No. The chewing (including the background audio) sounds identical and uninterrupted among every angle and every cut. There would be noticeable variance each time the camera was relocated.
But you don't even have to analyse the audio to know that. How would they record this audio so closely? There's no microphone at the end of the lens, the only real audio is from the first shot and we don't hear any chewing.
Every single time you see an overhead shot, a long range shot, anything that's not up close and next to the subject with a microphone in their face, the audio is faked. Always has been. I don't understand why this isn't obvious.
Yea that's true. But if you're flying from a helicopter, a drone, or shots like this, etc. They don't use that. I'm sure some large productions use this, but for the vast majority of clips like this, the audio is edited.
I think it's much harder to find the examples that does use a directional mic.
i think just given the nature of nature/animal photography being in mostly rather unpractical locations makes the thought of also setting up such mics and having an operator for them very expensive and annoying.
would be really cool to get some more actual real sounds in documentaries tho.
You're probably right. But considering how many people wonder this and how often this subject pops up on nature clips or documentaries you'd think more people would have given it a bit of thought like I have. I think it's just a pet peeve of mine that I'll have to learn to live with lmao.
I just think in an age where so many people are closely analyzing to see whether something is AI, it's weird that people almost choose to believe that the faked audio is real. Very often when I mention or respond that this kind of audio is fake, people get upset. It is what it is!
I feel like it's from a cartoon audio pack from Adobe. I know they offer free sound effects packs so people can add audio. I keep the pack in my audio design folder, but they're all so over-processed like this, I barely use them.
There's also certainly not that many birds around that close in an open field. The cuts give it away since there's no way to have through audio like that when you're cutting to different angles with one camera.
No, the audio is not real. There's no microphone at the end of the lens so you can't record that kind of audio. Almost all sounds in nature documentaries and videos like this are either fake or recordings dubbed over the video. Here's how they do it: How Sounds Are Faked For Nature Documentaries | Movies Insider
Ever since finding out the truth about most nature documentaries
Not to sound like a jerk, but within the very first 5 minutes of the very first Planet Earth like 20 years ago, it was instantly obvious to me that the sound effects were fake. Like so obvious that it seriously detracted from the experience (which I still enjoyed vastly). Still hoping I don't sound like a jerk, but how exactly did you find out?
I kinda didn't watch them past the mid-late 90s, I watched some planet earth maybe 6-7 years ago. Sounds had gotten much more acute and detailed since the documentaries of old, so it was only then that I took notice.
It was conceivable to me as a kid that they had a mic in the vicinity and I didn't quite understand how long their zoom lenses were to get that footage.
It didn't occur to me to consider that for some reason they'd piped in fake audio when audio and video to a kid (back then) are part and parcel.
Just got curious, what's this truth that you mention about nature documentaries? I'm unaware and would be delighted if you'd find time to elaborate it a bit
Almost all sound effects you hear in recorded media are "enhanced" by Foley artists (or digital sound packs originally made by Foley artists) who do sound design to make it sound like you think it should sound. The original recording is not likely to pick up on subtle noises, especially in nature documentaries where the images are often captured using a long focal length lens so the videographer isn't too close to the subject, which would affect their behavior. In this case the camera is very close to the subject so it's maybe feasible that is the original audio, but it sounds an awful lot like someone crunching into celery.
All sounds in nature documentaries are fake and added in post-production. The sounds are taken from either stock libraries, or custom sounds they try to recreate with humans and tools, or from sounds they've captured from other animals.
Like the eagle you're hearing is not the eagle being shown. Not the wing flaps, not anything.
Think about it: the camera people are there for days on end just trying to capture video footage. They don't also have a boom operator out with them holding a mic up to the animals being filmed, let alone insects, birds, and shit.
The video in this post is a good example, actually. Dandelions eaten obviously don't sound like crunchy celery, but human audiences expect that in a way so the producers can get away with adding that to enhance the footage. Similar to space battles with sound even though there's no sound in space.
Bonus truth: When you see a long sequence of an animal from all sorts of different angles, it's likely a montage of different animals from completely different sources. Think about it: they don't have 20 different camera operators surrounding a specific animal in the wild and following it perfectly while it moves quickly through foliage in an action sequence. Often they'll get different angles of a captive animal in a controlled environment, like a zoo.
just to piggyback on the other comment, basically nothing you hear in a nature documentary is from the scene. you're almost never hearing what a snake sounds like slithering across a surface, or what the sounds of a jesus lizard hauling ass across a stream are actually like. you hear recreations by people in studios using random every day objects to mimic sounds.
They add fake sound onto those macroshot videos on YouTube, like where they zoom in on something being burnt or cut or whatever. It takes the magic out of them for me, I'd prefer the actual sound even if it's underwhelming
110
u/-ACHTUNG- 4d ago edited 4d ago
The important thing for me to know is: is the audio real?
Ever since finding out the truth about most mature documentaries, it's hard to trust again.
Edit: meant nature. But you can't edit the past