Gardeners Of Eden Documentary Techniques

The documentary of Gardeners of Eden released on Apr 24, 2015, film directed by Anneliese Vandenberg and Austin peck reveals the real life dilemma of Africa's elephants becoming extinct, due to the fact of the worldwide ivory trade. Poaching has become very common. This documentary is persuading  the audience to help spread the word about the fact that Africa's elephant species are coming to extinction. In this documentary Daphne Sheldrick talks about the challenges these elephants are facing and the story behind helping these mammals through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, raising orphaned elephant calves and reintroducing them into the wild. The film directors control what kind of rhetorical strategies, as well as dramatic aspects and

types of visuals  they would like to show to their audience. The film directors guide the technical crew to create a certain type of connection in this case pathos was their greatest technique.

Although logos and ethos was also presented the overall affective rhetorical strategy was pathos giving out the highest emotional vibe. 

Pathos was the most effective strategy used in this documentary. The reason for this being is that, the amount of emotional connection the documentary lead out to the audience was strong and clear. Daphne Sheldrick said, "You just have to think in a human way if you were that baby elephant suddenly finding itself all alone, how would you feel?" This puts the audience in a spot where they try to see themselves in the same situation as the little calves to the point where they realize how bad the situation would be if it was them instead. The little calves have to be under supervision throughout the

whole day and night they must heal psychologically after facing the trauma of losing their mother elephant and family. Calves must be psychologically stable before being let out into the wild or else the wild elephants will reject them. They also created a strong emotional connection in the documentary, by not only excessing in the imagery shown and stories that provoked an emotional response. They also had other powerful words they shared that would catch the audience attention and appeal to their hearts. Daphne Sheldrick said, "… it is like a needle in a hay stack there must be dozens of others that are dying out in the bush that have not been found." The fact that the directors tried to make their audience get a picture in their head by creating an emotional connection was the most affective. The visuals they show of the baby elephants hurt and elephants being separated from their families was powerful. Even scenes where there was people crying showing emotions towards the situation made the documentary as well as the problem the elephants  are facing  seem more real. 
Logos was another good strategy the film directors used which worked quite well. They use logic that is appealing to the audiences mind, by using cause and effect as well as statements to seek the audiences mind. Founder warden of Tsavo East National Park David Sheldrick once said, "Humans are, in fact endangered species because we have stepped out of nature we're actually jeopardizing our own survival." This quote gets people to think about not only what the elephants are going through but also how the public is indeed stepping out of nature. Nature is becoming less and less important to the public and not many realize how it is or will affect us in the future. It is eye opening to be able to hear statements like this, it brings the audience to reflect and see bad the problem is. Brings out the need to spread the word because just as it might have been their first time hearing about this scary situation, it goes upon to show how this situation is something not many know about. The problem that is presented in this documentary is that elephants are being persecuted by humans for generations due to poaching. This has become more of a problem and is endangering the elephant population in Africa. In this documentary Daphne Sheldrick states, "...late 70's Africa's population has gone three and a half million to about less than 300,000 in 2014." Poaching over the years has become a business armed gang shooting. There is not only the ones that capture the elephants but there is also the dealers. It is a whole network due to the fact of worldwide ivory trade raising. The need to stop the poaching crisis is enormous, if it is not stopped now years from now there won't be no elephants seen due to how fast it is spreading. 
The last technique they used that was not as effective as the two shown above is ethos.

The reason ethos was not as successful is because there was not much to it. There was one actress in the documentary but she has only been in one other movie therefor she is not well known to the point where most people watching would recognize who she is.  Actress Kristin Davis explains, "Tusks are being broken to represent that there must be a stop and we won't let people profit over their death."  She did have a strong connection with the documentary to where she had a campaign trying to end poaching. In the campaign they would break the elephant tusks that were taken away from poachers, sellers and broken down. She was trying to spread the word by persuading the audience to join the campaign or help spread the word. Daphne sheldrick who is giving the first person experience, since she has been raising and reintegrating orphaned elephants into the wild. Daphne sheldrick said, "Baby elephants can die very easily because in a perfect world elephants wouldn’t have any enemies." Baby elephants are very fragile and are more likely to die if under their third birthday. It is not known for sure if they will live if they are under their third birthday they need to be careful and protected. At the orphanage they try their best to help the calves feel safe because it is hard for them to help little ones under their third birthday. Daphne gives the audience a stronger over view on the issue being

talked about in the documentary with the stories she shared about her experience in the orphanage as well as the struggles the elephants were facing. 
Although logos and ethos was presented the overall affective rhetorical strategy was pathos giving out the highest emotional vibe. It caught the audience attention through their emotional side and tried to give out  visuals and powerful words that inspired the audience to empathize and have compassion towards the problem being presented. This documentary is worth watching because it does show the true value of what the documentary is trying to lead out onto the audience and it is eye opening giving the urge to want to help spread the word. The purpose of us humans was not to come into this world and take the lives of innocent elephants, who are also part of this glorious nature we share.