Planet Earth
Katelyn Lau, CT Features Staff
April 27, 2007
Somewhere between elementary school and college, the Discovery Channel became slightly less nerdy--cool even?
Dull documentaries detailing the habitats and reproductive practices of squid seem to have faded into the distance, while clever, sometimes even humorous, shows have cropped up in the Discovery Channel's programming.
Meanwhile, Discovery's latest project, the eleven-part series called "Planet Earth," blends the old with the new--the result: entertaining education in high definition.
"Planet Earth filmmakers went, literally, to the ends of the earth to capture the essence of our planet," Discovery's website noted.
After a year of research and four years of filming in over 200 locations around the globe, "Planet Earth" boasts footage of animals and behaviors never before filmed--wild dogs hunting impala, flat lizards leaping for black flies, a mother polar bear and her two cubs emerging from their den after five months in hibernation, monkeys and elephants swimming underwater, and the bizarre mating dance of the Bird of Paradise; the list literally wraps around the globe.
"There was a year of research at the beginning. And then simultaneously shooting for all eleven programs was over the next three years," "Planet Earth" producer Jonny Keeling said in a live chat on Discovery's website.
"In the office, there was about twenty to twenty-five people; they're all working non-stop on permits, logistics, travel plans, as well as getting the information about the animals behind all the stories. And once a fortnight we'd all sit down and have a meeting about what we were all doing so we could make sure the giant puzzle was fitting together," Keeling said.
The series, narrated by Sigourney Weaver, was presented in eleven parts, each focusing on a different part of our planet: from the poles to deserts, from Mount Everest to the deepest caves, from forests to oceans.
"There was no computer generation at all," "Planet Earth" producer Penny Allen said in live chat on Discovery's website. "Everything was real."
New technology, specifically high-definition cameras and a gyro-stabilized camera unit equipped with a 400 mm Canon zoom lens and carried by helicopter, was used to closely track wildlife in natural habitats from as far as a mile away without being detected by the animals.
More than 70 producers and camera operators spent 2,000 days in the field, sometimes devoting weeks or months to obtain a single shot.
Great efforts were taken to avoid disturbing the animals and to film them in a natural state, Keeling said.
Camera operators, all with years of experience, Keeling noted, employed various forms of camouflage to stay hidden.
"Filming in Mongolia--the gazelle migration--I went four times in three years to get a three or four minute sequence," Keeling explained. "They're very elusive animals. We buried the cameraman in the ground to try and hide him from the very nervous gazelle, but still had no luck."
But when trying so hard to avoid interfering, camera operators sometimes captured heartbreaking images, such as a baby elephant separated from its herd and following its mother's trail in the wrong direction, away from water and its mother.
"Sometimes it would be impossible (to help)," Keeling said. "You couldn't redirect an elephant and you couldn't stop one animal hunting another."
"There are some rare occasions when you can sometimes help an animal," Keeling explained. "I think in the 'Frozen World' program, there was a penguin stuck in the ice just by sheer bad luck. And it took a very small effort for the camera people to release it and save its life, so they did. And that's understandable, because they lived with those penguins for more than a year and became very close to them. And they didn't feel it was changing the course of nature."
Allen and Keeling said they hoped that some of the images of the spectacular places seen in "Planet Earth" inspire people to take better care of our planet.
"I hope they feel amazed and inspired by the place that we call home," Keeling said. "What we tried to show was new animals, new behavior and new locations, and to try and show people the beauty of the planet with a bird's-eye view, super-slow motion cameras and high-definition technology to show them the planet as they've never seen it before."
"I hope that if they are awed and impressed by what they've seen that it inspires people to want to take better care of the world we live in," Allen said.
While "Planet Earth" has already taken viewers around the world, "Planet Earth: The Filmmakers Story" airs this Sunday at 8:00 p.m.
The entire series is also available on DVD for $79.95 on Discovery's website.