“Wild Yellowstone” is not your father’s natural history show.
Debuting Dec. 6 on the cable channel Nat Geo Wild, this two-hour documentary uses state-of-the-art technology to capture the geographic beauty and wildlife battles of the world’s first national park.
“You don’t just go out there with a tripod and shoot a geyser — that isn’t good enough anymore,” said photographer Ryan Sheets, who worked on the award-winning film by Brain Farm. “You have to use a lot of the same cutting-edge techniques you see in action movies, or people are going to get bored and start looking at their phones.”
High-speed and infrared cameras, drones and stabilizers are a few of the tools that helped harness captivating images, such as a super slow-motion shot of a fox diving into snow to fetch dinner and bighorn sheep duking it out in a head-butt battle royale.
“Wild Yellowstone” is divided into two parts: winter and summer. Filmmakers spent the better part of two years lugging heavy equipment around Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton national parks, shooting high-stakes stories of the animals that call this diverse, unforgiving terrain home.
“I’ll always remember filming here in January, when it was minus 25, and my eyelashes froze,” executive producer Karen Bass said at the recent Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, where “Wild Yellowstone” nabbed top honors for cinematography and editing.
The documentary is part of the kickoff to Nat Geo Wild and National Geographic Channel’s celebration of the centennial of the National Park Service in 2016.
National Geographic Channel is rolling out an eight-part special, “America’s National Parks,” billed as a series that goes beyond the lookouts.
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and Yosemite in California are the focus of the first two installments, also premiering Dec. 6. Additional episodes devoted to the Everglades and the Grand Canyon, among other parks, will air throughout next year.
Lori Rackl is a freelance reporter.
