AFRICA starts Wednesday 2nd January, BBC One
A few weeks ago I was privelidged to see a preview screening of episode one of Africa - Savannah. I was part of an audience packed with fellow wildlife filmmakers and we were all blown away. The film is jam packed with unbelievable moments of animal behaviour and jaw dropping landscapes - rhino romance, giant lost lakes beneath the desert, lizards summersaulting off the backs of lions, and... DO NOT SWITCH OVER - an epic giraffe battle finale that you will never forget.
The opening scene filled me with immense anticipation. It sees 86 year old Sir David Attenborough set the stage standing at the top of a remote mountain. He reminds us of the scale of this vast continent...
A few weeks ago I was privelidged to see a preview screening of episode one of Africa - Savannah. I was part of an audience packed with fellow wildlife filmmakers and we were all blown away. The film is jam packed with unbelievable moments of animal behaviour and jaw dropping landscapes - rhino romance, giant lost lakes beneath the desert, lizards summersaulting off the backs of lions, and... DO NOT SWITCH OVER - an epic giraffe battle finale that you will never forget.
The opening scene filled me with immense anticipation. It sees 86 year old Sir David Attenborough set the stage standing at the top of a remote mountain. He reminds us of the scale of this vast continent...
"I'm standing where the equator cuts right across the middle of the continent. To the north of me there's an immense desert the size of the united states of America, to the west a vast rainforest the size of India, behind me for thousands of miles the most fertile savannahs in the world. From the roof of Africa to the deepest jungle, rarely seen places and untold stories. There's nowhere in the world where wildlife puts on a greater show. This is the last place on Earth where you can come eye to eye with the greatest animals that walk on the planet. This is Africa." - Sir David Attenborough
If you still can't comprehend the size of Africa then here's a fascinating image to help, in a word it's BIG!
Music, Comedy, Awe & Spectacle
One thing that stood out for me was the music - a mix of the traditional big orchestral scores with an injection of fresh contemporary beats - a musical treat of wonderful variety that happily carried me along, even at 30-40 minutes in (a danger zone when people like myself are prone to becoming fidgety and easily distracted). Rather than the gobsmacking, but unrelenting and exhausting emotional high of many big wildlife series, the music of Africa wonderfully compliments what is a roller-coaster of sequences featuring just the right balance of awe, spectacle and humour. When it's WOW, you really feel the WOW, and when its OOOH, you know its time to sit back and enjoy the cute baby animals. Listen for the little ditty that accompanies the tiny ostrich chicks as they bounce along - adorable. Hats off to editor Matt Meech and producer Hugh Pearson, for the clever comical timing that, for me, adds a new dimension to blue chip wildlife films. My favourite funny moment was when a small rodent looks shocked and drops a nut when he realises a cheetah is looking at him - a head-nod to Pixars Scrat maybe? The most beautiful scene in the film is when we discover a colourful gathering of some of Africas most majestic animals - elephants, antelope, lions, zebra, all drinking from a water hole in the middle of the Etosia salt pan in Namibia. I was hooked throughout and by the time the behind-the-scenes section started I was disappointed that we were nearing the end. We talk a lot about 'landmark' films in the history of wildlife television, but I think AFRICA will be considered a genuinely revolutionary series. Official BBC AFRICA website
An African elephant towers above herds of antelope and zebra as they congregate at a precious waterhole on the Etosia salt pan in Namibia. Photo: BBC
Sneek Peak
Romancing Rhinos
"In these landmark series, sumptuous photography is something we know our audience expects - yet it relies on oblivious wildlife and on the patience and skill of the camera operators. No great shot is ever a given. And few great shots come without great effort. We helped drive the development of a new HD starlight camera system, used in the opening episode to film a night-time rhino party in intimate detail." - James Honeyborne, Series Producer. Read more about the secret rhino party on BBC Nature
Sitting amongst the sharks
Behind the scenes - Richard Matthews shares his experiences filming great whites. To get the perfect shot he had to sit in the water beside a dead whale while it was being eaten by 30 great white sharks.
On a lions back
A note on filming animals in controlled conditions
"Macro filming - the filming of insects and tiny animals - is a particularly tricky part of the craft, because you need lots of light and because the faintest breath of wind renders the whole image bouncing in and out of frame. So there will always be a need to control those conditions to some extent, with lights and special lenses. It's not something that we will detail every time but we show an example of this in the Eye To Eye section at the end of episode five, when a five-minute sequence of silver ants is painstakingly built-up over 30 days under the blistering Saharan sun.
We know that there is increasing interest in our various filming techniques and some of you will want to know when we do this sort of filming. So we have adopted a more explicit style of commentary. And throughout the series, we'll illustrate our techniques in more behind-the-scenes clips like the ones in this blog post.
Aside from filming in controlled conditions, we're confident our audience are familiar with much of the wildlife film-maker's craft and don't need to highlight it all, in favour of maintaining the sense of escapism. Our goal is to tell nature's stories in a dramatic and factually accurate way. And what we show is always the biological truth." Read more on the blog post of series producer James Honeyborne
Between a rock python and a hard place
"Pythons have a severe bite, not to mention the power to crush their victims to death. Fortunately we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to film a wild, but rescued snake in a wildlife sanctuary. She'd laid eggs and we carefully recreated her natural environment inside a special filming burrow. Sometimes for safety or welfare reasons we film in controlled conditions, as it's the only way to glimpse some great new behaviour - in this case, her surprisingly tender maternal care." -Read more on the blog post of series producer James Honeyborne
Between a rock python and a hard place
"Pythons have a severe bite, not to mention the power to crush their victims to death. Fortunately we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to film a wild, but rescued snake in a wildlife sanctuary. She'd laid eggs and we carefully recreated her natural environment inside a special filming burrow. Sometimes for safety or welfare reasons we film in controlled conditions, as it's the only way to glimpse some great new behaviour - in this case, her surprisingly tender maternal care." -Read more on the blog post of series producer James Honeyborne