This episode is a continuation of the previous one, vertebrates set their feet on dry land. Like previous episode this one is marked by one dominant group, in this case frogs and toads.
The structure of the episode. As is pointed out in the grey line most of the time is spent on frogs and toads.
Sequences of interest
There is one set of sequences of particular interest. Starting at 11’20 the viewer is tempted to think the cameraman is filming rather tall plants
Seemingly tall plants (11’20) that …
that is until Attenborough’s hand spoils the view and it turns out to be absolutely tiny.
… turn out to be absolutely tiny when Attenborough’s hand enters the frame (11’29)
This is followed by another illusion involving the sound recording: Attenborough talks as if he is standing somewhere in the middle of nowhere until he utters the word “coalmine”. Instantly the thumping noise of the drill is heard in the background.
Going back to the water following a different line of evolution, fish.
An outline of the fish episode. As the grey area indicates the main emphasis is on bony fish.
The outline above shows how dominant bony fish are in the episode, all but the first few minutes are about them.
The part about the deep leads to great sequences like those of the flashlight fish (38’50-40’05) where special light sensitive cameras and a bit of illumination were used.
Fish usually need electricity to get around because the surroundings are too murky for visibility. Filming is such conditions would obviously be harder than needed so undoubtedly the sequences (41’35-44′) were filmed in an aquarium.
Filming locations
Fish episode. Filming locations
The following locations were given in the episode: 1- Mouth of Severn in England (7’40) searching for fossils of ancestral fish 2- Kimberly Ranges in Western Australia (8’30) searching for signs of what shorelines of ancient earth was like 3- Lake Magadi in Great Rift Valley (45’30)
This episode is exclusively about flowers and insects. It is constructed of 3 main parts as shown in the outline below.
An outline of the episode
As the outline shows it starts, somewhat thematically, with the plants (naturally shown in green) and their relationship with insects. This is followed by insects (mainly larvae) mimicking plants to hide in plain sight and then changing to adults like butterflies. This can also be seen as a step towards being less dependent on the plants. In blue the final part of the episode is about super organisms.
Selected sequences
Normal view of a flower (left, [at 7’05]) and the way insects see the flower (right, [at 7’10]).
Showing (through UV filters) the way insects view flowers differently from us (6’50-7’12).
Final words:
While Attenborough is watch army ants he spoke the following words (in admiration):
“Man has been doing battle with insects ever since he picked off the first flee and I dare say long before. Today we continue the fight with fire, with radioactivity, with the most lethal poisons that our chemists have been able to device and yet we haven’t managed to exterminate a single species of them”. Whether Attenborough is right is debatable. Decades earlier the rocky mountain locust had been wiped out, but that was done indirectly* as with most animals of this size. It is true that poisons and other weapons have worked as discussed in the final episode of Living Planet.
Army ants (top left) and with Attenborough (top right) and Attenborough talking admiringly about them, and insects in general (bottom)
This is the first programme where plants play a major role, life is crawling onto dry land. The outline shows the focus switching constantly between plants (shown in green, naturally) and animals (shown in blue). Making the image easier to understand text pointing at animal participation is also blue.
The programme at a glance
Because the outline would otherwise become rather crammed the text explanations are cut short and a more detailed text version is left for a different outline, below.
Selected sequences
Both sequences of insects in flight (28’10-34′ & 41’35-50’30) are among the most impressive ever seen. It was rather obvious the crew kept the animals in a cool place until filming, otherwise the insects would fry but it seems extraordinary they could be filmed anyway. And how could they be kept so practically steady in the centre of the frame?
A damselfly in flight @32’30
Technical brilliance is not all that was needed in the programme, storytelling is also taken to a new level with the idea of introducing the following programme during the end credits while showing flowers on screen.
As the outline below indicates this programme looks rather like a normal natural history one. The mollusc part even has beautiful sequences as would be expected, but there are far more complicated sequences to film than a film crew would normally undertake as listed below.
The second programme Building Bodies at a glance
This programme consists of many more animal groups (groupings) than the previous one, most (like flatworms) only briefly introduced. Only two groups take considerable time: molluscs (snails, slugs and relatives) starting almost 11 minutes into the programme and crabs (covering the last 10+ minutes). By coincidence both regions are bluish in colour).
The name “Experiments in animal design” are actually Attenborough’s own words. They were marked by very unusual body patterns that didn’t seem to be working.
Selected sequences
There are several sequences of real beauties specifically among the swimming molluscs, but the following are more demanding for the cameramen.
How the mollusc eats (12’15-12’45). Filmed both through a glassy pane and the fine structure of its tongue using an electron microscope. For some reason the patterns revealed a species specific.
A mollusc eating, filmed from below (Snapshot from DVD disk)An electron microscope picture of the molluscan tongue (same source)
X-ray images of fossilised trilobites (38’20-40′) and their connection to later technical solutions for optical lenses made by humans.
This first episode (premiering exactly 40 years ago) is about the story of first life. Below is an outline (timeline) of the episode showing all the main events (themes) and what they consist of – what appears on screen.
The contents of the episode seen at a glance
This episode will always be regarded as a masterpiece in storytelling, keeping people glued to the screen while daring to talk about the start of life.
The colour codes in the outline have a particular meaning. Different colours indicate different subjects. Less distinct difference in colour indicates less distinct difference in subject: Attenborough’s talk about the Galapagos has more in common with the South American rain forest than it has with the fossil talk in the Grand Canyon. Those are very distinct subjects. Consequently different colours are used.
As the themes indicate the episode is split into 4 parts, the first of which is actually about Darwin, followed by the search for fossils. Some 15 seconds past the 19 minutes mark Attenborough starts talking about the “Life-on-Earth year” and then the start of life from molecules to complex cells. This is followed by more conventional zoology when he has reached the complexity of sponges.
The timeline is conspicuously split into two main colours identifying the main groups being discussed. To further identify the different parts of each group slightly varying hues of the same main colour are used.
Selected sequences
The first animal to appear (after 35”), a humpback whale
The very first few seconds of the episode are particularly noteworthy. Attenborough starts showing several different species. The exact selection of these species may be a coincidence but they form a logical whole as the remarks indicate, he starts showing a mother humpback whale with a calf. The next species is a flying fish (also marine but can temporarily leave its marine environment). Next animal appearing on screen is a tern hovering (we have mostly left the sea), followed by a bat (the only flying mammals). Next comes a frog leaping between tree branches.
Howler monkeys at the end of the sequence
Watching those seconds almost feels like a brief glance through the evolution of life on the planet, yet this may also have been only an interesting string of coincidences. To make it look less likely this is followed by a howler monkey. While seeing the last few animals (a grasshopper and a hummingbird) the howler monkeys are heard. Then as a logical step the monkeys are left behind to go through the foliage of the trees down to the bottom where Attenborough lowers his binoculars as he starts talking to the camera. A very neat way to introduce him to the world*. Other people might say this was just one way a series preview.
Another very interesting sequence involves the start of the trip to the Grand Canyon. Filming the sequence begins as they enter the canyon and is followed up by a sequence of presumably that same plane flying into the frame as it leaves. Following it for a few seconds the angle is dropped toward one brim of the canyon and the camera zooms in on a few tiny mobile dots that turn out to be the crew on mules. The film is zoomed even further until it is in front of Attenborough where a closer look is provided. Even though through brilliant editing it feels like a split second has passed this must have taken the cameraman many hours going along the ridge between the ravines passing one ravine after another because he was obviously very far away at first and the canyon is ridden with ravines. Nowadays this would have been accomplished with a drone that afterwards would have been flown straight back to the crew.
Filming locations
Watching the programme is even more enjoyable when filming locations (those given in the programme or other sources) are taken into account.
Filming locations are given in the same order the appear on film (numbers in brackets are approximate locations in episode):
1 – Howler monkeys in an unnamed forest in South America (2′) 2 – Galapagos Islands, introducing evolution (4′) 3 – Grand Canyon, fossil hunting (11′) 4 – Lake Superior, hunting for microscopic fossils (17′) 5 – Yellowstone National Park, introducing the start of life (24′) 6 – On the west coast of western Australia (27′) 7 – Flinders Range, jellyfish fossils found (48′) 8 – The Great Barrier Reef (52′)
Other sources of information: Christopher Parsons, True to Nature (1982). Pages 323-335.
As pointed out at the top it is exactly 40 years since premiering of this first episode. It might be expected that BBC would celebrate it in some way, but the anniversary happened to be on a very big day as far as politics is concerned; Brexit grabbed all the headlines. Consequently this anniversary was kept out of shows where it might otherwise have been included like Breakfaston BBC One. BBC, however, did celebrate it to some extent by showing this exact episode following the interview with Michael Palin (Life on Air – 50 years in television) which was actually released in a disk box earlier and will be discussed separately. The rest of the series was made available on their i Player.
Attenborough was at that time widely known in the UK but maybe not so much to the non-UK viewers.
For the title Life Collection you might think there should be only one simple definition. The box set having been produced twice (the second version included material that had not been released by the time the first one was produced (in 1990).
All the series have two factors in common; they are all presented by Attenborough and they all have a companion book, but therein lies the problem. Apart from the series Life in the Freezer all books are written by Attenborough, this one is written by Alistair Fothergill. Attenborough only wrote the foreword. On those grounds it is left out of the collection and treated in a different category.
It could also be pointed out that it is the only geographical series, but on the same grounds the plants series could be objected to. Similarly this series is the only one consisting exclusively of 30 minute episodes, the rest of the box set are of the normal 50+ minute length.
After finishing the collection Attenborough joined forces with Matt Kaplan for a two part series, concentrating on technical advances since the start of the collection. This series he seemed to regard as the final installment for the collection even though he neither wrote the programmes nor the accompanying book.
Being highly thematic, the first three series are, logically, regarded as a trilogy. The first Life on Earth, deals with evolution. The second The Living Planet, deals with ecology and the last one The Trials of Life is about the science of behaviour, ethology.
The rest of the collection covers various groups of living organisms starting with The Private Life of Plants followed by various animal groups (Life of Birds, Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth, and finally Life in Cold Blood). The last of these was released after the Life Collection box, but was included in its re-release (2018).
Setting the standards
At the beginning of production of Life on Earth Attenborough’s team decided that all the sequences they were about to film would be unique, they would prefer animals not previously seen on television or show them in a new light, people should see something new in every case. Since there were to be more series to follow this would apply to all of them.
As clearly mentioned in his memoirs, making such a big series which occupies several years for a large team had its obvious benefits: it is economically feasible to include brief glimpses from various distant places. Attenborough could in one place finish talking about something he started some years ago in another. This was quite new for television and can in fact be taken to mean various different things: Does he show up or merely speak from the studio but the scenes take place in different places? The best example seems to be found in their USA tour explained by Parsons detailing all its complications filming sequences for most of the programmes in the series. While a laboratory sequence was being filmed explaining the importance of microscopic fossils found in the Great Lakes (episode one) Attenborough was filming dolphins in Florida.
In each series every programme was assigned its own producer but all the team discussed and debated the scripts written originally by Attenborough. As he had finished a particular script every part of it was checked and, if necessary modified by going straight to the expert in that subject area. This was done by correspondence, a telephone call or (very often) visiting the experts wherever they where in the world. The animal and plant species that Attenborough proposed as examples were naturally those familiar to him but expected research to lead to better examples as would sometimes be the case.
Sometimes the scripts might even change due to recent, but yet unpublished, work (as in Life in the Trees episode chimpanzees were replaced with gorillas). Since this is not necessarily meant to be an exhaustive list only a couple of such examples will be given (actually in the ‘Trials’ series where enough information was given in his memoirs) suggestive of the labour of love given to the project and how even professionals could enjoy its ‘up-to-dateness’.
Attenborough, naturally couldn’t be too specific about each shot but gave at times rather a detailed information of what was needed. Having very experienced cameramen in the field these details could be left to them because the animals don’t read scripts, like human actors do. There should be no over-dramatisation of the sequences, and in order to make sure they would stay as true to the subjects as possible the film was first shown to the scientists responsible and only brought to the final version after their approval.
Becoming such a grandiose a scale BBC even for a while considered that “Life on Earth” was becoming such drain on their manpower and finances that it should preferably be outsourced. Instead of doing so they, however, managed to get Warner (Brothers?) as co-producer s. Otherwise this would raise the question what would otherwise have happened.
This site will be dedicated to everything related to David Attenborough. At the start of his career he was ‘just’ an ordinary ‘David’. That is the way he seems to prefer it as all his books and DVDs, as well as some interviews, indicate. Although he was knighted early in his career he does not seem to prefer the prefix. This project will look beyond his knighthood. For the sake of consistency, therefore, I will never use the ‘Sir’ part. No disrespect is intended.
Despite being a serious fan of Attenborough’s this is not meant to be routine praise. Instead this is meant to be critical. Praise or criticism of material should be on technical grounds.
This site should contain something for everyone, from easily accessible material to pieces that require digging beneath the surface. Some pieces might even be regarded as ‘analytical’ and may be based on more obscure material. I will aim to reflect as many different views as possible but prefer not to take sides.
This site will hopefully develop into a reliable source of information about any of his material.
Basic structure of the project
The basic structure of the project
In the table above Attenborough’s works are viewed in two entirely different ways. On the left side the main emphasis is on the more conventional (partly) chronological way where each series is followed regardless of contents. On the right side the thematic view is followed regardless of the series where it occurs.
The material, so far available, consists mainly of parts of Life Collection (concentrating almost exclusively on Life on Earth). Other series are still only dealt with using outline diagrams (see images below).
As discussed later, some people prefer information about certain themes rather than particular series or programmes. For those the thematic view (on the right) is intended. Its splitting is based on the trilogy of Life Collection.
The importance of an outline A book consists of chapters that may be split further to make the material easier to follow. It also has a table of contents and (often) an index. But Attenborough’s most famous works are TV series, not books.
Any series he has been connected with has been marked with outstanding camerawork. This might make viewers tend to lose track of any story (theme) that could be developing. Keeping track of them would usually make the story even more enjoyable. To overcome this drawback I have ‘developed’ sort of outlines (based on timelines). Since the series are very ‘visual’ it seems only logical to have the same apply to their outlines. This should make them more appealing and easier to grasp but they might become less informative. Sometimes this may not be helpful enough, so a more detailed text version can also be included.
The graphical outline is actually a horizontal time scale between (usually) two views of the programme. The one above shows what the viewer is watching on screen. Since the texts tend to get a bit crammed colours are varied (black near a blue one) to make it clear which texts belong together. The text below explains the theme (animal group in the case below). The series Life on Earth deals with the natural world in its simplest way and most of it is composed of relatively straight forward parts, the animal groups. But not all series are about animal groups so a more general term ‘theme’ has to be used.
A typical simple timeline for an episode of Life on Earth
In the above image the location of sifakas is given as “(6′-7’35)” which means that the sequence starts 6 minutes into the film and ends 1 minute and 35 seconds later. The exact numbers should, however, not be taken too seriously: Should it start when Attenborough starts talking about the subject or when the subject appears (not necessarily the same moment). The location given should land the user close enough regardless of definition. A more detailed discussion about the use of colours can be found in Life on Earth‘s first episode .
The structure gets more complex in later series. In the programme The Northern Forests in the The Living Planet series Attenborough visits three different types of forests (Main themes in the image below) and follows the changing seasons (Extra themes in the image).
A particularly complicated structure of a programme, from The Living Planet‘s Northern Forests. The marked pieces are discussed below.
Images, like the one above, may seem complicated. This one reflects the structure of a highly involved programme (The Northern Forests) from The Living Planet. In this programme two sequences are marked specifically: The first one is marking the arrival of migrants which happens when Attenborough has already talked about spring for 10 seconds. This happens while he is talking about the coniferous forests (bottom band of the image). The second is about hibernation when he has already talked about the effects of freezing cold temperatures of winter for almost two minutes late in the section about broad leaved forests.
When looking at the two images above conspicuous “lack of consistency” comes to mind. However, this is not an accident. I’m just testing various ways to reflect what actually happens. There is no single method that works all the way through: While discussing whales (episode 10-“Theme and Variations“) Attenborough’s talk about whales in general overlaps his talk about the humpback. Usually in narrated series, like 7 Worlds, there are frequent pauses when location or subject is being changed. To resolve such ‘problems’ colouring is left obscure. Similar inconsistency also applies to the use of fonts and other details. They are also due to testing.
These themes are very useful to help understand the actual contents of the programme, particularly in the (three) early thematic series. They were used for the tables summarising the collection, they show information that is otherwise not obvious.
Being probably Attenborough’s most famous accomplishment the main part of the project (so far at least) deals with the Life Collection. Although I have already mapped almost all the series I have not managed to convert my ‘shorthand’ way to anything decent enough for this site. That is a work in progress. So far only the Life on Earth series has been uploaded and a part of Living Planet, along with a framework (the timeline) of a few more because they were made so early in his career. Recent series like 7 Worlds should have a special priority.
Every series (and the Life Collection too) will be treated with an introduction. It is basically a summary of Attenborough’s own introduction in his memoir as well as a few extra words. At the end of this ‘treatment’ there will be a retrospective look at the material. Some may find it rather technical, it is meant to be since there is no need for repeats.
Filming locations
Since most series are filmed all over the planet it would have been very tempting to map its locations. Lack of information made this almost impossible to do on an episode-by-episode basis. With a few exceptions there simply isn’t enough data available to warrant the maps. The very first episode and a few others are enjoyable exceptions. Sadly my graphical presentation is very inferior to what has appeared in any of BBC’s publications (companion books or BBC Wildlife magazine).
There is also the appeal of the neighbourhood. Some people may find it more appealing to know what sequences were recorded in their own backyard, so to speak. The French would be more interested in knowing what was filmed in France and so on.
Thematic view
Some people may be more interested in special themes rather than a particular series or a programme. Since they unavoidably overlap one part of the project works as a kind of an Expanded index; a list of where certain subjects occur in a series (or a programme) or possibly a series’ accompanying book. It is not only an index system, it adds comments to the list as appropriate. So far this index is limited to some of the species included in the Dynasties series and a spin off from them (mainly the big cats) but will continue from there. So far it has been restricted to animal groups (the theme of Life on Earth) but may also include environments, the theme of Living Planet and behaviour, the theme of Trials of Life.
Digging deeper
Many of Attenborough’s stories are so rich in scientific references that one can be found in almost every sentence of his. These might prompt a curious mind enough to go deeper, go beyond the obvious (the companion book) and check outside sources. I picked a few references at random. Hopefully there will be at least one for every episode in each series.
Film theory
Occasionally I have even attempted to speculate how the team got about telling their stories, what could be labelled as ‘film theory’. These are not marked specifically, just hidden among the ‘selected sequences’.
General note
It should be clear that a blog site is not the best way to reflect the structure of this material, but this is what was recommended to me at the start. I am looking out for a more suitable one where the discussion about a series can actually start with its introduction and end with the intended retrospective look to mention only one drawback to this structure.
These are mainly fragments, most of them contain only the episode outline but other material is more or less missing. Sometimes that is because of lack of inside information providing it (like ‘filming locations’) below. In other cases it is lacking because of lack of time to add it or due to copyright laws stopping me using it. References to other media is more easily obtained for more recent works like Dynasties than it is for older ones like the Birds series. The whole project will therefore seem very patchy, but combining the ideas throughout the project should give clues for the whole idea – what can be done: Take every idea, like ‘filming locations’, and apply it to every episode and the outcome should look promising to everyone.
Dates are almost always irrelevant, that is just an inconvenient consequence of a blog site. They are simply used to make the series flow better, having the second episode between the first and the third. Only in the case of the very first episode is it actually true. It was almost all written on the date of its 40th anniversary!
The image introducing the project shows the fruit-loving fish piraputanga in Bonito Pools jumps for its fruit. It is a snapshot from the South American episode of ‘his’ Seven Worlds One Planet series (located at 42’33).
