The Cove
We've been editing quite a bit now and I've been looking to The Cove for inspiration for Kaleidoscopic Views.
It's no surprise that I love The Cove. I originally wanted to make a documentary about dolphins (remember that, Liam? heh.) but twas not meant to be...
But that doesn't mean I'm not going to use other dolphin documentaries as a guide.
The doco is quite stylised, and definitely has a theme. It has got a sort of Mission: Impossible vibe about it. Oceans 11 or something. Espionage and special equipment etc. I like the voice over (narration) by director Louis Psihoyos because it shows his involvement with the cause, not just the making of the film.
That is kind of what we're after with our doco, trying to show the process of us discovering and learning about Synaesthesia, by trying to recreate the things they see ourselves. I feel like through the process of that, the audience will better understand Synaesthesia because they have sort of been following US on OUR journey, accompanied by the Synaesthetes' descriptions.
The Cove focusses on Ric O'Barry (main dolphin trainer on hit show Flipper) and the efforts of his team to try to expose the unnecessary annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins in a small town named Taiji in Japan.
Every year for the past 400 years, Japan has had their annual dolphin cull and whale hunts without fail, killing over 23,000 cetaceans per year. They do it in a brutal way; they use harpoons that shoot right through the animals’ bodies and then haul them over into their boats, blood dripping off the wounds as they trash in pain and die a slow, painful death.
They operate with a permit from the Japanese government; the okay from their leaders allows Japanese fishermen to carry on with the largest mass killing of cetaceans anywhere in the world, despite countless protests and unrelenting effort from organizations to stop the annual bloodbath.
With each dolphin that is killed in the hunt, the water around the boats grows increasingly red, like somebody spilled red paint into the ocean. Everything becomes quiet by the end of the hunt, with the waters tainted with the strong putrid smell of dolphin blood.
To the people of Taiji, however, the people protesting are racist foreigners who are adamant on interfering with their business - their legitimate business - that has been a part of their culture and tradition for centuries. Japan’s defense is that we have no right to judge and condemn their culture.
In the dolphins and whales’ defense, times are a changing and dolphin hunts are just not acceptable anymore. The world is becoming more environmentally conscious, and for good reason: species are becoming increasingly endangered.
If we don’t take action now, we’re looking at complete extinction of key species within a couple of years. When or if this happens, we will not only be mourning the tragic loss of beautiful creatures, it could seriously throw off the ecosystem, disrupting the balance that the world needs.
Dolphins and whales are hunted for various reasons in Japan. A lot of the meat is sold to the public, in spite of the fact that it contains dangerously high levels of mercury, methyl-mercury and PCBs which can be poisonous and detrimental to human health. Some dolphins- specifically bottlenose dolphins, orcas (killer whales) - and certain whales and porpoises are captured for ‘entertainment’ purposes, where they are put in captivity at ‘dolphinariums’, sea worlds, and aquariums for public viewing.
Other dolphins and whales hunted include striped dolphins, Risso's dolphins, false killer whales, spotted dolphins, short-finned pilot whales and many more, a lot of which are in the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species. The numbers are continually depleting, and if the hunt goes on, it could lead to first extirpation and quickly followed by extinction within just a few decades.
The Japanese argue that an important reason for their annual mass killing of cetaceans is for the sake of science and research. The Japanese government also claims that the “dolphins compete with local fishermen for low supplies of fish and the hunt is a pest control campaign.”
I am no scientist or researcher, but it doesn’t take knowledge of rocket science to know that one does not need over 20,000 cetaceans or even a quarter of that number to conduct proper research. And as for the pest control campaign? I think that the Japanese fishermen have gotten lazy and possibly forgotten how to breed fish, which yields fast and effective results.
Killing dolphins and whales is not like gathering tuna or other fish you have for dinner at the sushi bar.
Dolphins and whales are not fish.
I cannot stress how important it is to clarify to the Japanese or anyone else who takes part in dolphin culls and whale hunts that: They are mammals. They have lungs. They give birth. Scientific data shows that “dolphins have the mental and emotional capacities for pain and suffering similar to apes and humans”; this fully supports the protests and arguments to call off the hunt. Studies of dolphins over a long period of time reveal they have strong family ties, social traditions and complex interdependent relationships.
Dolphins are a big part of me. I loved them as a child and I can only grow to love them more. I studied their anatomy, read up on their behaviours, learned their scientific names and bought the soft toys. I wanted to be a marine biologist who specialises in dolphins. They are the reputed ‘oracles of the sea’, with a mystical, beautiful and calming aura about them.
Watching that scene in The Cove where the dolphins are slaughtered so inhumanely, that was bad. I wasn't used to seeing dolphins, who are usually so calm and graceful, trashing around in pain, crying out desperately to a bunch of fishermen who could care less about sparing their babies.
I don’t have a grudge against Japan. I like the country and its people. I was there a few years ago on a student exchange program with my school and I cherish the experience.
I have faith in the people of Japan and I understand that there are groups of people there who are just as against dolphin and whale hunts as the rest of the world. I can only hope that all the effort that we’re putting into stopping this bloodbath will pay off.
Click to viewIt's no surprise that I love The Cove. I originally wanted to make a documentary about dolphins (remember that, Liam? heh.) but twas not meant to be...
But that doesn't mean I'm not going to use other dolphin documentaries as a guide.
The doco is quite stylised, and definitely has a theme. It has got a sort of Mission: Impossible vibe about it. Oceans 11 or something. Espionage and special equipment etc. I like the voice over (narration) by director Louis Psihoyos because it shows his involvement with the cause, not just the making of the film.
That is kind of what we're after with our doco, trying to show the process of us discovering and learning about Synaesthesia, by trying to recreate the things they see ourselves. I feel like through the process of that, the audience will better understand Synaesthesia because they have sort of been following US on OUR journey, accompanied by the Synaesthetes' descriptions.
The Cove focusses on Ric O'Barry (main dolphin trainer on hit show Flipper) and the efforts of his team to try to expose the unnecessary annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins in a small town named Taiji in Japan.
Every year for the past 400 years, Japan has had their annual dolphin cull and whale hunts without fail, killing over 23,000 cetaceans per year. They do it in a brutal way; they use harpoons that shoot right through the animals’ bodies and then haul them over into their boats, blood dripping off the wounds as they trash in pain and die a slow, painful death.
They operate with a permit from the Japanese government; the okay from their leaders allows Japanese fishermen to carry on with the largest mass killing of cetaceans anywhere in the world, despite countless protests and unrelenting effort from organizations to stop the annual bloodbath.
With each dolphin that is killed in the hunt, the water around the boats grows increasingly red, like somebody spilled red paint into the ocean. Everything becomes quiet by the end of the hunt, with the waters tainted with the strong putrid smell of dolphin blood.
To the people of Taiji, however, the people protesting are racist foreigners who are adamant on interfering with their business - their legitimate business - that has been a part of their culture and tradition for centuries. Japan’s defense is that we have no right to judge and condemn their culture.
In the dolphins and whales’ defense, times are a changing and dolphin hunts are just not acceptable anymore. The world is becoming more environmentally conscious, and for good reason: species are becoming increasingly endangered.
If we don’t take action now, we’re looking at complete extinction of key species within a couple of years. When or if this happens, we will not only be mourning the tragic loss of beautiful creatures, it could seriously throw off the ecosystem, disrupting the balance that the world needs.
Dolphins and whales are hunted for various reasons in Japan. A lot of the meat is sold to the public, in spite of the fact that it contains dangerously high levels of mercury, methyl-mercury and PCBs which can be poisonous and detrimental to human health. Some dolphins- specifically bottlenose dolphins, orcas (killer whales) - and certain whales and porpoises are captured for ‘entertainment’ purposes, where they are put in captivity at ‘dolphinariums’, sea worlds, and aquariums for public viewing.
Other dolphins and whales hunted include striped dolphins, Risso's dolphins, false killer whales, spotted dolphins, short-finned pilot whales and many more, a lot of which are in the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species. The numbers are continually depleting, and if the hunt goes on, it could lead to first extirpation and quickly followed by extinction within just a few decades.
The Japanese argue that an important reason for their annual mass killing of cetaceans is for the sake of science and research. The Japanese government also claims that the “dolphins compete with local fishermen for low supplies of fish and the hunt is a pest control campaign.”
I am no scientist or researcher, but it doesn’t take knowledge of rocket science to know that one does not need over 20,000 cetaceans or even a quarter of that number to conduct proper research. And as for the pest control campaign? I think that the Japanese fishermen have gotten lazy and possibly forgotten how to breed fish, which yields fast and effective results.
Killing dolphins and whales is not like gathering tuna or other fish you have for dinner at the sushi bar.
Dolphins and whales are not fish.
I cannot stress how important it is to clarify to the Japanese or anyone else who takes part in dolphin culls and whale hunts that: They are mammals. They have lungs. They give birth. Scientific data shows that “dolphins have the mental and emotional capacities for pain and suffering similar to apes and humans”; this fully supports the protests and arguments to call off the hunt. Studies of dolphins over a long period of time reveal they have strong family ties, social traditions and complex interdependent relationships.
Dolphins are a big part of me. I loved them as a child and I can only grow to love them more. I studied their anatomy, read up on their behaviours, learned their scientific names and bought the soft toys. I wanted to be a marine biologist who specialises in dolphins. They are the reputed ‘oracles of the sea’, with a mystical, beautiful and calming aura about them.
Watching that scene in The Cove where the dolphins are slaughtered so inhumanely, that was bad. I wasn't used to seeing dolphins, who are usually so calm and graceful, trashing around in pain, crying out desperately to a bunch of fishermen who could care less about sparing their babies.
I don’t have a grudge against Japan. I like the country and its people. I was there a few years ago on a student exchange program with my school and I cherish the experience.
I have faith in the people of Japan and I understand that there are groups of people there who are just as against dolphin and whale hunts as the rest of the world. I can only hope that all the effort that we’re putting into stopping this bloodbath will pay off.