Cheetahs: Against All Odds, National Geographic Channel
The documentary I’ve chosen is Cheetahs: Against All Odds. It is about the lives of two cheetah mothers in the Serengeti – what problems they face and how they raise their cubs.
I chose a documentary about cheetahs because they’re my favorite animal and I already know a lot about them, so it wasn’t hard for me to follow the documentary. As I am very interested in cheetahs, it’s a lot easier to research, analyze and write about them.
In the beginning there is a montage of various key clips from the documentary to show what it is about and how they are going to display it.
The documentary focuses on showing how helpless and vulnerable cheetah cubs are in the earliest stage of their lives. They are unable to hunt for themselves so they rely on their mother until they’re several months old. The cheetah mother is their protector, feeder and carer until she has taught them how to hunt. They showed how the cheetah mothers hunt for food by capturing the predators’ hunt and moving the camera along their actions. They also showed still and far shots of the mothers hunting to present their celerity and agility from afar. I noticed they didn’t use transitions between the clips, but they used a few cutaway shots to compare the cheetahs’ swift movement to their relaxing calmness.
I think they exaggerated with the sound of the footsteps of cheetahs hunting wildebeests; they sounded too loud and unrealistic. They also didn’t seem like they sync with the footage perfectly.
Cheetahs are the most vulnerable among wild cats, but they’re still competitors for food. The documentary looked at how they’re often endangered by bigger and stronger predators that seek to eliminate their competition. Adult cheetahs aren’t in danger by lions, but the lions do kill cheetah cubs so that they couldn’t grow up and steal their prey. They filmed the lions approaching; they filmed their feet to emphasize the steps and they also added background music to the scene to show tension.
I noticed they often made close ups of certain body parts like eyes – to show their determined and focused look, feet – to show movement and grace, tails – to display how they help with balance.
The narrator explained how hyenas are stronger than cheetahs – they often steal a cheetah’s meal, and they can take on groups of cheetahs. The hyenas wouldn’t attack the mother’s cubs if she is close because a protective cheetah mother can be very fearsome and protective. But the hyena would focus on stealing the mother’s prey by giving warnings that it may attack the cubs. This leaves the mother no choice but to leave the prey and gather and protect her cubs. But the mother may also run up to the hyena and try to distract it, for it would buy time for the cubs to eat. They showed a scene presenting how the cheetah mother distracts the hyena to give her cubs time to eat, but it didn’t work that time, and the hyena succeeded at stealing the prey, which is a common occurrence in the Serengeti. I think the whole documentary was mostly shot on a dolly because the shots were very smooth, even though the crew were filming action shots. There were often wide shots to show the full cheetah families and also very wide shots showing the cheetahs hunting from a distance.
The documentary also represents how some seemingly negative aspects of the Serengeti life can actually be positive. For example, forest fires encourage new growth, and the cheetahs have a larger variety of prey to hunt – for example, rabbits and partridges.They filmed the scenery with a few still and far shots. There is a close up shot in the documentary which shows burnt grass with a few light green sprouts coming out, showing new growth after the fire. They also showed that by finding a dead cheetah when wandering around, the mother knows which places might be dangerous and stays away from them to protect her cubs. They added quite sad background music to the scene, and it was very emotional. They made the viewer get attached to the cheetah mother and her cubs, even though it’s a seemingly straight-forward and factual documentary.
The documentary presented two completely opposite outcomes of the two mothers’ lives. Both of the mothers endured a lot just to raise their cubs, from courageously approaching threatening predators to waiting for hours in grass to attack their prey. There was a particular scene in the documentary which presented the saddening fate of one mother. The mother needed to feed her young, and she saw only one opportunity at the time – a large gazelle. The cheetah mother ran after her and managed to get a jump on her, but the gazelle fought back and severely injured the cheetah with its horn. The mother did not survive this, and the cubs can not survive without their supporter. The producer showed no extra scenes of the cubs without their mother and left their fate implied, I think it is because it would create a very depressing mood quickly, and it seems the producer did not want that to happen.
The producer showed the fate of the other cheetah mother immediately after that scene to lighten up the mood. The other mother survived and successfully raised all five of her cubs, even though it is unlikely for a cheetah to be able to protect all of them. I believe the producer wanted to show the extremes of the fates of both mothers to have a bigger impact on the viewers, but focusing on showing the vulnerability of all cheetahs, not just the mothers that he chose to follow. I think that the producer did, however, choose both of the mothers because they best reflected the calm, determined, patient and brave nature of the cheetah.
The documentary:
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