Vox - Planet Earth II: the anticipated BBC sequel premieres in the UShttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2017-03-06T12:40:01-05:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/144157152017-03-06T12:40:01-05:002017-03-06T12:40:01-05:00How the BBC films the night side of Planet Earth
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<p>Meet the cameras that can see in the dark.</p> <p id="zNAxyj">Capturing Planet Earth<em> is a three-part video series from Vox Observatory about the evolution of the BBC’s wildlife films. Click here for </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/20/14650348/making-of-planet-earth-2"><em>p</em><em>art </em><em>one</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/27/14715908/slow-motion-time-lapse"><em>p</em><em>art </em><em>two</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p id="12nSEi">One of the oldest challenges faced by wildlife filmmakers is the battle against darkness. Plenty of animals avoid light, but cameras need light to form an image. For decades, that left the BBC’s natural history producers with few options.</p>
<p id="zLnJww">They could bring lanterns and flashlights into the wild and hope the animals didn’t panic or disappear. More often, though, those stories simply remained off limits. </p>
<p id="Ft60tq">Now new technologies can capture behaviors that take place in the dark. The quality of infrared and thermal photography has jumped since the BBC started using them more frequently in the early 2000s. They provide a monochrome but crisp image.</p>
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<cite>BBC Planet Earth II</cite>
<figcaption>This scene was lit with near-infrared lights and filmed with a Red Dragon camera that had been tweaked to pick up infrared.</figcaption>
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<p id="aai754">And large-sensor digital cameras can now do more with less light, allowing producers to film earlier in the morning and later in the evening, without introducing more noise. These technologies perform like the human eye, but better. And they’re really new.</p>
<p id="meSS1h">“That’s only really taken off just about halfway through our filming,” said Chadden Hunter, producer of the “Grasslands” episode of the BBC’s <em>Planet Earth II.</em> “So I’m most excited for our upcoming series now. There are all sorts of wildlife stories that we thought were impossible to film, so now we’re scrambling out to get them.”</p>
<p id="w53hoL">You won’t be able to tell that the footage is much brighter than the real-life scene actually is — it’ll simply look like a well-lit shot. But expect to witness stories you’ve never seen before.</p>
<p id="tCnCz7">Learn more in the video at the top of this post, or watch on our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/voxdotcom"><strong>YouTube channel</strong></a>.</p>
<p id="mAgQUZ">Planet Earth II<em> airs on BBC America Saturdays through March 25.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/3/6/14829886/planet-earth-low-lightJoss FongDion Lee2017-02-27T08:30:02-05:002017-02-27T08:30:02-05:00How wildlife filmmakers warp time
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<p>Slow motion and time lapse bring the natural world onto our timescale.</p> <p id="cogf54">Capturing Planet Earth<em> is a </em><em>three</em><em>-part video series from Vox Observatory about the evolution of the BBC’s wildlife films. </em><a href="http://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/20/14650348/making-of-planet-earth-2"><em>Click here</em></a><em> to see </em><em>p</em><em>a</em><em>rt one</em><em>.</em></p>
<p id="6MwBCv">Slow motion is ubiquitous in our culture today. It sells <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUCRZzhbHH0">dog food</a>, decorates <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvW61K2s0tA">music videos</a>, and makes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPuEU16P3zg">skateboarders</a> look like superheroes. It’s also become a staple of wildlife films.</p>
<p id="FODj5R">Warping time — either by slowing down action that happens faster than our eyes can appreciate or by using time lapse to speed up slow-moving processes — can reveal the mechanics behind all manner of natural phenomena.</p>
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<cite>BBC</cite>
<figcaption>Ultra slow motion shows how a chameleon uses its tongue.</figcaption>
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<p id="gTgH1D">But for decades, the limitations of film prevented nature documentarians from using these techniques extensively. Early high-speed cameras were built for controlled laboratory settings. “In the old days these cameras were actually designed for filming things like crashes. They were basically scientific tools to see what happens under impact on cars crashing into walls or buildings collapsing,” said Mike Gunton, executive producer of the BBC’s <em>Planet Earth II</em>.</p>
<p id="uA4UpF">As camera technology evolved, a new world of opportunities opened up for wildlife filmmakers to play with time. Learn more in the video at the top of this post, and subscribe to our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/voxdotcom"><strong>YouTube channel</strong></a> for the next episode of this miniseries.</p>
<p id="LIh8Ca">Planet Earth II<em> airs on BBC America Saturdays through March 25</em><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/27/14715908/slow-motion-time-lapseJoss FongDion Lee2017-02-20T08:10:02-05:002017-02-20T08:10:02-05:00How the BBC makes wildlife films that look like Hollywood movies
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<p>Planet Earth II is the most cinematic wildlife series yet.</p> <p id="tVz0Sd">Capturing Planet Earth<em> is a </em><em>three</em><em>-part video series from Vox Observatory about the evolution of the BBC’s wildlife films.</em></p>
<p id="OqWOSK">When the BBC launched its Natural History Unit in 1957 to produce radio and TV programs about wildlife, its wind-up film cameras could only run for 20 seconds at a time. There was no way to schedule multi-destination airplane trips, and once a crew arrived at their remote location, they couldn’t communicate with Bristol for weeks or review their footage.</p>
<p id="uDqP3D">Now, as the BBC releases its latest blue-chip series, <em>Planet Earth II,</em> cameras are smaller than ever, they can shoot at higher frame rates in lower light, and data storage is essentially unlimited. </p>
<p id="jEgozU">But each time a technological development threatens to make their jobs easier, the NHU becomes more ambitious. It’s not enough to show a barn owl hunting a harvest mouse — now they want it from the mouse’s point of view. It’s not enough to get footage of snow leopards, one of the hardest animals on the planet to track down — now they want to spy on them from a foot’s distance with motion-detecting cameras. </p>
<p id="wPcgQB">The result is that <em>Planet Earth II</em> is the most <em>cinematic</em> wildlife film yet. We saw a big hint of this when they hired the man who composed the music for <em>The Lion King</em>. If you found yourself shivering during the <em>Planet Earth II</em> trailer, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001877/">Hans Zimmer</a> is the reason.</p>
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<p id="k3SzLR">But it permeates the entire series. “To make it feel truly cinematic, I think you have to tell the stories from a dramatic perspective, and that means putting yourselves in the eyes, in the mind, in the world of the animals, and seeing what's at stake for them,” said Mike Gunton, the executive producer of <em>Planet Earth II</em>. </p>
<p id="nZvidK">In the 1970s and ’80s, it was enough for the NHU to show people a creature they’d never seen before and provide the details in the narration. The films were illustrated zoology lectures. Since then, the producers have become sticklers for capturing specific behaviors, and in <em>Planet Earth II, </em>they showcase the drama of those behaviors. Each scene sets up the characters to perform<em> something</em> — something brave, something brutal, something bizarre. They’ve made room for our emotions; that’s what cinematic storytelling means.</p>
<p id="2umKTn">And visually, the cinematic approach means the camera is often moving:</p>
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<cite>BBC</cite>
<figcaption>Technology that was developed in just the past few years enabled BBC to liberate its cameras from the tripod for <em>Planet Earth II.</em>
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<p id="Nrj4kj">Hollywood filmmakers have kept the camera in motion for decades, but for obvious reasons, it’s much more difficult when your subject is wildlife. As we explain in the video at the top of this post, NHU producers used new stabilization tools throughout the production of <em>Planet Earth II </em>to move the camera alongside the animals<em>. </em></p>
<p id="leh3k2">Those tracking shots, combined with the dramatic editing and the music, produce something that no longer resembles documentary. Chadden Hunter, producer of the “Grasslands” episode of <em>Planet Earth II</em>, put it well when he told us, “We’re really taking wildlife almost into another genre”:</p>
<blockquote><p id="xDdZR8">I think if you pick up a 10- or 15-year-old wildlife documentary, you’d be shocked by how old-fashioned it feels. It feels like something out of a classroom. Whereas now we’re trying to compete with things like <em>Game of Thrones</em> or <em>House of Cards</em>. We really want to use every technique, from the image to the sound design to the storytelling, to really make that a really dramatic, emotional journey. ... When you’re talking about something of the scale of <em>Planet Earth II</em>, the market that we’re trying to reach — we’re really taking wildlife almost into another genre.</p></blockquote>
<p id="tCnCz7">Learn more in the video at the top of this post, and subscribe to our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/voxdotcom">YouTube channel</a> for the next episode of this mini-series. </p>
<p id="uHjQx3">Planet Earth II<em> airs on BBC America Saturdays through March 25.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/20/14650348/making-of-planet-earth-2Joss FongDion Lee2017-02-18T20:38:05-05:002017-02-18T20:38:05-05:00Why Planet Earth II couldn’t avoid stories about humans' devastating impact on the animal kingdom
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<figcaption>Madagascar’s indri lemur population has been threatened by rapid deforestation. | BBC America</figcaption>
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<p>“If you’re trying to tell a complete story ... there was an issue that we were going to have to bring up.”</p> <p id="KqXL0Q">Anyone who’s ever found themselves captivated by a scene from <em>Planet Earth </em>— the BBC’s landmark 11-part documentary that awed viewers with its stunning presentation of animal life all over the globe — should be looking forward to <em>Planet Earth II</em>. A decade after the original 2006 series wowed audiences with its artfully filmed, high-definition footage of <a href="http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/planet-earth/videos/elusive-snow-leopard/">elusive snow leopards</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6yzpe8r4xg">hyrdoplaning dolphins</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwZH_aT0FGI">adorable polar bear cubs</a>, the highly anticipated six-part follow-up promises an even more stunning adventure, albeit one that comes with a grave warning.</p>
<p id="7MLJuK">The spirit of the series remains the same: <em>Planet Earth II </em>travels from deserts to swamplands to even the nooks and crannies of towering skyscrapers to showcase the wonders of the animal kingdom as few people have ever seen them. And thanks to the technology advancements of the past 10 years, the picture definition is higher than ever. But so are the stakes of the stories. </p>
<aside id="7K0zq9"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"How Planet Earth II filmed its thrilling \"Snake Island\" chase scene","url":"http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/17/14600648/planet-earth-2-premiere-iguanas-snakes-clip"}]}'></div></aside><p id="yOxoAJ">In this sequel, David Attenborough’s iconic narration often takes a melancholy turn as he explains why an island’s crab population is deteriorating, or why a family of lanky lemurs has lost much of its habitat. It’s only been a decade since <em>Planet Earth</em> debuted, but in that time period, the impact of humans on the animals and landscapes <em>Planet Earth II</em> covers is so significant that the series is forced to acknowledge it over and over again. And in its final episode, it<em> </em>takes on “Cities,” making humans’ role in climate change abundantly clear, and often heartbreaking to watch.</p>
<p id="26TceQ">To gain some insight into how the creators of <em>Planet Earth II </em>decided to broach the topic, I spoke with executive producer Mike Gunton and director Elizabeth White about the storytelling challenges they faced and the inevitability of integrating climate change into the series’ latest iteration. Here’s what they had to say. </p>
<p id="gbD3fq"><em>This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p>
<h4 id="cmcwWf">Caroline Framke </h4>
<p id="RMX05F">Before you started shooting <em>Planet Earth II</em>, had you already planned to be more explicit about the impact of climate change on animals and their habitats? Or was there a point during filming when it became clear that you didn’t have a choice?</p>
<h4 id="uYgR9I">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="wtgack">In each of the different habitats, we do address an issue. “Cities” is very obvious, the pros and cons of cities with lights and all that kind of stuff. But with all these shows, it felt as if, if you’re trying to tell a complete story — or as much as you can with 10 or 12 stories in a 47-minute film — all of us producers felt that there was an issue that we were going to have to bring up.</p>
<p id="kRsyYe">For “Islands,” I felt that invasive species and extinction on islands was a big one. Because when we were trying to find stories, it was like, “Oh, god, just <em>imagine</em> if you could do the elephant bird in Madagascar,” or, “Why are there no big mammals?” And a lot of it is because extinctions that have happened. So it felt like you couldn’t tell a story about islands without mentioning something of rats, cats, and in this case, we went for the story of the yellow<strong> </strong>crazy ant, because that’s actually massively destructive all across Indonesia and Malaysia, but [the story of how it’s devastated the native crab communities] hasn’t been told.</p>
<h4 id="waZqSQ">Mike Gunton<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p id="L0cDNT">It’s also quite a surprise that an <em>ant</em> can do that. So again, we’re picking a story that tells quite an intense and thought-provoking environmental story, yet it’s still a fascinating biologically natural history piece that’s visually fascinating as well. It’s even a little bit gruesome. Whereas a rat just eating an egg...</p>
<h4 id="RLaadZ">Elizabeth White<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p id="8ptpN9">It wouldn’t captivate people. If people turn it off, you’re not going to get the rest of your film’s message through.</p>
<p id="W16keC">I think it just felt at some point that [for example] you couldn’t make a jungle film without talking about deforestation. Those stories sort of naturally felt like part of the piece.</p>
<h4 id="jOCxxB">Mike Gunton<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p id="cb0QKM">[Also] putting them into context rather than just sort of doing a handbrake turn ... the crabs had a story, and then the twist was, “Actually, they’re now suffering from the perils of invasive species.” We’re doing a story about the indri [lemurs], and then we do a little twist and say, “Of course, in the 10 years since this indri was born, the amount of forest it has to live in has [dramatically] reduced.” </p>
<p id="Q52adm">We were quite pleased with being able to evoke some sense of the fragility of the planet whilst not breaking the structure and the grammar of the series. </p>
<h4 id="pPlaCG">Elizabeth White<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p id="ec8p0M">Yeah. It’s not a doom-and-gloom show, but it’s a thought-provoking show. It’s like, “These places are special, look how wonderful this is — but this is fragile. Think about these things.” </p>
<p id="thfwdt">The final piece at the end of the series, “Cities,” very much says that we need to create a planet not just for us but all life on Earth. It’s about sowing those seeds that’ll make people walk away mulling it over. We have no control over what they choose to do, but you want to sow a seed that makes people feel connected, and empowered to do something.</p>
<p id="nFiDVf">Planet Earth II <em>premieres Saturday</em><em>,</em><em> February 18</em><em>,</em><em> at 9 pm EST on BBC America. </em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/17/14614220/planet-earth-2-climate-change-impactCaroline Framke2017-02-18T20:32:44-05:002017-02-18T20:32:44-05:00How Planet Earth II filmed its thrilling "Snake Island" chase scene
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<p>Capturing the terrible thrills of life and death in the animal kingdom, explained.</p> <p id="JeFIcv">When the gorgeous <em>Planet Earth II </em>premiered in the UK in November, one clip in particular turned heads. As it begins, a baby iguana, newly hatched from an egg buried in sand, tentatively pokes its head out above the surface — and then launches itself into one of <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/11/7/13554176/planet-earth-2-iguana-snake-chase">the most thrilling chase sequences ever to grace television</a>, courtesy of the iguana’s desire to live and a truly terrifying army of snakes. </p>
<p id="EO8fsB">The drama of “Snake Island” — as the Vox Culture team calls it — would not be denied. The clip raced around the internet quicker than the baby iguana fleeing certain peril, proving the power of combining life-and-death stakes with keen filmmaking and a tight edit. </p>
<p id="8DeVSf">To get more insight into the making of <em>Planet Earth II</em><em>,</em> and the “Snake Island” sequence in particular, I spoke with series executive producer Mike Gunton and director Elizabeth White. The short version? Nature is pretty thrilling (and unforgiving) all on its own, but they’ve honed some techniques to better capture it anyway.</p>
<p id="CmksLg"><em>Th</em><em>e following</em><em> interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity</em>.</p>
<h4 id="X0kQkt">Caroline Framke </h4>
<p id="b4uOeo">So many of <em>Planet Earth</em><em> II</em>’s scenes are shot and edited like sequences from an action movie. When you were filming, were you looking for that specific type of footage? </p>
<h4 id="A0am4I">Mike Gunton </h4>
<p id="zXSLRh">Obviously you have to work hard, and there’s a lot of craft in it, but actually, there’s so much natural drama in these things that they do drive ... they cry out to be presented in that way. You’re not turning a mundane piece of nothingness into something. They’re <em>there</em>. </p>
<p id="klCRru">The skill is in picking the best moments and making it work technically. Unfortunately, animals don’t hit their marks or read scripts or [respond to], “Action!” So a lot of it is what you manage to capture, but we always go with very clear ideas about the sorts of stories we want to tell and the parameters with which that story should be told. So we’re putting cameras in positions where we’ll get those sorts of images. Sometimes on this series we’ve actually had two cameras on one location, and that massively improves or helps your flexibility. ... It’s almost like a studio shoot, where you can go, “Okay, cut to camera one!” That has helped.</p>
<p id="NVNT6E">I think also the style that we’ve used with <em>Planet Earth II</em>, it’s very fluid, very dynamic camerawork. We’ve taken the camera off the tripod through these miniaturizations of gyro-stabilized mounts. We did a bit of that on some of our previous series, but now you almost think to yourself, “How the hell did we do anything in the past without these cameras?” Because now actually every shot is done like this.</p>
<h4 id="bBKOPS">Caroline Framke</h4>
<p id="oF05MF">So for a scene like the one my co-workers and I have dubbed “Snake Island” — our favorite movie of the year — I’d love to hear more about how something like that was shot. Was it as dramatic when you were shooting it as it became after editing? It sounds like most of these scenarios are. </p>
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<h4 id="xdS8p1">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="bFtlHa">Oh, yeah, a massive adrenaline rush. My worst ever role as director, because I spent most of the time covering my eyes going, “Did it get away?!”</p>
<p id="15V5cg">The whole sequence is actually like eight minutes long, and we do show some [iguanas] that get away and some that don’t. Also, we very much have tried to mention in it that for the snakes, this is a <em>brutal</em> place to live. For the snakes, it’s their only really big feeding opportunity of the year. </p>
<p id="cukhRZ">So for that sequence, we wanted to tell that whole story. A nest of iguanas is — between four and six come out at any time, and so you do see successful ones and you do see ones that fail. </p>
<h4 id="FMbbWr">Mike Gunton </h4>
<p id="jBARx1">It’s not <em>a</em><em>ll </em>carnage.</p>
<h4 id="Pn23gE">Elizabeth White </h4>
<p id="3jJgMc">No, it’s not all carnage. [But] it is pretty brutal, and I think the big challenge on that sequence was that we obviously need to show the drama, because it’s obviously a massive adrenaline rush to be there and to film it, because you don’t know where those little iguanas are going to come up. </p>
<p id="sLPG4F">It starts with a hatchling pulling its head out of the sand, and that’s its opening moments of life. And we’re standing at the top of the beach with a pair of binoculars seeing this <em>tiny</em> little head, and it’s looking around and kind of going, “Oh, shit.”</p>
<h4 id="YbZd52">Mike Gunton </h4>
<p id="thLPVg">And we know it’s “Oh, shit” more than he even does!</p>
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<cite>BBC America</cite>
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<h4 id="xndu6t">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="xGPjHC">It’s really interesting with the iguanas. Some of them are really cocky, and they just kind of come out, and the little things just walk down the beach like, “Isn’t this really nice? We’re having such a nice day.” And one of the first we actually watched properly emerge — and in fact, the first we saw that revealed to us where we wanted to film the story — he properly freaked out and ran toward the rocks. And of course the problem is that then the snakes see them. </p>
<p id="fZMA0P">So as it kind of slowed down and panicked, running at the rocks, this sort of Medusa’s head of snakes came out of the wall. </p>
<p id="WokQCd">We’d been there a couple of days at that point, and we’d been all around this whole peninsula looking for where we were going to get hatchlings. We were looking for hawks and frigate birds as well as snakes; we were looking for all the different things that prey on hatchlings. And then when we saw that, we called it “the Wall of Death.”</p>
<p id="S3W4o1">You have to be quite careful — you can’t walk across the beach because of hatchlings. We were working with a ranger who tells us where we can and can’t go. So we walked down to that wall, and literally a single crack had between eight and 12 snakes in it. That density of snakes [is] why we started to focus on that area of the beach. All the iguanas coming from that sand had to pass that way to get down to the colony, and the snakes know that. They’re smart. They’re there, homed in, watching the beach. That’s how we managed to get that amazing footage.</p>
<p id="RgvkN1">And it’s not pack hunting. Those snakes are absolutely each and every one out for itself.</p>
<h4 id="oCwD3E">Caroline Framke </h4>
<p id="HVwGDl">Huh! That’s interesting, because it really looks like the snakes are teaming up to cut the iguana off.</p>
<h4 id="rRWfO9">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="3hVf15">Yeah, no. And you really notice that when one of them does catch it, they’re just ambushing. Some of them are in the wall — they’re higher up, they’ve got a better view of the beach — and the other ones are tucked down behind rocks and very much lying in ambush. But if one of them sees a movement and moves, that’s when they all kind of go, [gasp!].</p>
<h4 id="IMqxBf">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="idG8Xv">That’s why you get that very sinister sense that they’re all in it together, but in fact, they’re all watching each other to see if anyone picks up first. [Elizabeth has] a theory that when they start, what the snakes are doing is getting into it, so when they first emerge, probably more [iguanas] get away then. But then the snakes start to clock that the iguanas are coming, they start to get homed in on it. So when you were there, it was all craziness.</p>
<p id="BTBbXE">The other thing to remember, of course, is that we shoot this in slow motion. So that whole event, when you were there —</p>
<h4 id="Qrk2u6">Elizabeth White<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p id="y5dKgw">It happened so quickly. </p>
<h4 id="7AAOGV">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="KpAYJD">If you didn’t [shoot it in slow motion], you wouldn’t see anything. It would just be impossible to enjoy, but also you wouldn’t get the revelation. Slow motion allows you to see all the different strategies. </p>
<h4 id="JixowG">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="9y7Wg9">And some things you don’t see at the time. There’s one particular shot ... the snake actually comes and tries to bite the little one, and its face hits the rock and it gets pushed backward. You would’ve never seen that happen at the time. It’s only because we shot off speed, and then you look at it in slow motion through this lens and you’re like, “Wow.” That snake so <em>nearly</em> got that iguana and hit the rock instead. </p>
<h4 id="jCwohG">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="GOV03a">That’s why the photographers are so extraordinary. They’re having to go almost with instinct. You can’t really make conscious decisions about what you’re doing. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m2aCPjP8PAQEhyan4VY6pHeA-x4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7997847/Screen_Shot_2017_02_16_at_12.43.21_PM.png">
<cite>BBC America</cite>
<figcaption>The Wall of Death</figcaption>
</figure>
<h4 id="A4lFom">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="obfKqe">There were two cameras [filming the “Snake Island” sequence], one of which had a very long lens. The cameraman’s got a tripod, and he’s got this incredible zoom, but he’s actually quite a long way away. He just needs a nice clear view through to where the action of the iguana is. He can zoom in; that’s his trick. </p>
<p id="rgH8OS">The other cameraman we had with a gimbal-type system, so he was shooting wider — you can’t be so stable with a long lens — but he was able to move around much more easily. When you’ve got a tripod, especially on sand, it’s hard to balance it. </p>
<h4 id="lLU0Qe">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="rXVCsK">So he’s the one tracking with the animals. That shot you see when the iguana first comes out, you’re tracking along, and then under the camera come those snakes; that’s shot on [the second] camera. Then all the details of the little looks, that’s shot on — </p>
<h4 id="KUxv9v">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="WqIMP2">The long lens.</p>
<h4 id="MiPlRU">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="NbNfSL">And by having two cameras, it allowed us to get the snakes’ perspective and the iguana’s perspective, all in one event. Normally you wouldn’t be able to do that; you’d have to piece it together.</p>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="q7ytWs"><q>“To be in the animals’ world, you have to be on their eye level”</q></aside></div>
<h4 id="q7XoYR">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="ly7s1C">A lot of people have thought the tracking shots were done by drone. But actually, virtually all the sequences shot on the animals’ level are done on a handheld unit. That was a real buzzword for us with this whole approach to the series: To be in the animals’ world, you have to be on their eye level. Otherwise, you feel kind of distinct or detached.</p>
<p id="5VS7Xx">So for that cameraman with the tripod, that meant trying to get the tripod into the sand and get it as low as possible, and certainly for the handheld stuff it was about getting down as much as possible. But then the moment you lift up with a handheld device and you’re at human eye level, it looks like an aerial shot. </p>
<p id="lqcx8m">And that was great for us, because you can’t fly drones in the Galapagos. But someone said to me earlier, “Oh, man, how did you fly the drone?!” and I was like, “No ...”</p>
<p id="vJS6XO">It’s an amazing tool, to be able to use these smaller cameras and a stable system that’s handheld. </p>
<h4 id="0Yy2U4">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="MSDDIh">By taking it a lot farther away, you’re actually flattening the angle. On a tripod it’s quite hard to be at snake eye level, but if you’re 40 meters away, the angle effectively becomes so flat it appears that you’re at that level. </p>
<h4 id="NT4cmb">Caroline Framke</h4>
<p id="2HOyTu">Well, I just want to watch this clip again now. And I’ve already seen it so many times. </p>
<h4 id="AYtXrv">Mike Gunton</h4>
<p id="ssNyvb">[laughs] I reckon it’s going to be one of those clips film schools will analyze.</p>
<h4 id="ST8DNd">Caroline Framke</h4>
<p id="sBctNc">After watching such dramatic events, can you emotionally divorce yourself from what’s happening with the animals?</p>
<h4 id="T7GjGn">Elizabeth White</h4>
<p id="WgDUGQ">It can be hard, especially when you’re spending a lot of time [with them]. For me particularly, the penguin chicks ... you can see nice happy, healthy penguin chicks with these big bellies, and they look so content, and then you see a little penguin chick that’s almost like a tripod with its beak down to the ground; it’s just hollow.</p>
<p id="BmLqxI">And there’s a little part of you that wishes you could go down there and take all the little orphan ones and look after them. But we’re all biologists by background, and we know the reality is a lot of animals will not make it, and you can’t interfere. </p>
<p id="mMMrp2">Planet Earth II <em>premieres Saturday</em><em>,</em><em> February 18</em><em>,</em><em> at 9 pm EST</em><em> on BBC America.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/17/14600648/planet-earth-2-premiere-iguanas-snakes-clipCaroline Framke2016-11-07T15:50:03-05:002016-11-07T15:50:03-05:00Planet Earth II just gave us the most thrilling chase scene of the year
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0HCsez5loAv3el5Tm0aNL8YwFUk=/0x0:465x349/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51722647/Screen_Shot_2016_11_07_at_2.48.38_PM.0.png" />
<figcaption>BBC</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="BMW7TN">When humans are born, our first tasks include opening our eyes and trusting our instinct to breathe. For iguanas, those first tasks might involve evading death.</p>
<p id="Ar3lwn">This harsh truth has come to light in a new teaser clip for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5491994/"><em>Planet Earth II</em></a>, the BBC’s upcoming sequel to its legendary documentary series narrated by<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37894704"> Sir David Attenborough</a>. It features one of the most amazing documentary shots ever: a hatchling iguana dodging death on what appears to be an island full of snakes.</p>
<p id="lPFoXh">The scene is not unlike a season-defining fight from<em> Game of Thrones </em>(see: <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/6/20/11975354/game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bastards-recap-hope">"Battle of the Bastards"</a>). It’s more dramatic than anything pulled from Shonda Rhimes’s vault of twists. It’s got excitement, tension, a hold-your-breath action sequence, and suspense all wrapped into a two-minute sequence. Its ending must be seen to be believed.</p>
<p id="WQhJEo">It’s the best thing you will see on the internet today.</p>
<p id="wTRKly">As with any<em> Planet Earth</em> installment, myriad questions arise after watching the spectacular scene. To wit: Where is this island full of snakes, and why have we not yet purged it with fire and flame? Why don’t these iguanas just try to live somewhere else? If iguanas must start evading death straight from the cradle, what are we going to do when they decide to unify and revolt against humans? What happens if the iguanas decide to leave the snake island and move to the Hamptons?</p>
<p id="V6tpMk">For many of us, those are questions whose answers we hope to never learn. But if you’re dying for more details, you’ll likely have to wait. While <em>Planet Earth II</em> premiered its first episode, "Islands," over the weekend in the UK, it won’t debut in the US until it hits <a href="http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2016/10/announcing-planet-earth-ii-premieres-saturday-january-28-on-bbc-america">BBC America on February 20</a>.</p>
<p id="p9TKjl">That leaves us a lot of time to relish this snake island clip over and over again.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2016/11/7/13554176/planet-earth-2-iguana-snake-chaseAlex Abad-Santos2016-10-11T08:20:02-04:002016-10-11T08:20:02-04:00Watch: first look at one of the most anticipated sequels of the decade, starring a swimming sloth
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xl2r0RKGQo547sXESZ1KHAcU8W8=/272x0:1635x1022/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51296345/Screen_20Shot_202016-10-10_20at_204.37.21_20PM.0.png" />
</figure>
<p>Planet Earth is back.</p> <p id="ajUly6">At long last, we have our first look at the highly anticipated sequel to one of pop culture’s greatest franchises: <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795176/">Planet Earth</a></em>.</p>
<p id="LldScY">Picking up where its predecessor left off a full decade ago, BBC America’s <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5491994/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Planet Earth II</a></em><em> — </em>a six-episode docuseries set to debut sometime before the end of the year — reunites some of the series’ classic characters, from burrowing insects to galloping giraffes to a variety of big cats lurking and prowling in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike.</p>
<p id="rzSAJb">But as the music in the first trailer swells, you may notice a few new faces popping up in the <em>Planet Earth </em>cinematic universe.</p>
<p id="HnMhi1">There’s a majestic flying lizard (scientific/superhero name: "Draco blanfordii"), soaring over the tree canopies to patrol the activity below.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Pnl2w_TnolwwaZ9SqAIDiZphGQk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7254477/Screen%20Shot%202016-10-10%20at%204.34.44%20PM.png">
<cite>BBC America</cite>
<figcaption>Fly, bb Draco! Fly!</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="aD68d1">There’s a sinister Komodo dragon, his tongue darting out menacingly as he broods along the surf. (Or maybe he’s a good guy and we’re reading the scene all wrong; honestly, who knows, this trailer doesn’t contain much in the way of plot details.)</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zIMeuWtTfV0OpuQYOZXIG2ChNro=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7254491/Screen%20Shot%202016-10-10%20at%204.36.53%20PM.png">
<cite>BBC America</cite>
<figcaption>So broody.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="HsAeja">And for comic relief we have this sloth, taking a leisurely swim by raking his weirdo claws through the water.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1dbOxW3bFUL6T_qYUgd26eo04Is=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7254503/Screen%20Shot%202016-10-10%20at%204.37.21%20PM.png">
<cite>BBC America</cite>
<figcaption>This is a good animal.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="UWfWyi">All the while, a mysterious figure guards over a cityscape, watchful, vigilant, and fuzzy-eared.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cK2XzSZkr3hNdOHiTKzTD-WbsqM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7254815/Screen%20Shot%202016-10-10%20at%204.21.49%20PM.png">
<cite>BBC America</cite>
<figcaption>Your city is in good paws.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="d77ngY">The one hero we need and deserve from <em>Planet Earth</em><em> II</em> doesn’t pop up until the very end of the trailer. But fear not: Narrator <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0041003/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Sir David Attenborough</a> will, in fact, be returning to lend his pleasing British baritone to every episode of <em>Planet Earth II: Age of Higher Def Cameras</em>.</p>
<p id="p7P31O">Fans have been clamoring for more <em>Planet Earth</em> ever since the series wrapped up in 2006, but unlike many sequels, this one couldn’t be rushed into production. The jaw-dropping scale of <em>Planet Earth </em>— which spans the globe, filming in environs ranging from the rainforest to the frozen arctic — requires time and patience to capture its subjects.</p>
<p id="MoJaDa">And from the looks of this stunning trailer, <em>Planet Earth II</em> will be worth the wait.</p>
<p id="rnaV33">Planet Earth II <em>will premiere, in the words of BBC America, "soon."</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/11/13232318/planet-earth-2-premiere-lookCaroline Framke2016-05-06T10:47:00-04:002016-05-06T10:47:00-04:00David Attenborough thinks evolution is "one of the great dramas in the history of Earth"
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yrQhVKsFa3RgsX7FyvleWridoGs=/0x0:5184x3888/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46318054/Lufeng_Dinosaur_National_Geopark_12_-_David_with_dinosaur_fossil.0.0.JPG" />
<figcaption>(Smithsonian Channel)</figcaption>
</figure>
<div class="chorus-snippet center">
<p>To millions of people, Sir David Attenborough is literally the voice of nature.</p>
<p>As the writer and narrator of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/planet-earth/"><i>Planet Earth</i></a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533395/"><i>Life</i></a>, and dozens of other acclaimed documentary series, he provides soothing voiceovers that have described everything from the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUIdarVPpsQ">flights of majestic birds</a> to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btY-3ED__Vo">mating rituals of hedgehogs</a>.</p>
<p><span>Attenborough, who turns 90 on May 8, is</span> still at it. His most recent series — <i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/david-attenboroughs-rise-of-animals-triumph-of-the-vertebrates/dawn-of-the-mammals/1003607/3416386">Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates</a> </i>— premiered in 2015 on the Smithsonian Channel. In it, he tells the 500-million-year story of how a group of small, wormlike aquatic creatures evolved into every fish, bird, amphibian, reptile, and mammal alive today — including humans.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sFmBd7l1STo" frameborder="0"></iframe> <br><br>
<p>During a visit last year to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to premiere the work, I spoke with Attenborough about the new series, the uneven quality of science television in general, and his viewers' changing relationship with the natural world. I can confirm his voice is even more enchanting in person. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.</p>
</div>
<div class="chorus-snippet center features-toggle"><interview>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> In the US, when you tell a story about evolution, it inevitably brings controversy — we have an ongoing, very public debate between evolution and views of creation influenced by the Bible. Does that worry you?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Well, yes. I'm disturbed when people abrogate rational thought. I'm not suggesting that all thought has to be evidence-based, and you may have different philosophical views on things, but if there is a story that has material evidence and you deny it, you're denying your own intellectual process.</p>
<q>"Humanity is a very, very ingenious species. After all, an American president once said, 'Within 10 years we're going to put a man on the moon.'"</q>
<p>You don't have to necessarily say, "This proves that the Bible is wrong." And you certainly don't have to say the New Testament is wrong. But you can say, "The Old Testament involved some myths, because people didn't have the evidence back then. Now we've collected the evidence. Here it is."</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> Right now, with the development of HDTV, you're able to bring nature to viewers more vividly than ever before. At the same time, the average person is more alienated from nature than ever. How does this affect your work?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> I think it puts a great deal of responsibility on television. Humans, as you know, are part of the natural world, and we depend upon it completely — every breath we take, every mouthful of food we eat, comes from the natural world.</p>
<p>But the natural world is in great peril. In a democratic society, in order to do something about that, it requires the people telling policymakers to do so. It requires people understanding the costs of not doing anything — if we don't, the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/cards/global-warming/what-is-global-warming">temperature's going to rise</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/cards/global-warming/what-is-sea-level-rise">sea levels will rise</a>, more parts of the world will become desert, we'll have increasingly extreme weather, etc.</p>
<p>But if, as you correctly say, people are increasingly cut off from the natural world, there's less of a chance to understand it. So that's a huge responsibility for broadcasters. We ought to be keeping people in touch with the natural world, and we can do that through nature programming.</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> How'd you come to this realization?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Well, when I started doing this work, I wasn't thinking about it at all. I made nature programming because I couldn't imagine enjoying anything else quite as much. And back in the 1950s and '60s, to most people in the natural sciences it seemed that the natural world would always be there for us. Who ever thought humanity could extinguish a species?</p>
<p>Then the evidence began to mount. The awareness that human beings, out of sheer carelessness, were <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/11/5797636/the-world-is-facing-a-major-extinction-crisis-here-are-ways-to-avoid">exterminating other species</a> began to arise among a certain section of the scientific community. And I was involved in that.</p>
<p>But then soon afterward, we realized it was even bigger than driving certain species extinct. It was whole communities and species, and vast areas of the world being devastated, and the seas being polluted.</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> Do you think that as a species we'll be able to solve this?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Humanity is a very, very ingenious species. After all, an American president once said, "Within 10 years we're going to put a man on the moon." Even now, that sounds like an impossible task. But it was accomplished.</p>
<div class="float-right s-sidebar">
<h4>More Vox interviews</h4>
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2015/4/28/8489725/neil-degrasse-tyson"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vI5XSGxEQ2dS8nIfNGsKFfCAiQk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3687952/Tyson-Space.0.jpg">
</figure>
</a>
<p><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/4/28/8489725/neil-degrasse-tyson" target="new">Neil deGrasse Tyson on space, fame, and the future of the human species</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7458807/paul-krugman-economist" target="new">What is Paul Krugman afraid of?</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/11/14/7213833/peter-thiel-palantir-paypal" target="new">Inside Peter Thiel's mind</a></p>
</div>
<p>Is it impossible that such a person couldn't say, "In the next 10 years we're going to double how much <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2015/4/28/8506953/solar-photovoltaic-future">power we get from the sun</a>"? At any given moment, the sun is emitting 5,000 times more energy than humanity uses in all forms of power. Five thousand times. And you're going to tell me you can't double how much solar power you produce?</p>
<p>There are problems, of course. One is that we haven't got the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2015/2/22/8084703/powerhouse-steve-levine-review">devices to store it properly</a>. But that's a piddling problem compared with putting a person on the moon. So let's solve it. If we did, we wouldn't have to worry about the carbon we were emitting, because no one would bother to dig it out of the ground in the first place.</p>
<p>So it can be done. But that doesn't mean we can sit back and wait and see if it'll happen. People need to be energized.</p>
<p>What put a man on the moon was that we were fighting the Soviet Union. What we're fighting now is tougher to visualize. So maybe the answer is that the people who see the problem firsthand — perhaps they can make films about it.</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> What made you decide to tell this story about our evolutionary history now?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> It's one of the great dramas in the history of Earth. And we've just recently pieced together so much of it.</p>
<p>There were some very difficult gaps — such as the exact origin of the birds — but the Chinese fossils, which have only been available for the past 20 years, gave us so many answers. We'd previously been trying to tell the story primarily with European and American fossils, but that did leave some very, very difficult questions. And the answers were there in China.</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> You've done so much work on ecosystems and life forms that exist, vividly, right now. How much harder is it to tell stories that happened millions of years ago?</p>
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W7QZnwKqopo?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br><br>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Well, the challenge is, of course, bringing things to life, and telling a story in which the characters are bits of bone, or rock, or computer images. It's a great challenge to capture this story with the material available.</p>
<p>But it's fun. If it were easy, why bother?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> Do advances in computer technology make this sort of thing easier to do?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Absolutely. We couldn't have told the story in as much vivid detail were it not for computer-generated imagery. CGI is now of a quality that would have been unimaginable years ago.</p>
<p>I remember decades ago, I did a series on paleontology and fossils, and there was going to be one episode entirely about dinosaurs, because that's what laypeople think is most exciting.</p>
<q>"If people are increasingly cut off from the natural world, there's less of a chance to understand it. So that's a huge responsibility for broadcasters."</q>
<p>And the standard of dinosaur reconstruction for film was so poor, it was almost comic — they were little cardboard figures. So I decided I'd tell the whole story of dinosaurs without any images at all.</p>
<p>Now you can tell that story in so much more detail. And the computer imaging is absolutely convincing. <i>Jurassic Park</i>, 20 years ago, was pretty good, but we've come so far since then.</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewer">Joseph Stromberg:</span> The quality of American science television is very uneven — we have some great stuff, and then things like <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/8/12/5994479/shark-week-debunked">Discovery Channel's <i>Megalodon</i></a>, which basically invents the existence of an extinct shark. Do you think this sort of thing is a problem?</p>
<p><span class="features-toggle-interviewee">David Attenborough:</span> Well, I think television as a whole has a responsibility to tell true stories. I don't suggest that every network has the same responsibility — just that within the whole medium, someone, somewhere has to tell the stories.</p>
<p>At the BBC, we have rather different incentives. We're not supported by advertising. So there's a responsibility, and an opportunity, and I'm happy to say that I think we live up to it. I've spent my whole life there — I joined in 1952. Sure, the BBC has always done popular things, but it also has focused on telling other sorts of stories that are often ignored.</p>
<p><i>The Rise of the Vertebrates</i> is a successor to another program, the Rise of the Invertebrates. Nobody had told that story — about trilobites, and that sort of thing. No one had told that at all.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8587795/david-attenborough-evolutionJoseph Stromberg