Getting close to nature with a camera is a real luxury, but also a huge responsibility. The one that cleans the most is not the cleanest, but the one that pollutes the least. When the shoot is over, everything should be as before.
I have devoted a large part of my life to making documentaries about nature and animal protection. To do this, I have always followed a basic rule: “animals are not harmed, ethics and respect for them should be the rudder that guides content, imagery and plans”.
So we knew that if we filmed raptors, we wouldn’t be able to get too close to them. There was little to no action. Any wires had to be hidden so that the birds wouldn’t confuse them with the snake, their offspring’s natural enemy. In the case of wild boar or deer, on the contrary, the main issue was our scent above all. We wouldn’t be wearing perfume. Conversely, we knew that if we managed to smell grass or wet earth, they would reward us with gorgeous close-ups.
Animals are generous if you are with them. It is essential to understand their behavior, to respect their greatness, not to belittle them and, above all, to be able to obtain the necessary images without forcing or imitating, knowing that everything they do is subject to something and is not the result of an irrational thought. deceiving them or the audience. .
However, a nature documentary cannot be made alone. The camera is not set up in the middle of the field and the animals are passing by. This is not so. That’s why imagination, communication power and reflection are so important. Where you see nothing, word and sound can make you believe you see it.
The best proof of this is Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente’s first programs made in a Spanish Television studio. He spoke behind an office desk and without any decorations, with endless charisma and the inexhaustible word of distant worlds. The way he did it was so magical that you could close your eyes and begin to experience them. The same thing happened when he picked up a microphone on Radio Nacional. This is precisely why his documentaries have become classics, with his message later transformed into imagery, because after all, as someone once said: “classic is what can’t be done better”.