are a series of graphic effects that destabilise the images, transform our perceptions, render the invisible visible, and add drama, tension and hints of science fiction. Behind the scenes are a series of further innovations involving specially adapted lenses, electronic cameras, electronic switching, complex sets and habituated animals.

Tying these developments together into a series was the director and producer John Downer, aided by assistant producers Mark Jacobs and Nigel Marven, and a team of researchers and cameramen. Together they took a number of trends and techniques, which they developed into the style of Supersense. The technology John Downer used was not new, but had been pioneered in feature films and adverts and used in individual natural history films, but as something of an oddity. The contribution of John Downer was to take these elements and incorporate them into the series as a self conscious and visually dramatic style which owed as much to the conventions of the cinema, as to that of existing natural history films. Supersense brought these technical developments together in such a way as to make them into a new way of looking at nature, and a different way of inscribing nature in the networks of natural history films.

Firstly, Supersense involved new technologies which allowed the processes of inscription to move away from the naturalistic association of film cameras with scientific processes, and to use a new flexibility provided by video technology. Compared to the indexical quality of film, which results from a photochemical reaction, the electro-magnitisation of video can be endlessly manipulated and recycled. Whereas film can be constructed to stand in for the detached observer of science, the lack of historical association of video with science, and the ability to manipulate footage makes this more problematic. One result of the development of video was the ability to use new lenses for macro photography. So-called straight scopes and periscopes could be used to enable wide angle close-ups shots, which give intimacy to shots of small animals and insects, and allow both foreground and background to be held in focus. These lenses are very consumptive of light, and not suited to the high light demands of celluloid film, but were effective with video's sensitivity to lower contrast. These lenses construct a new relationship between foreground and background, observer and observed, as well as opening up new dramatic possibilities, whereby the viewer is encouraged to enter the world of unusual animals. Gareth explains how this works:

"You have a lens which is effectively a wide-angle lens which is very, very close to the animal. That means everything's in focus. So you might be looking at a grasshopper but you can see there was a mountain in the background. [...] If you get a straight scope onto a chameleon then suddenly this chameleon towers above you. As it comes towards the lens, because it’s like a wide lens, it distorts a bit, and you feel like this chameleon is right on top of you and is going to eat you. It looks like a dragon. So it's also a visual trick, changing perspective. It makes small animals look big and impressive and in their habitat" (Gareth, interview 11.7.95).

Supersense'sdistinctive style also relied on the point of view shot, a camera angle that apes the view point of the animal, that can be inserted into sequences to heighten drama. It is an established part of film grammar that had been notably absent from the lecture format of natural history where the viewer is always in the position of observing the animals. The viewers looks through the eyes of animals at themselves. The purpose of this shot is a dramatic one:

"Hitchcock uses point of view shots quite often. It's quite a common technique in cinema. You know, like where you are walking into a room and you are the person. It's a great thing for making people relate to the subject of the film. Making them more scared in Hitchcock because you feel you're there and you're getting into the shower and you're about to be knifed or whatever. [...] They're very powerful because you can make people, you know, empathise with a snake going along in the grass and this great big bird comes towering over it and grabs it. It’s just a way of drawing people in and make them get into the world of the animals that you are filming" (Gareth, interview 11.7.95)

As well as altering the form of inscription away from naturalistic use of camera lenses and video technology,Supersensealso involved new sites and processes of inscription, and revealed animals in previously unseen settings. This was either done literally, with the use of more realistic studio sets than those that had characterised the dry presentation of insects in Life on Earth, or by post-production techniques. Developments in post-production meant that it was now possible to take a piece of film or video footage to an editing suite and completely alter it, for example, reversing the shot left to right, adding graphics, or even a new background. Footage of animals could therefore be captured in the controlled environment of a studio or zoo, and this intervention subsequently erased through post-production. The technique of CSO or chromakey enabled film-makers to film an animal in front of a blue background to provide the foreground of the shot, and by electronic switching to fill in a suitable background.

Using these techniques we are able to fly with house martins over the white cliffs of Dover, or with peregrines over the Parthenon. Sometimes, the shots of birds flying were filmed using habituated animals. This technique uses the research of the early ethologists like Konrad Lorenz on imprinting. Birds are reared from hatching by one individual who they subsequently identify as a parent. The birds then follow that person, even flying after a jeep or microlight, which enables the cameraman to get the shots. Other times sequences were more crudely constructed in the studio, using the ultimate predictable animal - a dead one.

"I mean, I think shots like the peregrine flying along or a bird of prey where you’re seeing over it’s shoulder as it flies past a temple in Athens. I think that was using that technique [CSO]. And, you just sort of, put a dead bird in a wind tunnel with a camera next to it so that the feathers are ruffled by the wind. Film it against blue. Superimpose it against the Parthenon and it looks like you’ve got a peregrine flying over the Parthenon. It’s a very useful technique for that" (Gareth, interview 11.7.95).

This use of dead or imprinted animals to illustrate natural behaviour represents a dramatic shift away from naturalistic documentary filming techniques, where the emphasis is upon researching locations and using the filming resources to begin in the right place at the right time

to witness animals in the wild. Realism, involves a more active process of inscription, a different status for the research before filming which involves scripting and storyboarding action in accordance with the objectives of the film. Ben identifies that:

"There was this kind of awesome shift from the sort of gentlemen, as I imagine, the sort of gentleman film-makers of the John Sparks era, where the idea was that you went out and set up the tripod and you waited. And it was all very civilised and you had your lunch breaks and so on. And, then eventually you would get the shot, and the money was put into paying people's time to wait around for it to happen. John Downer one which was hands on, lets make it happen. It was a very much more pro-active style of film-making" (Ben, interview 14.7.95).

These developments meant that film-makers were able to make animal behaviour more controllable and to gain more dramatic images. The different emphasis upon the process of inscription in the networks of natural history film-making mean that a new and powerful role emerges for the directing28 skills of wildlife film-makers, rather than their naturalist abilities. One example of the difference in filming methods between producers and directors was given to me during a conversation with Gareth as follows:

"I tend to see producers as being people who facilitate cameramen to go out and film things. So they say, you know, go off and film prairie dogs for six months and come back and we will make a film out of it. Which I think is a traditional way of doing it. But it’s not a very good way of doing it. [The director] would say - I want this sequence, with prairie dogs but I want the prairie dog to come in here, and I want the coyote coming in here. I want there to be a fight and the prairie dog to be killed by the coyote and eaten. He already decides he wants that because it’s an exciting little sequence that makes an important point about their biology. So he will then look at problems. Having scripted it and work out what he wants, he works out how to film it. And if you need to get a stuffed prairie dog to make that sequence work, or a tame coyote, then he’ll do it. So there’s a whole new way of doing it, you know. You actually make it work yourself, through cunning, tricks and techniques, according to the script. Which makes for more exciting films. And in a way, you’re filming closer to what really happens. People say it’s cheating but I think it’s closer to what really happens because these things happen you know. Coyotes eat prairie dogs" (Gareth, interview 11.7.95).

These directors introduced a new approach to constructing and storyboarding sequences in natural history film-making, which owed more to film-making processes rather than science. Sequences could be conceived fully before filming, with the exact shots required, links and edits considered. As Gareth suggests, the criteria is first that it is an 'exciting sequence', second the 'point about their biology'. Directors as never before were collaborating with the cameraman and editors in decisions over camera position, lens choice, shot selection, frame composition and image system. The result was sequences which flowed more quickly, and dramatically, altering pace to build tension, and using the visual elements of the scene to move from one shot to another, as opposed to relying upon the verbal text to move the story forward.

28_{Somewhat confusingly the staff position director does not exist in the Natural History Unit. Sequences}

are directed by Producers or Assistant Producers in conjunction with cameramen. When people refer to directors in interviews, they are therefore referring to a process rather than one person in a designated role.

The change in documentary objectives meant it was no longer important to have 'real' animals, and imprinted, nudged or dead animals can be used to recreate the wildlife. The continued reliance upon a body of scientific knowledge and the realist codes of documentary meant that in fact stuffed animals could be used to construct sequences which are nearer to the 'truth'.

John Downer's strength was his understanding of how film worked visually, the ability and creativity to apply this to natural history films, and the organisation, ingenuity and determination to demand the shots that would fulfil his visions from his production team. He was a 'strong' director, of a sort that had not previously been encountered in natural history film-making, and who picked up a demand by the audience to be amazed at pictures of natural history on television. Supersenseheightened the visual and dramatic power of natural history films and moved them further towards entertainment, where cinematic considerations are used to assess what makes a good sequence, dramatic story lines, and stunning visuals. The use of tame or habituated animals, more sets and more baiting, meant that natural history film-makers could make animal behaviour more predictable and stable within the networks of natural history film-making. However, as the position of animals within the networks of natural history film- making shifted further towards entertainment, and further away from science, tensions emerged over the ethical treatment of animals. Welfare guidelines for animals in entertainment are different to those that legislate for science, and things done to animals that would be ethically acceptable within science, become unacceptable when they are used for entertainment. As Ben suggests these tensions emerged within the industry:

"In many ways it went against the philosophy of a lot of people, well myself included, in relation to the welfare of the subjects that you are filming. You know, John and Disciples, notably Nigel Marven, actually have quite a kind of, I think, a biologists view of natural history film-making. In the sense that they, while they would never endanger a population, they are not adverse to putting at risk a few individual animals for the sake of a sequence. And it's all justified for the greater good. The greater good of what it is doing for people's awareness of natural history as a whole, which is supposed to spin off conservation values, and obviously for their own success as producers and their own career. And I feel that we have swept under the carpet a lot of the ethical considerations in that style of filming, which say people like John Sparks, in his traditional approach, wouldn't accept. John [Sparks] would never commission a show where he knew that something would be done to compromise the welfare of the filmed subjects. John Downer would. That's the difference" (Ben, interview 14.7.95).