Discovering Rann documentary

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Hello everyone,
Sharing my documentary Discovering Rann

YouTube (Short URL)

Rann of Kutch is a vast area bordering India and Pakistan. Its a desert ecosystem. Shot with the original Canon Cinema C300. A lot of night footage. Primary focus was to record animal behaviour. Something or the other had led to its delay. Run time 26 mins.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mark Williams]

Impressive camera work and very informative. Well done.

[Paul R Johnson]

The biggest snag with this is not the images, which are well composed and captured - it's the simply dreadful use of the English language. It's the kind of thing students produce and they're trying to impress - using over-clever words in inappropriate places. My guess is that the snag is exactly the same as when we have well educated people from this part of the world, and they use educational English that is far too flowery and flamboyant. I'm surprised that the English speaking VO artist didn't comment on this. Reading the script, it was obvious. This is a common feature of people who speak English as a second language, and is easily solved by the audio version of proof reading. Of course it also happens between UK and US versions of English - we both mangle how we speak it. Even some words are different - In the US they would say the bird dove into the water, here, we'd say the bird dived into the water. In the UK we'd say the group of three hovercraft appeared on the horizon, in the US version, we'd hear hovercrafts - a subtle but important language twist.

"The wild ass shows great cohesiveness..." - this makes no sense at all. It's little things like this that spoil the enjoyment for people like me. It's just such a shame, as it's a great product - but it would never get a showing on the BBC, for example without being re-voiced with a new version of the script.


One small point - in the edit, did you consider removing the sloping horizons - loads of the shots have quite severe lists to left or right. After a while they become quite noticeable.

Please don't take these as complaints, but because the images are so good, the small things do matter.

[Mick Jenner]

I for one enjoyed very much.

Couldn't disagree more with Paul over the voice over. I believe the main market for this film would be India and other parts of Asia where English is spoken exactly like the script and easily understood in that region. If you pick up any current local English language paper anywhere between India and Borneo its like reading English from a 100 years back and the VO would be easily understood by the viewer. There is of no reason why it can't be re scripted for UK and US audiences but then the film would lose its regional character and be no different to any other sanitised wildlife film. Maybe for authenticity you could have used a local English speaking VO artist but maybe your choice was because you know what sells your films best.
Paul, I do how ever agree with your comments re leveling the horizon in several of the clips.

Thanks for sharing

Mick

[Paul R Johnson]

If didn't been to be critical but for me it sounded mismatched. Voice over talent from the home country would have been as Mick says, a noon-issue, but I replayed a few sections multiple times trying to work out what the narration was trying to say. The good bit was that it contained what to me, were new things. New things I don't think I'd heard of before. That's always good. I spent a long time in colleges trying to fix vocabulary in media. Trying to match it with the viewer's expectation.

[John Nantz]

Very interesting environmental documentary and also educational, for me at least. This is the sort of video that would be aired on US public TV during the off peak hours if it was edited some more.

As for editorial comments, here are a few:

The map area should have a bit more time and also the country boundaries shown at some point. Question: does Pakistan or Iran have any wildlife area adjacent?

Early on there is a clip of birds flying in V-formation and then there is a panning jerk. The clip doesn’t seem to be connected to the following clip so, since it is so short so if it was eliminated the viewer wouldn’t really miss anything.

Owl: I liked this character. Once he blinked his eye we knew he was alive. Very interesting markings and fits in with the landscape really well. We have an owl, plastic one, in the back yard to scare the birds away from the blueberries but it doesn’t work very well, sometimes the birds will sit on his head.

Pigs munching on the carcass: Hearing them much sounds gross (hadn't had dinner yet). Sorry. Maybe some voice over or music??? “Other peoples mileage may vary.”

The eagle vs the desert fox was super - being in the right place at the right time. Lot of suspense there. I suspect the eagle got tired out - takes a lot of effort to fly when there are no thermals. And the Fox was out in the open near the road for too long, I’m surprised he didn’t become dinner. Near the end it looked like the fox thought about having eagle for dinner but then walked off. The eagle’s talons and beak are dangerous weapons.

That eagle is one big bird!

Summary: Was a good revisiting of the main characters.