The Executive Producer of Planet Earth III Mike Gunton chats with Sir David Attenborough about the much-anticipated new series.
The BBC’s new wildlife documentary Planet Earth III starts on Sunday 22 October (BBC One and BBC iPlayer).
According to Executive Producer Mike Gunton, “Planet Earth III is a new look at our wonderful natural world.
“It has the DNA of Planet Earth I and Planet Earth II in the sense that it is a magic carpet ride across the four corners of planet Earth, showing amazing stories of animal behaviour – whether that’s diving two miles down into the bottom of the ocean to see the world’s most dedicated mother, which happens to be an octopus, or whether it’s being in the treetops with an extraordinary leopard, who leaps 60 feet down onto its unsuspecting prey below.
“But there is a difference. Planet Earth III looks at the natural world through a different prism, and that’s the context of the fact that almost everywhere in the natural world is being impacted by humanity; we are changing the way the world is, and how animals are adapting and coping with that is a key part of the series. And how does nature respond? What are the stories of adaptability? It’s going to be wonderful, but also can be thought provoking.”
Mike spoke to Sir David Attenborough to find out more about the new series.
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Interview: Sir David Attenborough on the mesmerising new TV show
Mike Gunton
David, it’s been nearly 20 years since you made the first Planet Earth. Have you been aware of many changes in the last those last two decades?
David Attenborough
Oh, enormous. And it’s not only changed the way we filmed, it’s also changed science. One of the most remarkable things that we’ve had recently, is the use of drones. Drones, of course – like our low level light cameras – are an offshoot from military use, but the drone is now quite small. It carries a camera, it carries a transmitter, and it can go anywhere. It can take you and show you sites that human eyes have simply never seen before, and answer all kinds of questions. It’s really quite extraordinary.
Mike
It gives you that almost war game view – you can see the strategy of both the attackers and the defendants. The sequence in Planet Earth III that I remember showing you (David) is off the South African coast where great white sharks were attacking Cape fur seals. These poor seals had experienced the odd shark but now there are 12 sharks, and they’re having to cope with this new world. And then after the series of attacks, the first seals then change the behaviour and mob. Have you ever seen that behaviour before?
David
It’s rather heartening really. The seals are the poor guys in the face of this finned death, against sharks at high speed, and you think they’re the boss. But the 30 seals are starting to get fed up with this, and in some extraordinary way, they form a team, and they chase the shark out of their territory. And it’s very heartening and very engaging to see, but it’s also new knowledge.
Mike
It’s a punch the air moment!
I think one of the other changes from Planet Earth I to II to III, of course, is the technological changes. But science, as David was saying, is constantly rolling along, because it’s the scientists that give us all our great stories. The discoveries that are being made around the world, it’s remarkable, it’s absolutely remarkable. And so, of course, we have this wonderful advantage that because the scientists like what we do, they like our programmes, and they like hearing us tell our stories, so they often tell us the stories before anybody else.
Making these landmarks really is about creating surprises, many of which are born out of great scientific discoveries and innovations. I wonder if you have a sequence within the series that you find most surprising, or that has actually surprised you?
David
Well, I think, without any question, the thing that made me hold my breath was a leopard up in a tree. Suddenly, an antelope appears down below, and the leopard jumps on it from 50 to 60 feet up. I mean, that is the most extraordinary shot. I never thought a leopard would do that sort of thing. But it’s also our relationship with the people on the ground who tell us these things. They do so because I think they believe perfectly truthfully, that we care for scientific accuracy and as long as that is the criterion, they will collaborate with us in the most generous way. And we couldn’t do a lot of the stuff that we get without their help.
Mike
Those are the things that people mention the next morning when they’re talking about the series. They say, did you see that?
David
I’m sitting writing the commentary, so I see the action before I know it’s going to happen. It surprises me and I sit in front of the television set with my pen writing the words, and then suddenly I’ll see this and realise I haven’t written anything! Because I’m just completely held. And that may tell you that perhaps your words aren’t all that necessary….
Mike
Well, that’s what you often say, isn’t that? Let the pictures do the speaking? But the words are important, absolutely critical, too.
I think there are many animals that are finding the changing world a place that they can adapt in. There are stories where that happens, but there are places and times when you worry about the speed of change. Raine Island is a good example of that….
David
I went to Raine Island over 60 years ago, though I was shocked to realise it! I was going to New Guinea and I wanted to go into parts of the country that were unexplored. We got permission to go with a patrol but the patrol was delayed for one reason or another. I had three weeks of kicking my heels and it was too expensive to go back home, so I went down to Australia. I thought there must be something to film here. We were in Cairns off the east coast. It was the breeding season of some of the sea birds, and someone told me there was an island on the far north part of the Great Barrier Reef where they were nesting.
It was a place called Raine Island and I said, ‘has everyone been there?’ and they said nobody had been there until convicts in the middle of the 19th century were used to build a watchtower, which could act as a navigation to say ‘you’re now entering the Barrier Reef’. But I couldn’t find anyone who had been there. We eventually found a chap the pub who had a boat. And I asked if he’d go to Raine Island, and he said, never been! So I asked, “could we go up?” And he said, “Yes, why not? Why are you wanting to go?” I said “because it’s a breeding season…the seabirds.” So it took him 10 days or something to get up there – it was a long way. And there were these wonderful birds.
But the thing that made a huge impression on me wasn’t just the marvellous seabirds breeding, but there were dead turtles all over the place. And the reason that there were dead turtles was that the convicts who had built a watchtower dug stone from the middle of the island. So the island was saucer shaped, and turtles were coming up and having laid their eggs, and going downhill back to the sea, except that it was actually the middle of the island! So the place was absolutely littered with corpses of turtles, it was the most depressing thing that I’d ever seen.
That was 60 years ago, and now a new crew has been there. It’s still quite a difficult place to get to because it’s so remote, and I was fascinated to see it all again. But this crew went at a better time, which was the breeding time for turtles, and they saw that turtles were alive rather than finding the corpses of the unfortunate ones that were lost. There’s a marvellous sequence of turtles coming up on Raine Island.
Mike
And even though the turtles now know the right way to go back to the beach, it’s still a tough journey. Because of course, when the tide is low, there’s all these rocks and things, they get caught and trapped.
David
I’m quite sure quite a few still get lost, due to that same phenomenon of needing to go downhill because that’s the way to the sea. Everything tells them not to go back up hill, and so they die.
Mike
When I told you we were doing that sequence, I mentioned that there have been some changes. One of the things that’s happened on Raine Island is quite a sobering reflection on some of the bigger consequences that are happening on the planet, for example, sea level rise, that some of those nests are now being flooded from underneath. And that the temperature of the sand is so high that the eggs are changing.
David
The temperature of the eggs determines the sex, so if they are all at the same temperature, they will get all females or all males.
Mike
In this particular case, it’s too hot and so they’re all female. And you’re the witness. You’ve seen it, witnessing the change over your 75 years of filming. Do you think about that, as being a witness to something?
David
When I started back in the 1950s, I said things, I hope with some degree of passion and comprehension about changes to the planet but the audience thought it was a kind of oddball thing to say. They said, ‘okay so the temperatures are changing’, or ‘okay we’re losing some parts of the wilderness, but it’s not really important’.
Except for the people who had some real understanding of the ecological situation. It’s become hugely more desperate but hugely better known, happily, than it was 50 years ago and I think the BBC can claim some sort of credit for that.
I mean, because it is the one organisation that has recognised that it’s an important issue but also, it’s an issue which people are interested in, and which the constituents of it are in themselves full of drama and excitement and worth watching. And the BBC has been faithful to that tradition. And to see that in our output, that no other broadcasting organisation that I know of has. So the BBC people sometimes say, ‘you had foresight in saying what you said’, but I was allowed to say by the BBC, and that was something which I think we can be pleased about.
Mike
I was wondering about the importance of storytelling, for natural history programming?
David
I think a storyline is very, very important. Now, if you put some sort of shape into the film, and you don’t give answers away before you need to, the result is that it is like telling a story. I really think that telling the story, not giving away the answer too early and so on, is very important in making programmes that people want to watch.
Mike
People are always interested about when you do the narration. I know it’s pretty much one take. I think that’s important.
David
Totally. And you mustn’t be too wordy. The one key, I think, is that a picture is more powerful than a spoken word and if you give people the two things, the thing that they remember is the picture. You can’t ignore pictures.
Mike
We were talking about this other day and the second it’s silent, people look up to their TV to see what’s happened. It’s really interesting that that silence is sometimes the most powerful narrative tool you can use.
David
Having written a commentary the first thing to do is to carefully see what you can get rid of.
Mike
And what roughly what sort of percentage do you think you cut out?
David
I don’t think you could generalise but you should remember that pictures are more powerful than words.
Mike
You’ve said that one of the reasons why you like to do it in one take is because you can kind of modulate and the rhythm. It’s a performance, isn’t it?
David
When you’re talking to people, you don’t all talk at the same time or need the same sort of speed, and those variations should be in the commentary.
And if you just read it as a script without being aware of what the pictures are, it won’t hold.
Mike
Quite right. So I always think it’s quite entertaining because people don’t believe me when I say you do it in one take!
Matt
We were talking about the incredible strategies that animals were using in the face of human impact – there are winners and losers. But one of the things we also often feature is feeding, that you mentioned, but also courtship. And we’ve got a couple of wonderful sequences of courtship in this series, you mentioned hornbills, right? Have you ever filmed with oriental pied hornbill before?
David
Yes, I’ve seen it happen. It is an extraordinary splitting of the responsibility. The female looks after the eggs and the young, and if she’s sitting on her nest, she’s, I was going to say, a sitting duck, but you know what I mean – that she is an object for a snake, or indeed another predatory bird to sweep from and take it out. So she walls herself in so that so that the entry to her nest hole in the tree is only big enough room for the beak of the male.
And so that’s a very touching partnership in which the male gets the food, the females sits on the eggs, and the male goes to this tiny little aperture and pops it inside. In order to tell the story properly, you have to be able to get a shot inside the nest. And that’s the skill of the cameraman and the director. And that they can provide enough varied shots from inside and from outside for you to construct a sequence in which the story is told properly.
Mike
Of course, you have to do it without disturbing the animals, which is the thing that probably over overrides everything – you can’t disturb the animals, not just for all sorts of ethical and moral reasons, but also if you do, they won’t demonstrate the behaviour. So the fact that that sequence is so well executed, and you see every moment, you know, even when she pulls her feathers out, you just realise how remarkable nature is it! Bird courtship is always a winner. They do the most crazy things, don’t they bird courtship? I mean, the tragopan and that golden pheasant…
David
Bird courtship is just one of the most dramatic sequences you can get because it’s designed, as it were, to impress a female, and it impresses you! And the lengths to which a male will go in order to attract the attention of a female.
There are groups of birds that do it to an extraordinary level, that go to such extraordinary lengths, both in their plumage and in the way they strut. The key is that, in fact, in tropical circumstances there is a super abundance of food. Like in the birds of paradise family. The male doesn’t have to spend all that time gathering food, he’s got time to spare, and therefore what he does with it is to say, ‘oh, now can I show you something honey that you’ve never seen before’…and its true.
It works. And it certainly works on me. I mean, the other is pheasants, which you shout out on this series. They are the most breath-taking spectacles. The pheasant is a very big family, and they go to all kinds of lengths to be different not only from one another, but from different families. So different species have their own display. And I think that’s one of the most dramatic things you can ever see on television.
Mike
And are tragopans in the pheasant family? Yes, so that explains it…when you see that extraordinary ruff that he has, it is quite fiddly.
David
It’s not only feathers, but they also have these extendable sacks on the throats, which they can inflate into the most wonderful patterns. It’s nature showing off, and by golly, you have to be without soul if you aren’t impressed by that sort of stuff.
The whole Forest episode in which they appear is, rather refreshingly, about an environment in which there’s a lot of collaboration and communication within species and across species which I find really interesting. One of the stories is that at the end it speaks also to a new relationship that forest dwellers, in this case chimpanzees, have to have with us where their forest homes are surrounded by farms and they’re running out of food, and so they now start to venture into the farms to take food, and rather charmingly the farmers tolerate it. How are we going to find new ways of reaching an equilibrium with animals when we come into contact with one another?
David:
The huge problem is the way we are gobbling up space, and have gobbled up space as though it belongs to us and nobody else. And the notion that you should actually have to restrain yourself in order to accommodate the natural world is not one which everybody feels. We need to persuade people that it’s quite a selfish thing to do because, apart from anything else, we depend upon the natural world and we had assumed that the natural world was inextinguishable for many, many years and no matter what we did, we could do what we like, because the natural world was always there. It is not always there, simply because we have now become such a dominant species in terms of numbers, we have come to realise that we have to live together and not just entirely on the terms that we choose.
Mike:
And there are lot of stories that we tell on our Heroes programme where there are individuals who are sort of single-handedly trying to turn the tide, if you like, against extinction. Because, of course, one of the challenges is that the habitats are disappearing, of course, but also species are disappearing, animals are going extinct. And that’s a one way journey. And so, we’ve been very keen to try and remind people that some of these creatures that we take for granted might not be here. There are stories in that episode where these individuals are dedicating their lives, and sometimes putting their lives at risk, to save species..
David:
I think the most touching thing is the case of the northern bald ibis. The migratory journey that chicks normally make, when the species was flourishing, is that the chicks followed their parents. Researchers start off by persuading the chick to recognise the sound as being the sound made by the parent bird normally, which the chick itself could follow.
Now you can imitate that enough but what in nature happens is that the adult then takes them over a mountain range. And the researchers who are working with it have then learned how to fly microlights, tiny little planes, and still make the noise, so that the young chicks follow them on a migratory journey. It’s a very, very remarkable sequence because you see human beings acting in the sensitive nature-loving way and they are so caring that sitting in the plane making these noises and the chicks following them, it’s really very touching.
Mike:
Through the megaphone, it’s hilarious isn’t it. It’s both a very comic sequence because of this slightly absurd thing. But it’s also, as you say, very moving because the dedication. One of the scientists says at the end, ‘you know if we can do this, we can, by our efforts make a difference to this one little bird’. Surely there must be many, many other things that we can do. Inevitably, when you talk about the future of the planet or the state of the planet, there are concerns and there is a worry about it. Its vulnerability. But you have to give people hope.
David:
And people have to understand what the natural world requires and that young chicks actually can’t, be raised without having parents or something that would act in the way which parents do. And the sequence of the researchers who are calling to birds and then take them, or lead them, across the mountain range is one of the most touching.
Well, not only touching but optimistic sequences that I can think of in that human beings are acting in an interested caring, loving way towards the natural world and when you see that sort of thing happening, not just for half an hour, not just in time to put a coin into a collection box or whatever but actually to devote your life to doing this sort of thing and I find it very touching.
Mike:
You do indeed refer to them as true heroes and I think they are, they are heroic.
David you filmed at Downe Bank in Kent, near to where Charles Darwin developed his ground-breaking ideas about evolution. Today, animals are having to adapt to changes in their habitats. How have we best illustrated that? How important is that in the series itself? The fact that animals are having to adapt to an extraordinary rate, a rate that is faster than anytime we observe in human history?
Is the speed with which humanity has changed the planet so fast that evolution can’t keep up? Is that the case?
David:
The natural world operates at a different speed from the way that human beings operate in their own society by and large we expect things to happen very quickly but that is not the natural world’s way always, and sometimes it requires a degree of understanding as to how the natural world operates.
Mike:
This series is airing on BBC One in a slightly earlier slot than usual and we’re really excited that a lot of younger viewers will be watching…
David:
The reality is that there are worlds outside the playground and outside human society. There is another word out there which operates under a whole different set of rules and at a different pace. Children have an instinctive understanding about the way the world operates. If you watch a child at the age of five or six, they are absorbed in looking at how an insect is behaving, how a bee is collecting pollen. Simple things that are happening all the time but the degree of attention that a child will give it. We as parents should give children that opportunity to find those particular moments in which they understand the natural world.
By and large, children are better at understanding the natural world and as adults we should be making more opportunities for them to do that. Watching a child absorb something which we take for granted and don’t think about is very touching.
Mike:
They say an artist should remember and relearn how to paint like a child. Same as we should perhaps all learn to look at the natural world like a child.
Main image: BBC/Mark Harrison