Via AB Apana’s very engaging blog, I came across WildFilmHistory, a riveting website that chronicles one hundred years of wildlife filmmaking.
The website hosts profiles of nearly a hundred wildlife filmmakers from the familiar to the obscure – Jacques Cousteau, Gerald Durrell, David Attenborough, George Schaller, Doug Allen, Jen and Des Bartlett, Lyndon Bird, Desmond Morris and Steve Irwin among many others.
There are pages dedicated to over 185 films, along with short clips from each. Preview Jen and Des Bartlett’s The Flight of the Snow Geese (1972), Joan and Alan Root’s Two in the Bush (1978) and Gerald Durrell’s Catch me a Colobus: The Beef Mine (1966).
Excellent way to pass the time, and to learn so much about the history that fascinated enthusiasts like us during our growing-up years (truth is, the growing up never ends). Also, I couldn’t help ruminating on the fact that a great many of these wildlife films were shot at a time when photographic and recording technologies were in their infancy but when wildlife was more plentiful. Today, when access to equipment is ubiquitous, we have to travel a long way to locate the wildlife. How ironic!
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