Q&A with Mike Gunton and Tom Hugh-Jones
Q&A with Tom Hugh-Jones, Series Producer and Mike Gunton, Executive Producer
Published: 29 October 2016
Why have you chosen to make a sequel to Planet Earth?
MG: Planet Earth was made ten years ago and the world has changed a lot since then - both in terms of the way that we see the world and our understanding of nature. We wanted to take a new look at the incredible diversity of life on our planet and in a slightly different way. We wanted to celebrate the wonders of the world that remain but also investigate both how our planet has changed.
THJ: It’s a decade on and we thought it would be interesting to see what has changed in that time. Both filming techniques and our understanding of the natural world have moved on significantly since Planet Earth. So the tenth anniversary felt like the right moment in time to revisit this classic brand.
How does Planet Earth II differ from the original?
MG: Visually, where Planet Earth took an almost God-like perspective and said ‘Let’s look down on the Earth and see the scale of the planet’, what Planet Earth II is doing is saying ‘Let’s get ourselves into the lives of the animals, and see it from their perspective’. The visual signature of the series is that you feel like the camera is with the animals. It’s very fluid, very active. For example, you might see this wonderful lemur leaping through the forest. Normally when we’d film that, we’d be standing back observing it, but here the lemur almost jumps over your shoulder and as it’s jumping over your shoulder, you’re with it - the camera is running with it!
Why did you decide upon the new up close and personal perspective?
THJ: We’re always looking to portray animals in a new light and offer people a new perspective on the natural world. We knew we had to do something different with this series and our aim was to make the whole event far more immersive. This time we’re bringing audiences a much more engaging experience of the natural world. If you want people to connect emotionally, it’s better for viewers to feel like they’re down there close, with a wide-angle lens, within the action and seeing things from the animal character’s point of view. These kind of sensibilities have been used in dramas and movies for years and we are applying them in the natural world.
Was that hard to achieve?
MG: Yeah! In a way, this is an evolution of Planet Earth. That used a lot of gyro-stabilised cameras - a camera with stabilisation technology that allowed us to stick it on a helicopter and zoom in on animals from a kilometre up. What we’ve done for Planet Earth II is to effectively take gyro-stabilisation, stick it inside a camera and put it in the hands of a cameraman. The cameras have come off the tripod, they’re in the hands of a cameraman, and they allow us to go where helicopters could never go. The perspective is one that’s close to the animals, but still awe-inspiring.
What have been some of the significant technical developments used to film Planet Earth II?
MG: We’ve used remotely-operated cameras that we strategically placed in locations it would be impossible to put a cameraman. The animals almost operate the cameras themselves! When they walk by, the camera is triggered to start and films them. The snow leopard is a good example of how this has given us a new perspective. On Planet Earth, the snow leopard was filmed on the end of a telephoto lens about a kilometre away. What we’ve done is go back to the same location, and stake it out with dozens of these remotely-operated cameras. So instead of the camera being far away from the animal, it’s now three feet away. Of course, you could never do that before, because the animals would never come that close to a human being.
THJ: Our approach to filming snow leopards is a really good example of how we’re different to the original Planet Earth. In the first series, we were bowled over just to be able to find any snow leopards to film at all, but now we’ve captured them brushing past the camera with epic landscapes behind them.
Which habitat or sequence are you most proud of and excited to show people?
THJ: There’s been quite a few but probably Zavodovski from the Islands episode. One of the world’s most remote locations, it took us over a year to plan the trip. It’s a big volcanic island in the Sub Antarctic and home to the world’s biggest colony of chin strap penguins. The island’s beaches are usually too rough to land on, so you have to access it via the cliff – with 12 metre waves crashing around you! The sequence we filmed here is a powerful story of the penguins’ challenge to survive and raise their chicks.
MG: The one that sticks in my mind is another sequence from the Islands episode. In the Galapagos there are these amazing creatures called marine iguanas. They lay their eggs on sand near the coast. We see these babies hatch out, and the camera tracks towards them, and suddenly this snake comes from under the camera. And then, a couple of seconds later, another snake. And then another snake, and another snake and another snake, and suddenly we’re running with about 20 snakes that have been waiting for all these iguanas to hatch. They come out of the rocks. It’s like something from Indiana Jones. It is truly amazing.
Has the new footage changed your attitudes to certain animals?
MG: We told a story in our Cities film, in Mumbai, about these leopards that hunt at night in the city - the highest concentration of leopards in the world live in this city. A hundred years ago, two percent of the world’s population lived in cities, and now it’s over 50%. We’ve got the world’s most successful leopards living in the city, the world’s most successful peregrines living in the city. Why are all these animals doing so well? It’s because humans bring this incredibly intense concentration of resources, like food and energy. Animals suddenly have the opportunity to piggyback on that. That’s why they’re attracted and, if they get it right, that’s why they can do so incredibly well. The challenge though is cohabiting with humanity.
Does the new series share the original’s message of mankind’s footprint on ecology?
MG: In every episode we will be making some reference to a fundamental change or pressure that these habitats have. So in the Deserts episode, we’ll be talking about how desertification is now on the increase and how a surprising percentage of the planet is turning to desert every year. In Mountains we see that climate change is having a huge effect on the habitat. As it gets warmer the snow line is retreating higher and that is changing the habitat for mountain animals like snow leopards.
What went into your decision to make a Cities episode?
THJ: We wanted to acknowledge that the world wasn’t all jungles, deserts and mountains any more. It’s largely a manmade environment, so showing that felt more contemporary. At the same time we didn’t want the Cities programme to feel grey and boring compared to the other episodes – we were determined that it would be a beautiful film in its own right and determined to show animals surviving in remarkable ways, rather than it just being full of doom and gloom and lamenting how things used to be.
What’s been the most difficult element of production?
THJ: Definitely the relentless pursuit of originality. Each time we embark on one of these wildlife blockbusters, we want to show something completely fresh, or at least reveal more familiar stories in a new light. It’s our mission to wow people with things they didn’t know about the natural world.
What’s so special about a BBC Natural History series?
MG: I think probably the scale, the sense that we go that extra mile. We were just looking at a sequence of a volcanic island, Zavodovski, off the coast of Antarctica. Very few people have even set foot on that island, so to go there and film the biggest penguin colony in the world is enormous. It took a year of planning for us to be able to do that. We also attract the best photographers and cinematographers and therefore the quality of our cinematography is always outstanding. We have the time, the experience and the resources to push technological boundaries. We’re always looking for new ways of revealing the wonders of nature to people. And, of course, we have David Attenborough, the ultimate storyteller.
In the Mountains episode there is a real sense of a unique and almost privileged perspective, one that only our cameras can bring. I like to think we bring audiences really original, engaging storytelling – we bring the lives of the animals and the places they inhabit to life, not just with the photography but with the way the stories unfold.
