Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:34:13 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Huy Subject: Re: interesting point of view... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There was, several years ago, an interesting show on PBS about the making of "nature films." They showed how the sounds were added, how many of the films were made of captive creatures and how film segments from different locations and times were spliced together to create meaningful sequences. One thing that stuck out in my mind was one of the latter sequences that involved a jackal being pursued by another predator. This was not an actual event, but a likely occurrence. The jackal was missing a leg, and to create the chase scene, a part of the film had to be flipped so that it appeared the wrong leg was missing. The editors felt that it was more likely people would overlook this inconsistency than they would believe the jackal running in the wrong direction per the camera's point of view. These shows may be informative. The same with some of the writings in leading journals. But we must all be aware that reality can be altered to create a desired perspective or to fulfill an agenda. Never follow their lead with blind trust. Use common sense and your own experience to determine what is real and what may not be. As birders we are active observers in our worlds and we must ensure that those out to create magnificent films or "educational shows" do not create a false sense of security (or insecurity) where it does not belong. Steve ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================