It ’s rare to pick up any deluxe Blu - ray set without getting the kinds of reckon options that would make for 17 different movies . Everything from delete view to commentary rail are available , and yet science programme are evenhandedly barren when it come to special features . This is a disgrace , because I know of a few special features that really need to take place .
1 ) The No Babykill Cut
I changed the channel the other solar day to see a zebra rollick in grandiloquent eatage . After a mo of unruffled , during which I enjoy its jauntily upturned back hooves , the storyteller cut in with , “ Although the mother fights fiercely , the male person does n’t stop until he has trampled the foal to last . ” My reaction was a succession of inchoate emotion – stupor , revulsion , nausea – followed by one , clear , rage - occupy thought considerably paraphrased as , “ What the snake pit did you just make me see ? ”
The stealth of this particular instance is what got me , but the fact is nature documentary film are always pulling this crap . They give us tight pellet of broad - eyed baby animals filled with the pleasure of new discovery and the playfulness of younker , and then make us watch as they are hunt down and dragged , hollo , to their deaths . Intellectually , I read that nature is roughshod , and that the death of one babe can mean the survival of many others . Personally , though , I imagine if I were the type that in reality enjoy spend an even watching a child elephant die of hunger , I should be incarcerated . Since I ’m not , I expect at least to be supply to with a version of each documentary that cuts out all the terrible , heart - wring sister animal deaths that biologist seem determined to show us .
2 ) Degree of Difficulty Explanation Options
“ A photon was study to be a undulation of energy . ”
Okay , I got you .
“ Its energy depended on the wave ’s frequency . The higher the oftenness , the higher the energy . ”
Good , good . Go on .
“ This idea was complicated when Max Planck calculated how the frequencies of energy radiate by a heated body relate to its temperature , and came to the conclusion that energy was in proportion to frequency , but units of energy were multiples of the constant of 6.626 x 10 - 34 , or Planck ’s constant . ”
Wait . What ?
“ The idea , though considered only a hard-nosed calculation by Planck , wire Einstein . ”
What did ? No . Go back .
“ He used it as the basis for his Nobel - prize winning work on the photoelectric gist . ”
Damn it , bloody it , anathemize it !
The problem with audiovisual information is it ’s not easy to “ re - read ” material . This is a job , as both a TV syllabus and a book build on the material that they ’ve already covered , simulate you understand . This is why there should be some form of automatic repeat service . Information should be graded from one to five in terminus of difficulty , and as the selective information rates higher in difficulty level , it should get more repeat . Get to a five , and the disc will skip back and repeat what it just said five times , before going back to a linear play once it ’s done .
3 ) Show Me How You Know That
One of the major problems with science is that often the answers are n’t nearly as interesting as the mental process it took to get them . A television camera will pan along a majestic ravine and the narrator will intone that the rocks along the ravine are C of thousand of days old . To many people who only have intercourse how old the concrete pave their new highway is , the number of years is meaningless . Although the program in the main goes on to give some context , it ’s rarely thrilling . Even if it is , the fact that they know how erstwhile rocks are seems far more singular than the age of the rock music itself . Understandably , the Lord of the programme have other thing to tell the viewer , and do n’t want to interrupt the story with an account of how stone age is estimated . But we still desire to see it . There should be some feature on a disc that make an icon to down up on the screen while the teller is tell us some fantastic fact . push a release , and it will show an image and description of the political machine or process that ascertained that fact .
4 ) Conservation Pricing
Do I want to spend the ending of a infotainment about the Great Barrier Reef heed to how it ’s being destroyed ? Do I want to spend the close of a documentary film about an awe-inspiring telescope listening to how it ’s falling apart ? The resolution is no , I do not , but I have no alternative . I read that I have no option because the makers of the platform need to spread the Word of God about the financial difficulty they confront .
The problem is , ending a gorgeous documentary film with a existent bummer of a message makes it more likely that a somebody will hollo into their couch than that they ’ll donate . That is , unless they bed it ’s going to happen and donate while they have their reference circuit card out – like when they ’re buy the documentary . I project that science programs fall with conservation pricing . yield $ 10 more and there ’s no deplorable content , just a listing of manner you’re able to help on the CRT screen . pay off $ 25 more , and even the list is gone . give $ 50 and there ’s just a quick video of a cheery , chubby toddler lisping out , “ Thankth for the donation ! Everything ith OK now ! ” and giving a ovolo up .
5 ) Funny Music and Narration
bet , there are M of YouTube video recording that use real documentary footage , literal facts , and are side - splittingly curious . And that ’s YouTube , home of videos of cat strike asleep and every 15 - year - old ’s heartfelt cover version of “ Hallelujah ” by Leonard Cohen . Do n’t tell me that if YouTube people can handle it , professional ca n’t . ( Note : No judgment , 15 - year - olds of the worldly concern . That ’s exactly what I would have done if I were 15 when YouTube pop into macrocosm . )
6 ) All or Nothing Sex Scenes
In every nature documentary , just as sure as there ’s go to be a dead babe animal on blind , there are a pair of scene of animals mating . These scenes make do to be both uncomfortable and unsatisfying . by and large there are just enough shots to make it unmistakable what the animals are doing , but nothing that in reality lets the great unwashed get it on how they mate , so many of us are made to experience the awkwardness of ride in a room , often with our entire phratry , watching beast hump , without even getting our prurient curiosity satisfied about how two swan possibly managed to hook up with all those feathers in the way .
There should be two documentary modes , one that essentially arouse the ‘ found them under a bread foliage ’ explanation for how babe animals show up every spring , and one that actually shows us all the item or else of just reminding us , with visuals , that babies are made via sex activity . ( syllabus already do this with insects , which I suppose they reckon too exotic to be vulgar , but it necessitate to occur more widely . )
7 ) Tenure talk of the town
If realism TV has taught us nothing else ( which is very possible ) , it has taught us that there is no stratum of society in which people do n’t enjoy going on photographic camera and eviscerating each other . by nature , this is n’t hold up to be potential for every academic require in a infotainment , but there has to be some sometime codger on every donnish team that has term of office at their particular academic institution , is retire in a duet of geezerhood , and does n’t care who hates them . Think how much playfulness a behind - the - scenes feature would be if they cut out the lines like , “ I was really close to that seal , ” and put in melody like , “ And get me tell you about the miry research that went into this ratiocination . Then again , if I hit every undergrad mixer , I would n’t have much time for work either . You know they had to slather on make - up to cover up the Holy Writ ‘ Professor Lush , ’ compose in lasting marker on his os frontale , veracious ? ” Not only will it spice up a scientific program and be invaluable to scientific historiographer of the future , it might be considered a privilege of senior academician . Sure , the undergraduate are disinterested and the money is n’t outstanding , but stay long enough and you could literally broadcast your hate for every single person who ever crossed you .
- Shut Up Narrator Commentary
“ Ah , the devilfish , graceful dancer of the sea . It glides over the backbone with infinite daintiness , as plume might drift on a gentle breeze . As it moves through the blueness , it plays its part in a immense ecosystem , predating others and being preyed upon , in a circle of life as timeless as the water supply it moves through . ”
exclude up . exclude up shut up shut up shut up close up . I do n’t understand why more nature documentary narrator have n’t been moved to witness protection for their own safety . Sure , there are parts in a documentary during which the narration bring utilitarian information , but so much of every infotainment is just a deep - voiced narrator running his mouth . Documentary videodisk already have an selection that appropriate you to listen to the technical Maker talking about have this or that shot . They have options to take heed to a Spanish or French narrator . We call for the reverse of that . We need at least one audio frequency option that prune out the narrator entirely , and just play neutral pianoforte music and countenance us look at the devilfish in peacefulness .
Zebra Image : Israel Free Image Collection . Otter Image : Joe Robertson . Mating Hoverflies Image : flagstaffotos.com.au . Octopus Image : NOAA Photo Library .
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