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SUCCESSFUL ENVIRONMENTAL FILMMAKING
By Christopher
Palmer, National Wildlife Productions
Remarks given at the Center Lens
at Work Panel Discussion, March 27, 2004
 In
the early 1980s, I was a lobbyist for the National Audubon Society.
I tried to persuade Senators and Congressmen to support conservation.
I performed this job with enthusiasm and without
any particular distinction.
After a while, I realized that I might be more effective
if instead of lobbying Senators and Congressmen directly, I used
television to reach out to the people who elected these lawmakers
in the first place.
So I formed a partnership with Ted Turner and we
started producing wildlife and conservation films in 1984 for TBS
Superstation.
I was excited! I thought at last I was going to make
a real difference. I was using the mass media to influence a huge
audience.
We made films on all kinds of subjects — the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, dolphins, bears, global warming,
population and so on. We produced about four documentaries a year
for fifteen years.
After about ten years of this fun and excitement,
I began to question everything about it for three reasons:
First, the state of our environment continued to
decline, despite the huge amount of wildlife and conservation programming
on television, so on the face of it, all these documentaries didn’t
seem like they were doing much good.
Second, I became increasingly concerned about how
wildlife films are made and whether they are made ethically without
misleading or even lying to the audience and without harming the
wildlife and natural habitats being filmed.
And third, I got tired of hearing natural history
filmmakers make extravagant, self-serving and unsubstantiated claims
about how effective their films were. I realized that the people
who claimed to have been influenced by wildlife and conservation
films were for the most part pre-conditioned to agree with the films’
messages.
I’ve noticed that other people share my ambivalence
about wildlife and conservation films. For example, author Bill
McKibben in his book, “The Age of Missing Information,”
writes, “Such (films) are not working. Virtually everyone
has seen hours of gorgeous nature films…and yet we’re
still not willing to do anything very drastic to save the world.”
Since this disillusion set in ten years ago, several
things have happened that have helped me regain my confidence in
the value of wildlife films and restore my faith in their enduring
value.
First, organizations like Filmmakers
For Conservation have sprung up fueled by this concern that
wildlife films need to encourage conservation.
Second, I have been impressed by the work done by
organizations like the Center for Social Media which Pat runs here
at American University. For example, here is a report by Pat and
others funded by the Benton and MacArthur Foundations called, “Making
Television Matter: How Documentaries Can Engage and Mobilize Communities.”
It is chock full of great ideas and case studies.
And third, I have lowered my expectations. It is
too much to expect wildlife and conservation films to achieve conservation
action on their own. It is only when they are joined together with
community organizing, books, articles, websites, 800 numbers, educational
guides, speakers and so on, can action begin to get traction.
Let me end by describing six successful strategies
that make a difference if you are a natural history filmmaker:
First, view your film not as a film but as a campaign
to bring about change. Your goal is to change the world and to move
people to action. Otherwise, why bother? If your film doesn’t
spur social action and bring about change, then it has failed. In
this sense, I have failed in my film career over and over again.
Second, be very conscious of the attention-awareness-action
continuum. You want to gently nudge your viewers on to this continuum.
You have to start by getting their attention. Too many of us in
the conservation movement are so self-absorbed with the importance
of our issues that we forget our first job is to get and keep people’s
attention.
Third, remember that conservation is a ratings killer
so you have to find ways to portray conservation in the guise of
something more interesting.
Fourth, don’t judge your film only by the rating
it gets. Ratings are only one way to measure the success of a film
and not the best way.
Fifth, to emphasize a fundamental point that I learned
from Pat, develop an outreach campaign for your film not after it
is finished, but in pre-production so an outreach campaign is an
integral part of the film and not an add-on.
And sixth, don’t rely on a single medium. To
make an impact on people, you have to come at them through several
media. This idea brings us back to the notion of creating a campaign
and having your film be one element — perhaps the central
element — of it. The campaign should have multiple components
involving a film, the web, activist organizations, 800 numbers,
PSAs, teacher guides, speakers, books, advertising, community organizing,
web documentaries and so on. Repetition of the key message is essential
if we are going to influence people.
Implementing those six steps has helped me to restore
my faith in the importance of wildlife and conservation films, and
led me and the National
Wildlife Federation to be a strong supporter of Filmmakers
For Conservation, which I urge you all to join.
Thank you.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER has
produced wildlife films for television screens and IMAX theaters
for 20 years. Films produced under Palmer’s direction have
won over 100 awards, including two Emmys. As President and CEO of
National Wildlife Productions, Inc., Palmer leads the television,
film and multimedia programs of the National Wildlife Federation
(NWF), the nation's largest conservation group with over four million
members and supporters. Since joining the National Wildlife Federation
in 1994, Palmer has directed NWF's launch into broadcast, cable,
syndication, home video, new media, large format and international
markets. He oversees and executive produces all NWF’s wildlife
films. Palmer has also produced TV specials and series for the Disney
Channel, TBS Superstation, Animal Planet, Home and Garden Television,
The Travel Channel, The Outdoor Life Network, and for the Public
Broadcasting System. His most recent film is Giant Monsters on Animal
Planet. He also produces NWF’s giant-screen films, including
Whales, Wolves, Bears, and India: Kingdom of the Tiger, for IMAX
and other large-format theaters. He is executive producer of the
IMAX film, Dolphins (which was nominated for an Oscar) and Coral
Reef Adventure.
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