The Richmond Park Deer
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The Richmond Park Deer
BB Films
Download film (right-click)Award Nominees , Biology , Earth Science & Environment , Investigation , Secondary
A look at the deer of Richmond Park.
Director's Notes:
This was originally made for a SciCast-inspired film competition held amongst schools in Richmond. The competition culminated in a grand awards ceremony in early December 2007, at which this wildlife documentary deservedly won Best Biology Film. Still, it must have been nerve-wracking for the makers to have their film played to the night’s special guest, none other than Sir David Attenborough.
Richmond Park is one of the larger Royal Parks of London, boasting some fine oak trees but, perhaps, most famous for its deer. Long gone are the days when they were hunted for sport.
The film describes the life-cycle of the deer, and how they’re managed.
SciCast Notes:
Nominee: Best Biology Film, 2008
Nominee: Best Film, the Jurors’ Grand Prize 2008
SciCast’s first wildlife documentary?
This is a technically stunning film, with lots of wonderful photography. Even though the deer in Richmond are used to humans, getting so many of these shots must have involved substantial patience, not to mention some early-morning starts.
The voice-over is also extremely well-written. I heard on the grapevine that the film-makers arm-twisted their teacher into recording it because they wanted the film to look and sound as much like an Attenborough documentary as possible. It worked!
Great job, all — particularly for avoiding the classic problem of this sort of documentary, which is having lots of wonderful photography but not finding a way to use it to tell a story.
— Jonathan.