The Daily Orange

Media Credit: Mackenzie Reiss

Chris Palmer has seen entire forests in Montana and Wyoming laid bare by loggers.

The devastation left the animals on the mountainsides stunned and confused.

In the Florida Everglades National Park, he witnessed human destruction in another of one of nature's habitats.

Palmer decided he wanted to show these troubling images to everyone and his solution was to make wildlife documentaries.

"We feel pretty confident that films, if they're created well, do have an impact on people. We think films on conservation need to be part of the general campaign," said Palmer, who has produced Oscar and Emmy-nominated documentaries.

Palmer, whose documentaries now appear in IMAX theatres and on TV, talked about his work Wednesday at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The wildlife film producer gave a short presentation on making his documentaries, and shared behind-the-scenes secrets about what a successful film is in front of about 40 people in the Marshall Hall auditorium.

Making a documentary with animals requires patience. And plenty of it. Wildlife is unpredictable and cost is high to keep the cameras rolling. The average cost of an IMAX documentary is about $10 million. It can take up to seven or eight years to finish.

"This is typical of wildlife filmmaking. You spend about a week working for 30 seconds," of film, he said. "It's very frustrating. You can spend days getting useless information."

While filming "Whales" off the coast of Hawaii, Palmer went to tremendous lengths to get the shots he needed.

The humpback whales were frightened of bubbles from the divers' scuba tanks. In order to keep going, his cameraman Al would just hold his breath.

Al would stay underwater as long as possible then drop the camera and race to the surface. The camera was rigged to be buoyant enough to come up as well.

"We would first rescue the camera and then we would rescue Al because the camera was worth more," Palmer said.

Other times, the animals wouldn't cooperate at all and he resorted to buying stock footage, like he did for "Wolves." He found it impossible to shoot the wolves in the wild. Palmer also didn't want to make the wolves too comfortable around humans, making them easier targets for would-be hunters.

Continued...

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