I’ve also watched River Monsters this morning on Discovery (and HD). This series follows extreme angler Jeremy Wade as he travels around the world uncovering the largest and most dangerous fish that exist on our planet. In this episode, Jeremy was in South Africa where aggressive and unpredictable bull sharks have been found in rivers. Each episode lasts 1 hour, however without the irritating commercial breaks we get about 40 minutes of content. Just enough to keep us simpletons engaged and entertained enough to follow the pretty pictures and colours.
We are led through the program by Jeremy Wade, as he provides a visual and audio tour through the episode. He is presenting the program on his own and is the focal point for a lot of camera shots as he address us, the audience, through his links. Following on from the information provided in the video links, Jeremy then gives additional information and direction through a very scripted studio voiceover that includes such dialogue gems as “bitten off more that I can chew” and “I’m not off the hook”.
Icon Films Limited, the shows Production Company used music from ‘Musictopia’ and ‘Audio Network’ for the series original music. The music is used to add high tension to the scenes where Jeremy Wade is leant over a small fishing boat fiercely winding his fishing rod attempting to pull a shark over board. I heard a lot of percussive and string music, which is commonly found in your typical ‘epic’ movie. In addition to adding to the mood and atmosphere of the program, the music was used to emphasise a scene change, just to make sure we were totally aware we are looking at a computer generated map now, and those aren’t real life.
It is clear to me that additional atmos and foley sounds have been captured for this program. Calming sounds of waves lapping on the beach, and the sound of a fishing rod clicking as it is wound are some of many sounds that I heard during the program. Jeremy didn’t wear a visible microphone so his voice will have been caught by a boom mic operated by member of crew who has the ability to hold a mic high up and balance on a fishing boat. I’m writing as if that is a hard thing to do, even though I’ve never held a boom mic high, or tried balancing on a fishing boat. I’ll just assume till I know otherwise.
The camera work on the program can sometimes be a little unstable as the camera man rushing to the edge of the boat to sea the monster that inhabits the river. The camera would tend to have Jeremy in the left of the shot and the edge of the boat to the right. We would then have a quick slight zoom into the fishing rod. This gives an unprofessional essence to the shot in technical hindsight, but I feel it just adds to the excitement and tension with quick jumpy cuts. We also have lots of close ups of the sharks and extreme close ups of their teeth and other parts. When Jeremy was pulling a fish closer to the ship, it would cut to an underwater and one can only assume point of view shot of the fish as it is pulled closer. This is obviously a production element that the creators have filmed separately and incorporated to the documentary to add more depth, excitement and visual stimulation. I would have expected a little more interviews in the program, perhaps a man missing a limb after wrestling a shark, or a family who’s pedalo was bitten through by Jaws, but there was only one ‘proper’ interview in this episode. When I say proper, as in an interview where it’s clearly evident it has been set up. In this interview, Jeremy talks to Copas Veid about his fishing tales. They sit at a nice wooden table with a flat landscape and blue sky behind. The interview is mostly presented in a mid shot, with cut aways of close ups of Jeremy’s hands, or an underwater shot.
I would definitely recommend this program, as it’s easily accessible and a great time filler for the times when you have that spare hour for intellectual feeding. Give it a try, you never know it might qualify for a Series Link status?
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