Birds and insects gently twitter and hum in the background as the film opens, and we are greeted with an instantly likable Carolina Anole lizard gently nestled in a shrub. It slowly creeps among the leaves; its delicate ribcage is emphasized under the papery skin as it breathes in and out. Its head turns occasionally and its eyes seem thoughtful as it searches among the branches. Then its skin slowly begins to mottle, a reddish brown appearing here and there. The sound of an airplane emerges in the distance, gradually growing louder, and the lizard’s skin becomes browner. The lizard twists its head, looking up and waiting. Then it disappears into the depths of the shrub, and the scene fades out.
“Carolina Anole Lizard Changing Color” is a four-minute film that can be found on
naturedocumentaries.org. The film and the website are the creations of Uzay Sezen, a plant biologist doing research for his post doc at the University of Georgia. Sezen earned his doctorate from the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department of the University of Connecticut in 2008. He has also worked extensively in Costa Rica, studying the regeneration of rainforests. He was born in Istanbul but grew up in Kusadasi, a major port on the Mediterranean and one of Turkey’s most popular resort areas. He spent his childhood there having adventures among the fig bushes and almond trees and diving and snorkeling in the sea. He knew from an early age that he wanted to be some kind of biologist.
Sezen created the Nature Documentaries website in 2012 as a way to gather together and show the best nature documentaries available for free. The site features short films by Sezen and others and includes pieces created by PBS, the BBC and NASA. Sezen is the curator and editor of the website. One of his goals with the site is to target teachers and promote the study of evolution. According to Sezen, “Biology means evolution. If you are ignoring evolution, you are missing out on understanding life.”
About Nature Documentaries he says, “I use things to tell an evolutionary story—every film becomes a demonstration of a piece of the evolutionary picture.”
The biologist spends most of his weekends filming at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, when he isn’t cooling off at Legion Pool. He delights in the almost sub-tropical climate of Georgia and films prolifically, noting that “There are so many things you can see here that you would never observe in northern latitudes like Connecticut.” With his compact build and preference for muted colors in his clothes, he discreetly blends into the environment at the botanical garden as he sets up his camera and zooms in on animals and plants interacting in nature.
Recently, he was discovered filming a wasp depositing an egg into a tree. “This tree is dead, and something is eating it from the inside. A lot is going on here,” Sezen says, as he points toward a click bug nearby. “Notice his false eyes,” he says with enthusiasm. While Sezen has a concentrated and penetrating gaze when filming, his smile as he talks about his passion for biology is warm and kind.
About the process, he says, “It’s like reading the landscape. You look, look, look and you don’t see, and then you do see… as a biologist, I sometimes observe things that other people don’t easily notice. I want to show them. That is what the website is about.”
Sezen uses a Sanyo FX, which is a standard consumer-grade, high-definition camera. He relies on natural lighting, using an umbrella as a diffuser. Primarily, only natural background sounds are present in the films, although he will introduce music when a narrator is used.
Sezen has collaborated eagerly with local actor Sean Polite, whom he met at the college radio station shortly after arriving in Athens.
“Our synergy was perfect when I met him over at WUOG. People there were making fun of me,” recalls Sezen, and were saying things like “are you going to narrate [the videos] in your Turkish accent?”
Sezen says that with Polite, “It was like, ‘Dude, you have a really good voice—this is going to be the start of a beautiful relationship, like Casablanca!’”
Polite lends his calm, yet rich and varied, intonation to “A Short Documentary about Natural History and Evolution of Extrafloral Nectaries.” This video, which the team entered in this year’s San Diego Film Festival in the short documentaries category, is about plants using nectar as a motivator of beneficial behaviors, such as pollination and protection from herbivores. The documentary focuses on extrafloral (those not found within flowers) nectaries (or EFNs) and illustrates three types of plants which rely on EFNs: upland cotton, garden vetch and passion flower. Not only does Polite lend interest to the film with his voice, but Sezen says he also helps him figure out the jargon, converting difficult concepts into understandable language.
Sezen will remain in Athens through the fall. When he completes his work at UGA, he will return home to Connecticut and his wife. Once there, he will begin work on a 13-part nature series for a foreign broadcasting company. He will be able to concentrate on shooting footage of plants and animals in action, and the production company will edit it to his specifications and take care of the sound and narration. Fortunately, Sezen will also be able to devote more time to Nature Documentaries. Check it out at naturedocumentaries.org. The 13-minute clip of the giant ichneumon wasp ovipositing will have you spellbound.
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