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The Making of Silent Running (1972) – Douglas Trumbull

October 1, 2019 at 5:30 pm / Human Nature, Technical Notes, Video

Silent Running is a landmark 1972 film directed by Douglas Trumbull. Over the years, it became a cult sci-fi classic and is seen as one of the most pivotal philosophical movies for environmental movement. Recall that Greenpeace was started in 1971 and the spirit of the times was chiming with anti-nuclear sentiment. Obliteration of humankind was indeed an apocalyptic possibility under Cold War. Rachel Carson’s hugely influential 1962 book Silent Spring which showed the global impact of the pesticide DDT […]

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Film Grammar – Khan Academy (2017)

September 28, 2019 at 9:22 am / Human Nature, Technical Notes, Video

This collaboration between Khan Academy and Pixar is a wonderful demonstration of building tool kits for self learning. Psychologists argue that an important cognitive function known as working memory is what made us into modern humans. As the highly inspirational illustrator Beatrix Potter put it, one cannot truly study anything without drawing it. Drawing is an effective working memory exercise that helps reinforce information by converting a short term memory into a long term one. That could be one reason […]

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A Virtual Tour of a Cell – XVIVO Scientific Animation (2018)

March 9, 2019 at 8:12 pm / Molecular Nature, Technical Notes, Video

The Cellscape is one of the many fascinating scientific visualizations created by XVIVO Scientific Animation Studio. The project was supported by Google Making and Science Team. The creators did a wonderful job in introducing us to the major parts of the cell visible to a viewer in the cytoplasm in a virtual environment. Conjuring the physico-chemical structures such as proteins and enzymes inside a cell is a rather difficult thing to do. The textbooks and diagrams, don’t do a justice […]

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How Copper Engravings are Done – Eric Meier (2009)

March 9, 2018 at 2:27 pm / Natural history, Technical Notes, Video

Natural History largely depended on artists before the invention of photography. Some of the most successful scientific expeditions such as the Voyage of the Endeavor by Captain James Cook had artists on board that would sketch and draw. These drawings would later be masterfully retraced onto copper plates for reproduction in a dedicated studio that required a lot of resources beyond the capacity of a ship. The process was extremely labor intensive and slow but the results were impressive for […]

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Development of a Salamander Embryo – Yale University Department of Anatomy (1920s)

November 10, 2017 at 4:08 pm / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Technical Notes, Video

Everyone of us started life from one single cell formed by the fusion of an egg and a sperm. That single cell gave rise to every structure in our bodies. How did that happen? Salamanders are known to be able to regenerate limbs while frogs and lizards cannot. How and why? The time lapsed footage of salamander embryos developing from single fertilized eggs forms the basis of our morphological understanding of animal development. The footage recorded by Yale University researchers […]

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How We Measure Photosynthesis – NEON Education (2014)

March 25, 2017 at 6:14 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Technical Notes, Video

National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large collaborative group of long-term ecological research sites spread over 81 locations in the United States including Harvard Forest and Smithsonian Ecological Research Center (SERC). This video is a part of the educational portfolio by NEON showing how researchers measure photosynthesis at single leaf level using infra red gas analyzers. Understanding photosynthesis at leaf level enables scaling up and extrapolate photosynthesis at forest level. Infact, there are computer models that treat forest canopies […]

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The World’s Most Boring TV … and Why It’s Hilariously Addictive – Thomas Hellum – TED Talk (2014)

March 12, 2017 at 1:23 pm / Technical Notes, Video

The idea of “slow-TV” was there. For years live cameras have been showing bears hunt fish in rivers, birds nesting and rearing their chicks with viewers in the millions. A Discovery Channel series called “Earth Sunrise” recorded a full hour of realtime sunrise in spectacular locations from around the world. Recording of a total solar eclipse in Brazil and Turkey was quite a memorable event. Slow-TV concept is a paradigm invented by real-time nature observers. The Norwegian television producer Thomas […]

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The Science of Camera Sensors – FimmakerIQ (2015)

March 24, 2016 at 11:17 pm / Technical Notes, Video

Camera technology has come a long way since the legendary Akeley gyroscope camera that made filming of truly historic documentary films such as Nanook of the North (1922) and Grass (1922). Now everything digital, an overview of the modern camera sensors is useful for naturalists. This lecture by FilmmakerIQ is a part of the Technical Notes series by Nature Documentaries aiming to compile useful technical, theoretical and practical knowledge for documentary filmmakers. The episode illustrates the electronic working principles of […]

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The History and Science of Lenses – FilmmakerIQ (2015)

March 24, 2016 at 11:16 pm / Technical Notes, Video

Glass has been a truly transformational material in Human history. Among many other remarkable things glass helped us understand and control properties of light. From photocopying machines to fiber optic cables glass revolutionized our lives. Gutenberg’s printing machine was a turning point with an unintended consequence. Printing created a huge demand for spectacles and glasswork craftsmanship in Europe literally exploded. Craftsmanship that built spectacles lead to building of more specialized optical instruments including microscopes, telescopes and eventually cameras. For all […]

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Depth of Field and Lens Equivalents – FilmmakerIQ (2016)

March 24, 2016 at 11:14 pm / Technical Notes, Video

How does one achieve a sharp and clear image? What is depth of field? What is depth of focus? What affects their shallowness? This episode from FilmmakerIQ nicely explains the theory behind using the physics of light. Before starting the lecture you should have some basic understanding of the camera lenses such as the aperture. This is a part of the Technical Notes series of Nature Documentaries aiming to compile useful technical, theoretical and practical knowledge for documentary filmmakers. The […]

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The History of Frame Rate for Film – FilmmakerIQ (2015)

March 24, 2016 at 11:11 pm / Technical Notes, Video

This is a great breakdown of seemingly arbitrary and highly variable frame rates we experience today. Until the incorporation of sound which arrived as a superbly egalitarian/standardizing factor into the film, the frame rates were rather floppy. This lecture by FilmmakerIQ is a part of the Technical Notes series by Nature Documentaries aiming to compile useful technical, theoretical and practical knowledge for documentary filmmakers. The compact episode introduces the historical transitions from hand-cranked cinematographic cameras into television and later to […]

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The Properties of Camera Lenses – FilmmakerIQ (2015)

March 24, 2016 at 11:08 pm / Technical Notes, Video

The Technical Notes series of Nature Documentaries aims to compile useful technical, theoretical and practical knowledge for documentary filmmakers. In this lecture from the FilmmakerIQ you will be exposed to some basic properties of the camera lenses such as the focal length and the aperture. The episode is also a good segway into sensor technology which also gets covered in more detail in another episode. The episode gives a quick primer on focal length, field of view, diffraction theory and […]

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Vertov’s “Man with a Movie Camera” (1929)

March 10, 2016 at 10:45 pm / Technical Notes, Video

Dziga Vertov’s “Man with a Movie Camera” has shown the world the capabilities of the cinematographic camera. The silent movie was advised to be accompanied with a fast-moving musical score. Since its release the film has been rendered with many soundtracks. Man with a Movie Camera took 4 years to film. It documents the daily life of modern Soviet city life, spanning four cities — Kharkiv, Kiev, Moscow and Odessa. The manifesto at the beginning of the film heralds the […]

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Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1924)

November 19, 2015 at 12:13 pm / Human Nature, Technical Notes, Video

Filmed on location between Turkey and Iran, Grass is an amazing first ethnographical account of nomadic Bakhtiyari people. The subjects of this film later also were revisited by landmark documentaries like the “Harvest of the Seasons” episode of the Charles Bronowski’s Ascent of Man series in 1973. Similarly, Akira Kurosawa’s 1975 film Dersu Uzala, centered around an aboriginal Nanai tribesman and Werner Herzog’s Happy People (2013) are productions in this tradition. The film is contemporary to Robert Flaherty’s Flaherty’s Nanook […]

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Nanook of the North – Robert Flaherty (1922)

March 20, 2013 at 3:45 pm / Human Nature, Technical Notes, Video

In the days long before the term “documentary” had even been coined this full feature movie did it all. The filmmaker Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) had an early exposure to people of the Arctic. Born in Michigan, he spent quite a bit of time traveling with his father in northern Canada. He developed an ethnographic eye and casually filmed many short sequences of the daily lives of Inuit people. He later decided to put all these clips together to create a […]

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