CineWild: Balancing Art and Robotics for Ethical Wildlife Documentary Filmmaking

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Pueyo, Pablo, Caballero, Fernando, Murillo, Ana Cristina, Montijano, Eduardo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Pueyo, Pablo
Caballero, Fernando
Murillo, Ana Cristina
Montijano, Eduardo
author_facet Pueyo, Pablo
Caballero, Fernando
Murillo, Ana Cristina
Montijano, Eduardo
contents Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have become powerful tools across domains-from industry to the arts. In documentary filmmaking, they offer dynamic, otherwise unreachable perspectives, transforming how stories are told. Wildlife documentaries especially benefit, yet drones also raise ethical concerns: the risk of disturbing the animals they aim to capture. This paper introduces CineWild, an autonomous UAV framework that combines robotics, cinematography, and ethics. Built on model predictive control, CineWild dynamically adjusts flight paths and camera settings to balance cinematic quality with animal welfare. Key features include adaptive zoom for filming from acoustic and visual safe distances, path-planning that avoids an animal's field of view, and smooth, low-noise maneuvers. CineWild exemplifies interdisciplinary innovation-bridging engineering, visual storytelling, and environmental ethics. We validate the system through simulation studies and will release the code upon acceptance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_24921
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CineWild: Balancing Art and Robotics for Ethical Wildlife Documentary Filmmaking
Pueyo, Pablo
Caballero, Fernando
Murillo, Ana Cristina
Montijano, Eduardo
Robotics
Multimedia
Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have become powerful tools across domains-from industry to the arts. In documentary filmmaking, they offer dynamic, otherwise unreachable perspectives, transforming how stories are told. Wildlife documentaries especially benefit, yet drones also raise ethical concerns: the risk of disturbing the animals they aim to capture. This paper introduces CineWild, an autonomous UAV framework that combines robotics, cinematography, and ethics. Built on model predictive control, CineWild dynamically adjusts flight paths and camera settings to balance cinematic quality with animal welfare. Key features include adaptive zoom for filming from acoustic and visual safe distances, path-planning that avoids an animal's field of view, and smooth, low-noise maneuvers. CineWild exemplifies interdisciplinary innovation-bridging engineering, visual storytelling, and environmental ethics. We validate the system through simulation studies and will release the code upon acceptance.
title CineWild: Balancing Art and Robotics for Ethical Wildlife Documentary Filmmaking
topic Robotics
Multimedia
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24921