Bowing their heads against the blustery fall wind, Sara Slagle and John Shier trudge through a fresh dusting of snow to the top of Mount Washburn, scanning the hills for what most hikers hope they’ll never encounter: a 400- to 600-pound grizzly bear.
The two graduate students from Montana State University pause to catch their breath as an elk emits an eerie, high-pitched bellow in a valley below. Fresh coyote tracks in the snow reveal that the students aren’t alone -- but it’s the elusive grizzly they’re after.
Mounted on Mr. Shier’s back is a bright-yellow, 65-pound case containing a high-definition movie camera and tripod, worth around $100,000. Two canisters of pepper spray hang from his neck. Both he and Ms. Slagle plant walking sticks in front of them as they climb the 10,000-foot mountain.
It’s a trek they’ll repeat often as part of a thesis project for an innovative program in science and natural-history filmmaking.
The three-year graduate program -- started in 2001 and believed to be the only one of its kind -- takes students with undergraduate degrees in science, gives them a yearlong crash course in filmmaking, and sets them loose with cameras in some of the most remote and scenic areas of the world.
While Mr. Shier and Ms. Slagle are hunkered down behind a rock, waiting for grizzlies to emerge, one of their classmates is clinging to a tree limb filming leopards in India; another is crouching on tundra recording fur seals in the nearby Bering Sea; and still another is lugging camera equipment across hardened lava in Hawaii in pursuit of an endangered bird called a honeycreeper.
Each project is the culmination of a sequence that begins with a year on Montana State’s Bozeman campus learning the basics of filmmaking -- cinematography, editing, interviewing techniques, production -- even how to apply for grants. Students also discuss ethical issues that they might face on the trail; for example, baiting an animal to get it to come out is frowned upon, no matter how much you need the footage. So is getting too close to the animal or unnecessarily traumatizing it.
During their second year, students spend at least 80 hours in the field with research scientists, gathering material for a 15-minute, broadcast-quality film or video. During their third year, they produce a 30-to 60-minute thesis film, either individually or with the help of a classmate. The films can cost $10,000 to $50,000 to produce, and the students have to come up with the grant money to pay for them.
After graduating, they hope to create documentaries and other films for outlets like Discovery Networks and the Nova science show on PBS. Discovery donated $1.4-million to get the program started, and the Sony Corporation gave it a cut rate on two high-definition cameras and three broadcast-quality digital cameras.
While some of the 45 students enrolled in the program may envision themselves as wildlife warriors, wrestling reptiles like the Animal Planet’s Crocodile Hunter, others are planning tamer careers, creating science films for museums, national parks, and schools.
Although Discovery isn’t guaranteeing anyone jobs after graduation, the network has hired three students this fall as paid apprentices.
Mr. Shier was working in Seattle as an electrical engineer and thinking about how much he hated being stuck at a computer when he learned about the Montana State program. “I love the outdoors and adventure,” he says, “and when I saw the flier for this program, I said ‘That’s it.’” The flier depicted a roaring cougar with a roll of film curling out of its mouth.
Ms. Slagle grew up camping and fly-fishing with her family in New Mexico. “I used to watch all of the National Geographic specials on TV, and I always wanted to be the photographer,” says Ms. Slagle, who worked in an environmental-toxicology lab before enrolling at Bozeman.
Women make up two-thirds of the applicants to the program, which has received about nine applications for every student it has accepted, says Ronald B. Tobias, a prolific wildlife filmmaker who runs the course. To get in, students must have an undergraduate degree (major or minor) in science, technology, or engineering. They aren’t required to have any filmmaking experience.
“We began with the premise that the people who are making films about science ought to have a background in science,” says Mr. Tobias. The filmmaker, whose movies have included Discovery Channel specials on venomous snakes, electric eels, lions, and piranhas, persuaded the network to sponsor the fine-arts program as a way to educate a new generation of filmmakers.
“We want to change the nature of science filmmaking, which has been in a rut since the invention of the camera,” he says.
The Montana State students are required to work closely with outside scientists and researchers brought in by Montana State, who not only advise them but also check their scripts for accuracy.
That’s a switch from the usual method of creating science films, Mr. Tobias says: “Usually filmmakers are taught to be leery of scientists, so a typical interview is ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am,’ and he’s out of there. Many filmmakers are afraid that the scientist is going to be meddlesome and try to dictate creative content.”
Praveen Singh, a third-year student, was more afraid that the scientist he was working with might get him killed after the researcher talked Mr. Singh into climbing a tree in a wildlife sanctuary in central India to film leopards at night.
Shrouded in a black cloth, Mr. Singh held his breath while he filmed a leopard pouncing on a deer and devouring it. He was afraid that the infrared lights on his night-vision camera would give him away, and that he might end up as the leopard’s next course. Instead, he ended up with some great footage.
Halfway around the world, a fellow third-year student, Tracy A. Graziano, was also crouching in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise over Yellowstone Park so she could resume work on her film about coyotes. Covered head to toe in camouflage and spritzed with a product that made her smell like leaves, she sat for three to four hours at a stretch.
She’s filming half of the project in Yellowstone, where wolves are threatening the coyote population, and the other half in Pennsylvania’s Presque Isle State Park, where some wolves and coyotes have enjoyed a much cozier relationship.
“It’s really fascinating -- you spend time in Yellowstone and hear about how the wolves are killing the coyotes, and then you go to the East Coast, where wolves and coyotes are having puppies together,” says Ms. Graziano, whose film will compare coyotes in the two regions and explore the role that the animal plays in American Indian culture.
Back in Montana, Ms. Slagle and Mr. Shier are continuing their search for grizzlies, trying to get as much footage as they can before November, when most of the bears will go into hibernation. Mr. Shier leans over to pick up a pine cone bursting with fatty nuts.
“Bears really like white-bark pine cones, because they’re high in protein,” he says. “The key is that you have to know what the bears are eating, and once you figure that out, go there.” The two students also look for other clues that bears are nearby, like tracks, scat, and scratches on trees.
This fall Ms. Slagle came within 100 yards of a mother grizzly nursing two cubs -- an experience that showed her the gentler side of the animal. “There’s always been a misconception about grizzly bears -- that they stand on their hind legs, teeth bared, and that they’re out to kill,” she says. “Really, they’d really rather not have anything to do with you.”
She and Mr. Shier worry that if grizzlies are removed from the endangered-species list, as has been proposed, ranchers and hunters will declare open season on the bears.
Scientists estimate that there are only about 1,200 grizzlies left in the entire lower 48 states, compared with 50,000 to 100,000 a century ago. In Yellowstone, researchers put the grizzly population at 400 to 600.
Four hours into the hike, the two budding filmmakers would be happy to find just one of those bears. Weary and windblown, they turn around and head down the mountain, to resume their search another day.
http://chronicle.com Section: Notes From Academe Volume 50, Issue 9, Page A56