Into the Wild, “Nightmares of Nature”

 my interview and write up for RED Digital Cinema

article here

Just like the best horror films, wildlife docuseries Nightmares of Nature plunges viewers into a terrifying world where nothing and no-one is safe.

The opening of episode one establishes the mood. “Nature is full of wonder and beauty,” says narrator Maya Hawke (Stranger Things) over shots of delicate butterflies, an innocent looking frog and a cute mouse. “But for the creatures who live out in the wild, it’s also full of monsters.”

Cue, a slithering snake and a montage of bugs being eaten alive.

The groundbreaking Netflix docu-horror hybrid is produced by Jason Blum, the master of modern horror (Get Out, Insidious, The Black Phone and M3GAN) and award-winning documentary specialist Plimsoll Productions (A Real Bugs Life (National Geographic); Incredible Animal Journeys (Disney+), Big Beasts (AppleTV+).

“The stumbling block we came up against was how to make a horror natural history look like it isn’t just a regular natural history show that’s been graded a bit spookily and has loud sound design,” explains filmmaker Nathan Small of the project’s conception. “When Blumhouse Television got involved, they pushed it towards much more of a narrative-led cinematic thriller following characters as they go on a journey.”

Netflix loved the idea and commissioned two seasons of three episodes: Cabin in The Woods and Lost in the Jungle follow the fight for survival of a pregnant mouse and other heroes including a baby opossum, a raccoon, and an iguana plus a jumping spider barely the size of a dime. The aim was to capture the authentic behaviors of these elusive, speedy and tiny creatures while delivering a polished and visually stunning horror-infused spectacle.

“Our characters were chosen because they exhibited interesting adaptations and cool behaviors that would work well with the storylines,” says Charlotte Lathane who directed Lost in the Jungle. “We spoke to scientists and experts to back the research up and engineered scenarios in which our hero creatures can use that adaptation or superpower to get out of a life-threatening situation. The scenarios may be conjured up, but all the behavior is real.”

Exteriors, mostly shot in Costa Rica, combined with interior sets dressed as an abandoned creepy wood cabin and abandoned laboratory, were lit to mimic the look of classic Hammer haunted house or slasher films.

“We loved that we could lean into horror tropes to capture the drama, danger and dark beauty of nature,” says Small, who directed Cabin in the Woods. “We watched a number of Blumhouse horror films so that we could work that cinematic language into the style and cut a lot of test sequences using our natural-history archive.”

The very specific and challenging lighting design req uired a set of tools capable of photographing extreme close-ups as well as shadow detail and bright highlights.

“Lighting is so important in horror. Being able to create pools of light and pools of darkness and have things appear out of the darkness is so crucial,” says Small. “Being able to operate in low light with confidence was vital. In this case the Dual ISO (800 and 3200) of RED GEMINI was super helpful for us.”

“When it comes to filming authentic animal behavior you don’t want to have to throw loads of light in your animal’s faces,” says Lathane. “The dual sensitivity of the camera meant we’re not blasting loads of light at our creatures to be able to see them and we can shoot with a low light cinematic feel. It means we could be a lot subtler with the lighting.”

RED cameras are the workhorses for natural history, and we are all familiar with them. “We've all been using them for years; the cameras are super reliable,” adds Small.

Cabin in the Woods was shot by DOP Chris Watts using custom-made scope lenses equipped with high-end front objective lenses to offer a range of focal lengths - essentially a full macro prime set.

“At that scale, the depth of field is paper-thin, and a knock or a wobble looks like an earthquake on screen, so to maintain that control, we used a custom motion-control rig,” explains Small. “It enabled us to execute perfectly timed push-ins, creeping pans and slow, deliberate tracking shots at tiny scales — cinematic language, just shrunk down to the size of a cockroach.

For everything beyond those ultra-close moments, they shot with rehoused Contax Primes and high-quality diopters. “The Contax glass gave us that cinematic fall-off and organic softness while the diopters let us push right up against our subjects without losing depth or quality. Together, they gave the woods texture and mood — beautiful, tactile and tiniest bit unsettling, with pin-sharp clarity and distinctive character.”

Lost in the Jungle was shot by DOP Robert Hollingsworth principally with Mamiya primes with the majority of the spider work shot by award winning cameraman Simon de Glanville.

“We chose to pair the GEMINI with Mamiya primes to match the scale of the lens to the scale of our subject and take advantage of the extended depth of field that those lenses allow for,” Lathane says. “The aim being to immerse the audience into the scale of our characters.”

“GEMINI is good in low light and allowed us access to an excellent bit rate and higher frame rates that are required for natural history storytelling. Horror is as light as it is dark, so having a camera that can see into the shadows enabled Rob to light with a higher contrast ratio to create the negative space in the frame. That would allow the audience a sense of uneasiness.”

The camera was gripped using a variety of equipment such as jibs, sliders, and a bespoke macro motion control gantry. The Mamiyas were paired with extension tubes and diopters for some of the trickier shots, and they even found a use for Vaseline on lenses to give a dreamlike feel for certain scenes.

“Horror is nothing without lighting, and the compact shooting package with the small grip fit perfectly in the practical world that we were shooting in, which was a disused building in Atlanta. This enabled us to light for the space as opposed to the character and get practical fittings in close by. Despite the grip used, the camera often remained stationary, allowing our character to drive the narrative.”

A set of vintage Nikon lenses and Laowa 24mm T8 2x Macro Pro2bes were used across both series while Aputure LEDs were the principal light source used for controlling a number of hues instantly – a luxury that filmmakers don’t enjoy in the wild.

“Clearly we don't want animals to be hurting each other so we've had to be a little creative to achieve some shots,” Small says. “Where we've got predator-prey scenarios we've had to figure out ways to get these two shots without ever actually putting them in the same space and harming them.”

For example, a shot of a mouse scurrying away from camera then pulls focus into a spider wrapping its prey was a composite of two shots. Similarly, an opossum and a snake appear to be present in the same frame when in fact they are two shots seamlessly married together.

“We've used a lot of motion control so we don't even have to have locked off shots. We can have the camera moving, capture the first plate that we need of one of the animals then reset everything. Provided no one touches or moves - which is difficult in a cabin because everything's creaky and wobbly – we can get the second animal in and repeat the move - exactly.”

De Glanville also used motion control when filming the jumping spider (who was only around 10mm in length) - most notably to corkscrew the camera down a ventilation shaft in a chase sequence.

Other techniques included shooting at a faster frame rate to be slowed down on screen making the action appear more suspenseful to human eyes.

“A lot of what happens when you watch it happening for real can feel quite underwhelming but when you get it into post and then add the sound design you being to understand that going to work,” Lathane says. “RED just gives you that confidence that what you're looking at on the monitor will hold when we get through post and into the grade. We can trust that the blacks are going to hold up and the shadows are going to look good when it's graded down.”

The natural world may be dog eat dog but editorially it was important to show the horrific impact of humans on the environment. Half-way through episode 1 of Jungle the baby opossum’s family come to a grisly end under the wheels of a vehicle. “The scene was staged to look that way but the number one cause of death for opossums in the wild is being roadkill so we’re not shying away from these facts,” Lathane says. “Having the licence to go for it in this dramatic way was kind of an homage to Final Destination.

She continues, “Often in natural history you are filming the attack of one animal preying on another on a long lens and we often cut away before the critical moment. On this show we need to kill off characters because otherwise the audience will think ‘it's fine everyone's going to get out alive’. Once in a while, we felt it was okay to kill off a character just to let them the audience know not to necessarily expect a happy ending.”

The grade was completed at Films@59 in Bristol by colorists Christian Short and Wes Hibberd. “We’re extremely happy with the look that they've given both of the shows,” Small says. “I think they’re both unique and unlike traditional natural history but also not too crazy into horror. It feels like a rich and classy version of a natural history show.”

With the formula established and with so much ‘horror’ out there in the natural world it feels like the team could be back for more.

“There are endless ecosystems that we could turn our attention to, and we have lots of ideas,” says Small. “We're all really keen to do more and we’ve lots of learnings from the first ones that we’d take into the next time."