As a wildlife filmmaker based in a country like India that is high on blue chip and large scale productions and popular voices doing voice overs, specializing in conservation filmmaking is harder than one can imagine.
India is home to Bollywood, an industry that producers over 300-350 Hindi language films each year, my conservation film on roadkills stands almost no chance of getting noticed.
This makes it a challenge to hit that mark with your target audience and get the publicity ball rolling.
How do I address this gap? Well, we make them feel emotionally attached to the animal.
You make it relatable.
You could look at the Big 5 or similar megafauna or make the story feel relatable and humanized. Personified.
Add the drama. Add conflict.
Add the sense of adventure and the idea of pursuing something.
Make them feel like their involvement in this story is worth their time :)
George Kingston is an all-out outdoor person. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and an M.S. in Sustainability Science & Practices from Stanford University. His training has motivated him to advocate for greater sustainability and accessibility within outdoor activities. These days, George is working as an actor and screenwriter to depict our relationships with the natural world.
We never thought about this and here at Mojostreaming, we thank George for educating us!
We would like to hear from you. Do you have any other suggestions on what other changes can be made?
Charlotte Williams is a
highly respected and increasingly celebrated British fine artist with a
particular interest in wildlife. She is entirely self-taught and was
drawing her first animal portraits as young as nine years old.
Despite being afforded a scholarship to Farnham Art College
in her late teens, she headed instead for South Africa and the ‘bush’, where
she spent several years living and working on a game reserve in the Eastern
Transvaal. Immersed in the raw environment of the veldt, it was here
that Charlotte’s life-long passion for animals and the wild was born, and
where she passed many hundreds of hours wandering, observing and sketching all
that she saw.
On her return to the
UK in the mid-1990s, Charlotte continued to dedicate herself to art,
this time in Brighton. She went on to exhibit her work in numerous shows -
locally, and in London. She has since been in great demand and
the majority of her work today is by commission, both at home and
abroad.
Charlotte’s consuming affection for wildlife
conservation has remained paramount, and her depiction of Cecil The Lion,
who lived primarily in the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, has become one of
her iconic portraits. She later auctioned the portrait to
raise funds and awareness of the battle against poaching, and she today
continues to support myriad conservation enterprises and wildlife foundations
across the globe.
Each of Charlotte’s meticulous artworks aims to capture the
soul and spirit of her subjects, from behind the eyes, so that you might know
them and feel them, as if they were living and breathing before you. Her
appreciation of wild animals, coupled with her unapologetic perfectionism -
enable her to create paintings and drawings that are unique and wholly
authentic.
Though now based in her studio in rural East Sussex since
2010 she has an ever growing global following on social media and has
recently been made a signature member of Artists For Conservation. She is
represented by numerous people, including the prestigious London and Sussex
based gallery Rountree Tryon and has exhibited at, amongst others, Masterpiece
Art and Gallery Different in London
.
Mojostreaming is a proud sponsor of this year's 2021 WCFF!
Be sure to watch last year's WCFF finalist and Mojo's favorite Documentary: Trailer: youtu.be
Wach the film here:
https://www.mojostreaming.com/video/635/roam4wild-the-documentary-film
Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WCFF) is an international film festival based in New York and Los Angeles, that promotes and produces interactive events around independent films that promote sustainability and the conservation of biodiversity. The WCFF has global partnerships in Brazil, China, Kenya, and Scandinavia as of November 2019.
The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival was founded in 2010 by Christopher J. Gervais, FRGS at first as a 2-day event and has now grown to a 10-day festival.[1] It is a juried event with attendees and participants that include international wildlife conservationists, filmmakers, photographers, scientists, and people across the globe that work toward the preservation of global biodiversity. WCFF has a global educational outreach program with secondary and post-secondary institutions in North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe as of 2019.
Be sure to visit their website: wcff.org
Board of Advisors:
Jane Alexander
Casey Anderson
Gale Brewer
Holly Marie Combs
Fabien Cousteau
Dr. Sylvia Earle
Dr. Birute’ Mary Galdikas
Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE
Dr. David Guggenheim
Dr. Paula Kahumbu, OGW
Ron Magill
Ian Redmond, OBE
Dr. E.O. Wilson
Dr. Patricia C. Wright
David Hamlin
