NATURE SCREEN - ENVIRONMENTS
ENVIRONMENTS
Our experience as well as research tells us that the most powerful way to increase children’s connectedness to nature is to enable them to engage with the natural world. How this works through Nature Screen is explored here, including how different environments affect children. Each video has been categorised in simple environmental terms to allow you to select what to show based on your children’s preferences and assessment of needs. In this introduction we discuss the elements in each scene, then as a member you can select any of the categories for further exploration.
All the natural scenes on Nature Screen have intrinsic qualities that can alter our brain chemistry. In addition, each scene will have cultural, familial and spiritual resonances as well as association with specific remembered experience for individuals. This makes for a heady mixture, so at Nature Screen we have resolved not to play with distorting time, perspective, intercutting and compositional changes that seek to direct attention. We believe that nature videos should be an ambient form that relies on faithful reproduction for the essential power of the effect - so no showing off here by a director or other ‘creatives’! The power of the images and sounds are simply that of nature and our experience of it, mediated naturally via the intrinsic Colours, Shapes, Textures and Motion of the scene. We should only need to ‘stand and stare’.
Leisure, by W. H. Davies (1911)
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
All colours are made up of the three primaries but the colour green has more hues and variations that our eyes are sensitive to than any other. It is associated with nature of course but the primitive response is as a soothing, relaxing colour. It enhances stability and endurance. It is most often associated with growth and renewal, and it promotes optimism, hopefulness, and balance. This is to be found in many of the Nature Screen videos but most obviously in the Plants, Woods and Hills environments. Green is also highly symbolic of environmental movements around the world.
Blue is the other highly significant primary colour and has associations of calmness and peace, featured in our content often as blue sky and sky reflected in water. It is a non-aggressive colour that encourages serenity, orderliness, and tranquillity and it can be a mentally soothing colour for some people.
Red completes the primaries and is usually linked with our strong emotions, such as love, desire, and anger. It stands for danger but also represents passion and warmth and in our nature videos it is the colour of autumn and harvests, of fruits, falling leaves, and ripeness. It is also brings us the most spectacular drama of nature in the colours of sunset.
Please see the case study ‘The Colours of LIPA’.
Shape is a more nuanced consideration but generally curved rather than straight lines are soothing. The powerful effect of fractal geometry on our senses has been evidenced in research and this occurs in nature at all scales from mountain landscapes to the shape of a leaf. Related to this is the triangle as a shape that is used in Japanese flower arrangement (Ikebana) as the most important composition representing the relationship between humanity, the earth and heaven. It is frequently found in garden design as well as flower arranging.
Texture is what conveys the reality of a scene, whether smooth or rough, it evokes a sensory presence. Our adherence to the highest quality video capture (as well as recognising texture, colour and shape in the soundspace) is based on this need for reality. Although the content does not demand attention, and relies on this for its effectiveness in the classroom, it is equally important that the eye casually resting on a scene is satisfied by this level of detail.
Finally motion, the essential feature of all Nature Screen content. The analogy is music because the frequencies of motion found in natural scenes reflect a similar pattern and set of relationships. There is harmony in the way clouds, trees, grass and birds appear and move in nature with transient effects that delight the eye and mind. Wind, rain and water are our friends as they give us an infinite variety of experiences. Combined with the natural sounds and the effect is complete and satisfying.