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C21 DIGITAL SCREENINGS

Theme Festival - Nature Documentary




OVERVIEW

With many wonders and sights all around the world, nature documentary allows
audiences to discover the world we live in directly from their TV screens.




PROGRAMMING PROFILE


KEEPING AN AI ON NATURE

22-10-2024

Natural history programming’s need to innovate has always put it at the
forefront of modern technology. But how are the genre’s filmmakers and
commissioners reacting to the advances in AI and what do they think it holds for
the future?

 

Snort if you like, but Miki Mistrati says his new one-hour documentary If Pigs
Could Talk is going to “kick off” when it launches to the international market
at Mipcom this week.

 

Part of Seven.One Studios International’s slate of shows, the documentary
special, produced by Denmark’s Snowman Productions for Germany’s ARD and NDR,
Denmark’s DR, Switzerland’s RTS, Norway’s NRK and Sweden’s SVT, features not
only pigs as the main protagonists but advanced AI technology.


 

“We’re giving the voice to the pigs – literally – and the AI is used to
understand their communication and behaviour. In this way, I’m pushing the
boundaries of traditional nature storytelling,” says Mistrati.

 

The multi-award-winning director and executive producer, whose previous work
includes Mars Exposed (CBS News), The Chocolate War, Cadbury Exposed (Channel 4)
and Stacey Dooley: Face to Face with the Bounty Hunters (BBC), would not
describe himself as a nature documentary maker in the traditional sense – and he
admits to being a novice at AI too.

 

But what appears to have set him apart from his peers, in this case, is that he
spotted a compelling subject for the screen from a piece of AI research that
others saw as only an interesting news story.

 

If Pigs Could Talk

“I understood from the very beginning that this would be a film about artificial
intelligence, because that would be a really important part of my narrative,”
says Mistrati. “I could have chosen to just get all the results, but for me, it
was much more important to get the viewers, the public, to understand what
artificial intelligence and machine learning is about and what we can use it
for.”

 

So is Mistrati’s AI-based nature doc the first of many that threaten to upend
the natural history genre?

 

The likely answer to that is no – not yet anyway. For one thing, while AI is at
the heart of Mistrati’s film, it didn’t help reduce the months of work and
significant budget needed to allow the filmmaker to create a documentary set in
the real world of pig farming. (In the original AI study, the data was taken
from the more sterile environment of specially designed test centres.)

 

Moreover, according to David Allen, MD of Passion Planet, fascinating as this
one-off documentary is, the AI science behind If Pigs Could Talk is part of “the
next level of science research that we’re all over all the time, whether it’s
AI-driven or the latest satellite.”

 

To underscore his point, Allen points to three award-winning “landmark series”
Passion Pictures has been behind that have cutting-edge science at their core.

 

Walking with Dinosaurs

These include the 2015 series Earth: A New Wild for PBS and National Geographic,
which used advanced techniques to show the world’s plains, mountains and oceans;
2020’s H2O: The Molecule That Made Us for PBS and BBC Four, which featured
“scientists, natural history and geology” to tell the human story through our
relationship with water; and 2023’s Evolution Earth, produced with PBS, Arte and
Love Nature, which relied heavily on science to show how animals migrate and
adapt their behaviour to keep pace “with a planet changing at super speed.”

 

Allen says Passion is currently working on a science-based nature documentary
for Blue Ant exploring “the longest coastline on earth” and how it is changing
due to climate change, and has another in development about “our relationship
with food and the environment.”

 

At Wildbear Entertainment in New Zealand, executive producer and general manager
Craig Meade says devouring science papers is the order of the day for him and
his colleagues when “looking for an edge that will let us tell a new story.” But
he sees more opportunities to apply AI “outside of nature than I see inside of
nature.”

 

Meade is a writer and producer of international science and natural history TV
content, including Big Ice, a four-part series capturing the behavioural changes
in polar wildlife in response to climate change, and the blue-chip nature series
Big Pacific. He is currently working in the world of archaeology and ancient
history, where “they’re finding ruins with satellite imagery and AI is scanning
it, looking for rectilinear shapes.”

 

He believes these kinds of findings are more accessible over a longer series
than decoding the language of whales, for example. “You’d get away with an hour,
but humanity, by the time it’s seen 20 minutes of it, it’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah,
yeah. What else is on?’ Not to be negative, but that’s the reality of life,” he
says.

 

A Real Bugs Life

Dr Martha Holmes, chief creative officer of natural history and adventure at ITV
Studios-owned Plimsoll, is excited by the opportunities presented by AI to
decode animal language, and points to a scientific study of bats that has
unearthed extraordinarily complex communication patterns within this community
of nocturnal creatures. “Through AI, they found out all sorts of things – that
bats talk to each other differently depending on the sexes, that female bats use
baby speak to baby bats. It’s just extraordinary,” she says.

 

Plimsoll is the producer of shows including A Real Bug’s Life for National
Geographic, which was recently commissioned for a second season and is available
on Disney+. Described by its makers as “the most ambitious and innovative
natural history series to ever be made,” the show, nevertheless, barely involved
AI. In fact, Holmes says that apart from using the technology “a little bit in
development to tweak pictures and things,” Plimsoll does not use the tech in any
of its programming.

 

“My concern with natural history docs and wildlife shows is the authenticity,
and that it’s believable and it’s true,” says the exec. “I don’t think we should
blur those lines between what’s real and what’s not because I think people have
to trust us.”

 

Like Plimsoll, the Natural History Unit (NHU) at BBC Studios, does not use AI to
create its programming, but it does use it as it a tool to deal with large data
sets, such as searching through thousands and thousands of clips. On example is
Wing Watch, an AI-enhanced interactive wildlife stream that is an offshoot of
the BBC’s Winterwatch programme.

 

Jonny Keeling, head of the NHU, explains: “AI is looking through all the footage
that we have from all the cameras on bird boxes or on bird feeders, and it can
identify which species there are. So as an audience member, you could be
watching, say, on social media and you could request to just see the sparrows or
just see the blackbirds. And it will identify which is the blackbird versus the
sparrow and then give you all the feeds for all or all the images of what the
blackbird has done. So you don’t have to watch all of it.”

 

Another way it can be used, says Keeling, is with live cameras where a live feed
may be recording unnatural sounds such as a car engine. “We want the sounds of
animals, we want an animal show, so it can help us to switch away from those
live feeds,” he says, adding that when it comes to making shows “we still use
the creativity of fantastic programme makers.”

 

Wing Watch

So what about the commissioners? What is their position on AI?

 

Love Nature, which runs wildlife and nature linear and streaming channels around
the world, follows the same policy on AI set out by its parent company, Blue Ant
Media, according to Alison Barrat, its senior VP and head of content. “Blue Ant
has a policy, which is that if we’re using AI, it should be as a tool rather
than to replace talent. So our guiding principle is ‘tools over talent,’” she
explains.

 

But while AI may not pose a threat to the world of the nature doc right now,
there’s no question it is an issue that is pre-occupying a sector that requires
heaps of money to produce the blue-chip, high-end wildlife series we’ve come to
expect from the likes of the BBC, Netflix and Disney.

 

Keith Scholey is co-CEO and director at Silverback Films, producer of successful
natural history films and series including Wild Isles (BBC), Our Planet and Our
Planet II (Netflix) and David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (Netflix). He
remembers warning the industry over 20 years ago, when the landmark series
Walking with Dinosaurs was released, that one day the cost of recreating
wildlife through animation would cost less than capturing it for real.

 

“We are at that moment,” he says. “I just saw something made by a graphics
company that made me shudder. They’d gone to the Natural History Museum in
London, filmed all of these stuffed animals on an iPhone and then put it through
an AI programme. All those stuffed animals started to come to life and move.
They looked really real, and this had taken them a couple of hours to make.”

 

Describing this as “the dark side of AI,” Scholey believes that “in two years’
time you’ll be able to create any wildlife sequence you want through AI that
will look real. But the difference is that the sequence can be whatever you
want. And it’ll be cheaper than going out and filming it.

 

Evolution Earth

“We’re going to hit this point with natural history and we’re going to have to
make sure we’ve thought it through very, very carefully to make sure it has
enough value for broadcasters to pay for it,” he says.

 

Plimsoll’s Holmes agrees, saying: “Everybody in our industry is thinking
somebody could make an extraordinarily compelling film that’s completely made
with a fake AI. For me – and I’m talking personally now – we have to stick on
the side of truth and rigorous science and not tip over into fantasy.”

 

For Mistrati, the opportunities offered by AI leave him more optimistic than
pessimistic about its applications, and he has high hopes about where If Pigs
Could Talk can take us in the new world of communication between man and beast.

 

“Now we have a high, 96% accuracy of what pigs are telling us, imagine if we
could translate human language into pig language? Can you say something in our
language into your phone that would turn into a grunt? That opens us up to the
possibility of understanding animals across the world. We will be Dr Doolittle,
just in real life,” he says.

READ LESS

Natural history programming’s need to innovate has always put it at the
forefront of modern technology. But how are the genre’s filmmakers and
commissioners reacting to the advances in AI and what do they think it holds for
the future?

 

Snort if you like, but Miki Mistrati says his new one-hour documentary If Pigs
Could Talk is going to “kick off” when it launches to the international market
at Mipcom this week.

 

Part of Seven.One Studios International’s slate of shows, the documentary
special, produced by Denmark’s Snowman Productions for Germany’s ARD and NDR,
Denmark’s DR, Switzerland’s RTS, Norway’s NRK and Sweden’s SVT, features not
only pigs as the main protagonists but advanced AI technology.
READ MORE




FEATURED PLAYLIST: NATURE DOCUMENTARY THEME FESTIVAL - OCTOBER 2024

TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:04 / 01:22


Katavi – Africa's Fallen Paradise Autentic Distribution
An extreme weather event hits Katavi, sparking conflict and alliances among
hippos, crocodiles, and lions as they struggle for survival. MORE
TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:00 / 00:00


Fish Forever Banijay Entertainment
Spanning four decades of filming and fishing around the world, Al McGlashan has
certainly witnessed some awe-inspiring natural events through the lens. Lead by
passion, Al’s latest instalment FISH FOREVER takes us on a journey to showcase
the plight some of our oceans and fisheries are facing. MORE
TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:00 / 00:00


Predator Countdown All3Media International
From leopards and wolves to sharks and snakes, witness the raw power and
tenacity of nature’s most remarkable predators in a journey across Africa,
Australia, North America and South America. MORE
cc

If Pigs Could Talk Seven.One Studios International
Unlocking the language of pigs using AI, this documentary reveals the hidden
emotions and ethics of pig farming MORE
TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:00 / 00:00


Decoding Animal Culture Terranoa
This series reveals that animals, too, have a culture. Animals share much more
than the skills specific to their nature: they pass on common traditions. A
culture that manifests itself through languages, preferences, hunting or
foraging strategies, migration routes, tool-using techniques. Join us in the
first series documenting and deciphering these traditions on a global scale.
MORE
TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:00 / 00:00


Defying Death: Natural Disasters FOX Entertainment Global
Seven Americans share their stories of resilience in the face of some of the
most unpredictable and devastating natural disasters. MORE
TAP TO UNMUTE MUTE



00:00 / 00:00


Survival of the Beast Blue Ant Studios
Prepare for a completely new way of looking at the animal kingdom with SURVIVAL
OF THE BEAST, from adventurer, survival expert, and zoology nut Max Djenohan.
Max is on a mission to discover and mimic the survival skills of some of the
most charismatic animals on Earth. What incredible and surprising adaptations
have allowed these creatures to thrive when others have failed? MORE

 * 
   Katavi – Africa's Fallen Paradise Autentic Distribution
 * 
   Fish Forever Banijay Entertainment
 * 
   Predator Countdown All3Media International
 * 
   If Pigs Could Talk Seven.One Studios International
 * 
   Decoding Animal Culture Terranoa
 * 
   Defying Death: Natural Disasters FOX Entertainment Global
 * 
   Survival of the Beast Blue Ant Studios

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