I have recently started watching 'The Secret Life of the Zoo' on Channel 4 every Tuesday at 8pm. This is a documentary series based on Chester Zoo and the animals that live there. Not only do they document the animals, but they also document the zoo keepers and they're emotions towards the animals.
Content
Throughout the series they document various things, such as the animals growing up and moving into bigger enclosures, animals meeting new animals of their kind for the first time, and babies being born which is quite fascinating to watch.
Not only do they show the positive side of the zoo, but they also dwell on the negative sides and they sometimes mention when one of the animals has passed away.
This gives the director a chance to show the emotions of the zoo keeper which creates a really nice friendship between the animals and the keepers.
They show a mixture of interviews with the zoo keepers, CCTV footage of the animals when they are alone and when the zoo keepers are off duty, and footage of the keepers interacting with the animals when they're feeding them or cleaning their cage.
They use a variety of these shots within each episode and they help make a connection between the keeper and the animal. You definitely see and understand the relationship between them when watching each episode and it creates a family tone to the series.
Interviews
Within the interviews, you can't hear the questions being asked, so the interviewees have to start their answer as if it was an opening sentence. They also make sure their answers make sense through the editing of the show.
When you see the interviews, you can clearly see the interviewee in front of a dark background, and it's clear that they are talking to someone off the camera.
This leads to the possibility that the interviews are shot in a studio type environment.
The producers could have chosen to do this in order to help the sound of the show, but also to clearly show the difference between the interviews and the actuality of the show.
The shots they use within these interviews vary from mid shots and close up shots depending on what they are talking about and their emotions towards the topic.
When they film actuality shots, they tend to let the zoo keepers do what they usually do which makes the show seem very natural and not forced in anyway.
The zoo keepers don't tend to answer many questions while actually working which suggests that the interviewer doesn't ask them any questions while they work which adds to the natural sense and feeling of the shot.
Sequencing
The content they cover within the opening sequence usually consists of:
Clips of the animals in their habitat.
The public watching them and experiencing them first hand.
Footage from the zoo keeper's office's.
Interviews from the keepers.
Landscapes shots of the zoo.
These are all used to set the tone of the program and also to set the location of the series. By using a mixture of animal footage and keeper footage they are covering two of the most important aspects of the show - the animals and the keepers relationships.
Over these clips, they have commentary which introduces the show and explains briefly what the content of the show actually is. As well as the commentary, they include clips of some of the interviews that are shown within the show, and this helps towards the transition between the opening sequence and the narrative of the episode.
Within the opening sequence, they not only show the positives of the job, but they also show the negatives. They do this to prepare the audience of the different emotions that will be shown within the series.
When the episode has officially started, the commentary describes the history of the zoo, while birds eye view shots of the zoo and wide shots, long shots and close-ups of the animals are being shown on screen.
Once the commentary is over, they go straight into the interviews from the keepers. When the interviews are on the screen, they add the keepers name in the bottom left of the screen. This adds a personal tone to the show and makes the audience get to know the keepers on a personal type level.
Depending on what animals the particular episode is centred around, they usually have a sequence of the animals doing what they do at the zoo. The shots they tend to use in these sequences are close ups, mid shots and long shots. They will use a mixture of footage from the cameras in their pens or footage from the cameras outside in the open.
Not only does the show focus on particular animals, it also focuses on particular topics. These topics help the narrative of the show develop and they create a link between the different animals that they show in the episodes.
Sound
In the opening sequence, other than the presenter doing the commentary, the sound you can hear is the natural sounds of the zoo, and the sounds of the animals that are being displayed in the clips being shown.
There is also a soundtrack in the background which carries on throughout the sequence and ends after the title.
A different soundtrack then begins after the title, and that carries on throughout the episode. Whenever there is a break within the different animals shown, they tend to change the music so it adds some variety. The music will also change based on the mood they want to create and the emotions that the keepers are showing within the sequences.
Commentary is also carried throughout the episode after an interview has been shown. They usually have a few seconds of music and the animal, but to keep the audience interested, they start the commentary.
This usually contains information on the zoo or the animals that are being presented on the screen. It also ties in the topic of the episode by linking the episode and the animal together.
My Thoughts
One of the things I like about this documentary series, is the humour that they show through the animals. The way the series is shot gives the animals their own characters, which is really nice as the audience can almost relate to the animals and they can find the ones that they love the most. When you see the same animal, you start to understand them and get their character type which makes the series better to watch, and makes it funnier than normal.
When starting to think of our ideas, my idea was similar to this series, but even though we didn't choose that idea, we could still use the same sort of style.
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