A Day in the Life of a Field Researcher
In April, 2018, I traveled to the Mpala Research Centre in central Kenya on an Ivy Expedition led by Dr. David Bonter, Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with a team of three other Cornell students. During the 10-day trip, we interviewed Shailee Shah ‘14 — an alumna of Cornell who is conducting her Ph.D. research at Mpala on the breeding ecology of Superb Starlings (Lamprotornis superbus). Our team filmed Shailee throughout several days of data collection with the ultimate goal of creating a short film about her research. After collecting the footage and returning to Ithaca, producers in the Conservation Media department at the Lab of O were gracious enough to mentor me as I worked to bring this piece to life.
At first, I was quite intimidated by the process ahead of me. This was going to be the first time I had ever tried to make a movie from start to finish, the first time I had ever used a professional video editing software, and the first time I had ever (publicly) tested my artistic abilities. As someone who has previously only embraced science throughout my life, producing a documentary definitely challenged my creative side. But, to my surprise, it turned out to be a ton of fun! Aside from being extremely satisfying to watch your creation grow each day, building a video from scratch gives you unlimited options in how you tell the story.
Throughout this process, I worked most closely with Daniel Sheire — a new producer at the Lab who has decades of experience in the wildlife film industry. He taught me the basics of how to use Adobe Premiere — a robust video editing software — how to make basic edits and cuts to improve the overall flow of the narration, layer audio tracks to create an immersive soundscape, and implement video and audio effects to transition between scenes. He also stressed the importance of the individuality that comes with creative decisions. There is no one way to make a movie, and it is the producer’s responsibility to follow their creative intuition and vision for the film.
In the finished video, Shailee’s voice eloquently narrates over visuals of her fieldwork, as well as of many species of Kenyan wildlife. I wanted to bring the audience through a day of data collection with Shailee, and expand upon why she is passionate about what she does. As an emerging scientist myself, I hope to show my audience about the wonders of pursuing field research, and aim to inspire young scientists to follow in Shailee’s footsteps.
I am so grateful for all that this experience has taught me, and I plan to continue using multimedia as an effective and capturing way to communicate science. I hope you enjoy!
Chris Sayers
March 20, 2019
