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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:53,200 In a lifetime of natural history filmmaking 2 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:57,480 I've seen many odd animals, but few odder than these 3 00:00:57,480 --> 00:00:59,200 proboscis monkeys in Borneo. 4 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:04,360 I first saw them 50 years ago. 5 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,840 ARCHIVE: 'Late one evening, we had a great stroke of luck.' 6 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:13,000 'For a troupe of the extraordinary long nosed proboscis monkey 7 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,400 'had come down to the river bank to feed.' 8 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:24,480 'When I started filming such creatures, 9 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:28,360 'it was quite easy to show viewers animals that hitherto had only 10 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:31,720 'been seen in the wild by intrepid explorers.' 11 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:42,520 'As the years passed, one way and another, we got better 12 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:47,720 'and better shots and in the process, I had some memorable encounters.' 13 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:03,000 Boo! 14 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,240 This is a very intelligent animal. 15 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:12,160 And top of the menu right now is salmon. 16 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:16,400 SNARLING 17 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:20,000 I think that was pretty clear! 18 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,120 I've been lucky enough to live through what might be 19 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,480 considered the golden age of natural history filmmaking. 20 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:35,880 Almost every year it seemed we found some new way of revealing 21 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,520 new things about the natural world. 22 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:46,840 'In the 1950s, much of the wildlife of the planet was still unfilmed, even unknown. 23 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:50,360 'And in the following 60 years, 24 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:54,840 'a succession of technical innovations enabled us to reveal more 25 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:58,000 'and more of the natural world in increasing detail.' 26 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:23,080 This is the first natural history film I ever saw - in 1934, when I was eight. 27 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:24,520 And I thought it was wonderful. 28 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:33,040 Ladies and gentlemen. 29 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:35,960 Let me put you out of your misery at once. 30 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,680 You're not going to see me for long, although I am inviting 31 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:43,800 you to come on this trip with me, you will only see me occasionally. 32 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:48,440 The man in the pith helmet is Cherry Kearton, one of the first 33 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:52,800 people to try and capture the lives of wild animals on film. 34 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:57,000 There are five million penguins on this island, which are called 35 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:58,880 the jackass penguins. 36 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:02,320 I'm always polite to animals, 37 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:07,360 and as I intend to stay with the penguins for several months, 38 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,520 I am naturally adopting my most friendly manner. 39 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:14,440 Kearton travelled around the world filming wild animals that 40 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:16,480 had never been filmed before. 41 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:18,360 His approach was hardly scientific, 42 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:20,520 but nonetheless he was very entertaining. 43 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:25,120 His sister, a typical flapper, 44 00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:30,440 not content with being one of the fair sex, wants to join the air sex 45 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:36,520 But resigns herself to just a flip here, a flap there, 46 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:38,320 and a flop in between. 47 00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:46,720 For all its obvious flaws, his films captured my childish imagination 48 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:52,920 and made me dream of travelling to far-off places to film wild animals. 49 00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,720 And this is one of the very cameras Cherry Kearton used. 50 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,760 It's enclosed in a wooden box. 51 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:10,160 It was driven by hand and used 35mm film. 52 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:12,240 This distance across. 53 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:18,320 Within a few years, it was superseded by improved models like this one, 54 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,280 which had a metal box and it worked by clockwork 55 00:05:22,280 --> 00:05:24,520 and it had a variety of lenses. 56 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:28,640 But it still used hefty 35mm film. 57 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:33,040 Happily however, there were smaller versions available. 58 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:36,000 A camera like this. 59 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:40,000 This used 16mm film which was only half the size 60 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:42,640 and it was powered by clockwork. 61 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:48,360 But unfortunately the BBC thought cameras like this were unprofessional. 62 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:54,640 And there was a huge row as to whether or not I could be allowed to take it. 63 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:59,800 But in the end I did, and it was with this I set off 64 00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:04,160 to ramble around the jungles of the world looking for unfilmed animals. 65 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:10,520 My first natural history series, Zoo Quest, 66 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:13,240 recorded the progress of animal collecting expeditions 67 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,560 arranged with the London Zoo and brought to the screen, 68 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,040 places and animals that had never before been seen on television, 69 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:21,920 or in the cinema, come to that. 70 00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:28,080 One targeted the largest lizard in the world which 71 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:31,960 lived on the small Indonesian island of Komodo. 72 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:35,680 Few people had heard of it and Indonesia no-one seemed sure where the island was. 73 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:39,760 Eventually, we set off with a fisherman who said that he did, 74 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:42,600 but after a couple of days at sea, I had my doubts. 75 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:48,480 I said to the captain, "You have been to Komodo before, haven't you?" 76 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:50,320 And he said, "Baloom." 77 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:53,360 And I didn't know what baloom meant. 78 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:57,040 So I had to go and find my Indonesian dictionary and looked it up 79 00:06:57,040 --> 00:06:58,960 and it said, "Not yet." 80 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:02,200 So, it was clear he didn't know the way. 81 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:08,920 After a week at sea and having survived encounters with coral reefs 82 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,760 and whirlpools, we arrived at what I thought must be Komodo. 83 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,080 And I remember wading ashore across a coral lagoon 84 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:22,440 and finding a tiny little village and saying, "Excuse me, is this Komodo?" 85 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:23,800 HE CHUCKLES 86 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:26,840 And they, "Komodo". So it was OK. 87 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:33,320 The locals recommended we should use a dead goat as bait. 88 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:37,160 Once in the bush we began to build a trap using materials 89 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:40,800 gathered from nearby, as I recorded in my journal. 90 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:47,440 This was the dragon trap with a little bait in there. 91 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:51,600 When the dragon, if he went in the front end, trod on there, 92 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:55,560 it pulled it down which then pulled the ring down which released the rod, 93 00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:59,560 which then pulled down, because of the lump of rock on the bottom. 94 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:01,680 So, clunk, down it would go. 95 00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:05,360 And now, all we had to do was to wait. 96 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:13,520 There was a rustle in the bush and there was the dragon. 97 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:16,880 Our first sight of this magnificent monster. 98 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:21,600 To my surprise, we were looking at the trap and I heard a noise behind me. 99 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:24,000 I turned round and there was the dragon. 100 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:25,880 That was taken at that particular moment. 101 00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:33,480 Looking at me straight in the eye from only about a couple of yards away. 102 00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:37,840 We looked at each other and I thought, at least I might take your photograph. 103 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:40,760 So that was the photograph I took of him. 104 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:46,360 Then, he rather wearily heaved himself up and strolled round us 105 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:50,200 and went down into the dry riverbed where we'd made the trap. 106 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:58,120 And down came the door. 107 00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:02,720 Hastily we piled boulders on the door so he couldn't lift it up. 108 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:04,160 We'd got him. 109 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:08,120 Those early films seem pretty ordinarily these days, 110 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:09,920 but they were nonetheless popular 111 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:13,080 because what ever we showed was new to most of our viewers. 112 00:09:18,560 --> 00:09:24,440 So, in the 1950s we were taking cameras like this all over the world. 113 00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:29,200 And then, an Austrian biologist and filmmaker decided to try 114 00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:31,480 and take it under water. 115 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:33,800 His name was Hans Hass, 116 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:37,480 and he developed his own special housing to do that. 117 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:44,000 Hans and his wife Lotte 118 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:48,200 were the first to bring the wonders of life under the sea to television. 119 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:50,800 And their programs were all the more sensational 120 00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:54,600 because few people at that time had scuba dived. 121 00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:57,640 Take care, down there are sharks. 122 00:09:57,640 --> 00:09:59,520 We are right on the reef's edge. 123 00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:06,960 In the '50s, sharks had a terrible reputation. 124 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:08,960 They were the killers of the sea. 125 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:14,680 Anybody in water alongside a shark was clearly courting certain death. 126 00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:21,240 Here were Hans and Lotte swimming alongside them. 127 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:24,200 The nation was astounded. 128 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:29,520 The sequence certainly had shock value, but perhaps it was also 129 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:33,240 the first step in changing our perceptions of sharks. 130 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,240 And like all television, it was still shown in black and white. 131 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:46,880 So, during the Zoo Quest series I had to describe an animal's colour in words. 132 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:50,160 This one was among the most brilliantly coloured of all 133 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:52,200 chameleons in the world. 134 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:57,280 His eyeballs are bright, rust-red and his body and legs striped 135 00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:00,600 and blotched with a vivid green. 136 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:05,760 But, television was changing fast. 137 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:12,640 In the 1960s, the BBC was given a second television network 138 00:11:12,640 --> 00:11:16,440 operating on a higher technical standard with the specific 139 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:20,480 job of introducing colour television. 140 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:24,240 And in 1965, I was put in charge of it with an office 141 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:26,880 here in the Television Centre in London. 142 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:33,040 To demonstrate colour on television could be both accurate and not garish, 143 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:36,880 I commissioned a series about the history of art. 144 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:38,560 It was called Civilisation. 145 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:42,200 I'm standing in the Sistine Chapel 146 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:46,160 and above my head is one of the greatest works of man, 147 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:48,680 Michelangelo's ceiling. 148 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:51,720 It was presented by Kenneth Clarke and became a great success. 149 00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:56,880 So we followed it with other series on a similar scale about science, 150 00:11:56,880 --> 00:11:58,840 economics and the history of America. 151 00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:05,480 But I knew the most dazzlingly colourful series would be one about wildlife. 152 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:10,200 After eight years in administration, 153 00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:14,520 I decided I wanted to go back to making programs. 154 00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:19,720 And I put up a suggestion we should make 13 one-hour programmes 155 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:24,040 in colour tracing the whole history of life on Earth. 156 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:33,240 Thanks to the development of jet air travel, 157 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,840 we were able to film in 30 countries around the globe. 158 00:12:36,840 --> 00:12:40,040 And as I traced the history of life on the planet, I could appear 159 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:44,840 to move from one continent to another in the space of a single sequence. 160 00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:47,680 The South American rainforests are the richest 161 00:12:47,680 --> 00:12:50,600 and varied assemblage of life in the world. 162 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,080 These limestones in Morocco... 163 00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:56,720 Macaques live in many parts of Japan. 164 00:12:56,720 --> 00:12:58,080 WHINING 165 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:04,240 Life On Earth was shown in 100 different countries 166 00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:07,200 and seen by perhaps as many as 500 million people. 167 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:12,600 Natural history television was now a global phenomenon, 168 00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:15,680 revealing our wonderful world in colour to all. 169 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:22,520 During the series, we made full use of both colour 170 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,760 and scuba gear to help show the underwater world as never before. 171 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:32,560 I even tried to follow Hans Hass' lead exploring the underwater world. 172 00:13:34,480 --> 00:13:40,320 One of the problems with underwater films was you cannot talk underwater. 173 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,280 Most of the time if you have a breathing apparatus on your back, 174 00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:45,880 you have something in your mouth. 175 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:49,960 But Alistair, one of my producer colleagues, was very keen we should 176 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:54,240 try and introduce the presenter talking to camera underwater. 177 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:58,960 There was a wonderful new invention called the bubble helmet and this is it. 178 00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:01,760 You can put a microphone in one side of it. 179 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:05,280 So, we went down to the swimming pool in the hotel where we were staying 180 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:08,360 and this was screwed on my head. 181 00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:13,080 It took a long time to screw it down tight to make it watertight. 182 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:15,960 I put it on like this. 183 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:21,040 I waded it into the water and I hadn't gone more than a foot underwater, 184 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,880 When suddenly, water started bubbling in, very alarming. 185 00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:28,560 It was rising around you and I was going to drown. 186 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:30,440 How long would it take to get this off? 187 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:32,920 So I came out in a hurry. There was a fault, I said. 188 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:39,200 "Nonsense," said Alistair, "give it to me." He put it on his shoulders. 189 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:43,240 And I, with some pleasure screwed it down quite tight 190 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:45,600 and he waded into the pool. 191 00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:47,920 And he came out even quicker than me with water 192 00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:51,760 and he was gesticulating to get it off. 193 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:55,080 And I finally took it off and he said, "There's a fault." 194 00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:56,600 I said, "Yes, there is". 195 00:14:56,600 --> 00:15:01,840 So I happily left the helmet behind and reverted to my old mask 196 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:06,720 and scuba gear when it came to my next underwater assignment - 197 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:12,520 to reveal the extraordinary social behaviour and intelligence of dolphins. 198 00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:14,000 They are full of curiosity, 199 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:16,960 they play with odd things they find, such as twigs, 200 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:19,560 and swimming among them leaves you in no doubt 201 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:21,600 that they are highly intelligent. 202 00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:23,800 CONSTANT CLICKS AND SQUEAKS 203 00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:28,120 They will even mimic you as you spin or hang in the water. 204 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:45,320 Until the 1980s, you could only shoot 10 minutes of film under water 205 00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:48,040 before you had to come back to the surface, 206 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:50,560 open the underwater housing, take out the camera, 207 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:51,920 put in a new roll of film. 208 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:56,800 But then video cameras solved that problem. 209 00:15:56,800 --> 00:16:00,080 Videotapes ran for 30 minutes. 210 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:01,800 And now, at last, we had the chance 211 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:04,560 of properly recording animal behaviour underwater. 212 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:10,360 In addition, video cameras were far more sensitive, 213 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:13,400 so we could record at much lower light levels, 214 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,600 making artificial lights unnecessary. 215 00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:20,160 It was a huge breakthrough for underwater filming, 216 00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:24,720 and crucial to the success of The Blue Planet series. 217 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:29,240 Now it was possible to record for the first time marlin hunting. 218 00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:43,880 The seas and oceans were full of animals 219 00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:48,760 whose extraordinary behaviour, up till now, no one had ever seen. 220 00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:52,760 And the shots just got better and better. 221 00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:03,600 Cameramen could now stay underwater long enough 222 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:05,720 to capture every moment of the action, 223 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:08,280 and be in the right place at the right time 224 00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,480 for the most dramatic events. 225 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:29,560 So now we can capture previously unseen animal behaviour 226 00:17:29,560 --> 00:17:32,200 throughout the seas of the world. 227 00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:49,320 On land it had, until now, been impossible to film animals 228 00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:53,120 behaving naturally at night, when most mammals are active. 229 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:57,000 All we could do was shine a spotlight on them 230 00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,680 and film them as they ran away. 231 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:10,960 And it was the same problem wherever animals lived in darkness. 232 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:16,920 Caves are fascinating places, but difficult places to work in. 233 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:22,680 When I first came here to this one in Gomantong in Borneo back in 1972, 234 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:25,520 we had to bring a lot of lights with us 235 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:28,240 in order to film the many millions of birds and bats 236 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,400 that live in here. 237 00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:36,120 And the droppings of all those creatures 238 00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:38,920 make the cave wreak of ammonia. 239 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:51,120 HE INHALES 240 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:54,240 The smell brings it all back to me. 241 00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:57,840 When I was here 40 years ago, 242 00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:01,400 the director said, "There's a pile of droppings 243 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:03,880 at the far end of the cave 244 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:05,400 that goes right up to the roof." 245 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:08,120 "Why don't you climb up to the top?" 246 00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:12,160 And when I got to the top he shouted, "Say something!" 247 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:13,880 So I tried. 248 00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:25,800 And...what it is is...these bats... packed tight on the roof here. 249 00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:28,280 They're flying now all around my head. 250 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:30,440 This cave, this particular part of it, 251 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,840 Oohh! ..makes... (COUGHS) 252 00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:36,800 This ammonia is really quite, quite choking. 253 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,520 ..makes a very perfect place for a home. 254 00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:42,160 HIGH-PITCHED CHATTERING 255 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:48,640 One of the really astounding things is that this immense number of bats 256 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,160 flying round here in a panic - 257 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:54,720 not one is colliding with the other. 258 00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:59,080 Nor, indeed, am I in any danger whatsoever of being hit by them. 259 00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:03,800 And then the director said, "Cut!", the camera stopped, 260 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:05,480 the lights went out, 261 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:07,920 and a bat flew straight in my face. 262 00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:11,480 So perhaps their much praised echo location 263 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,760 is not quite as perfect as people say. 264 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:22,160 The film cameras we used then needed normal white light, like these. 265 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,800 But the problem with that is that they disturb animals 266 00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:29,000 accustomed to living in the dark. 267 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:33,600 But then the security industry developed a new type of camera 268 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:39,000 like this one, which uses infrared light and doesn't need these lights, 269 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,720 but nonetheless can see in the dark, as you can see - 270 00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:45,960 I turn off one, I turn off the other... 271 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:52,160 ..and now, even though it's pitch dark, you can see me. 272 00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:56,080 Most animals, like us, can't see infrared. 273 00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,000 And that meant that with these cameras, 274 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:02,200 we could now watch them behave perfectly normally in the dark. 275 00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:07,720 And that revealed some extraordinary behaviour. 276 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:12,200 And also led to one or two pretty uncomfortable moments. 277 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:16,120 Lions are mostly active at night, 278 00:21:16,120 --> 00:21:19,680 and seldom roar during the day. 279 00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:28,000 We tried to persuade them to do so with the help of scientists, 280 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:32,080 by playing back the roar of a strange lion to a resident pride. 281 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:36,840 LION ROARS 282 00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:41,760 ROARS MORE LOUDLY 283 00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:45,680 ROARS 284 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:47,080 Even that didn't work. 285 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:57,440 But 12 years later, I set off in an open-sided Land Rover with 286 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,800 the latest infrared technology to try again. 287 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:04,400 As usual, they were sleeping. 288 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,800 I would have to wait for darkness. 289 00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:10,280 INSECTS CHIRP 290 00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,800 GROWL/ROAR 291 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:14,080 We drive up. 292 00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:18,240 I go on one side, the camera goes on the other. 293 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:20,400 And the lion starts roaring. 294 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,920 But the problem is, I can't see where it is. 295 00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:26,520 I can't even see where the camera is. 296 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:28,560 "Cue", says the producer. 297 00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,480 So I start trying to say my piece. 298 00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:33,840 Trying not to be too frightened of this lion 299 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,080 which is somewhere in the blackness, and, as far as I can make out, 300 00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,840 within a couple of yards of me and no side on the Land Rover. 301 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:44,080 And I then had to do my piece to camera looking around, 302 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:47,000 seeing where on earth the camera was. 303 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:51,320 And now in the darkness there are a number of them roaring... 304 00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:53,400 just around here. 305 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:59,320 There are two, I know, within three or four yards of where I am, 306 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:04,680 and a third, perhaps 20 yards over there. 307 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:09,160 Though it's difficult to tell because it's pitch black. 308 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,040 REPEATED SHORT ROARS 309 00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:17,040 Those are not aggressive roars, they are communication roars, 310 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,480 but they are quite enough to chill the blood 311 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,800 in the blackness of the night. 312 00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,240 SHORT ROARS CONTINUE 313 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,960 A few years later, similar technology made it possible to film 314 00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,040 one of the most extraordinary hunting sequences ever recorded, 315 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:46,080 using whole batteries of infrared lights mounted on vehicles. 316 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,080 ELEPHANT TRUMPETS 317 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:03,960 A solitary lion stands no chance, 318 00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,760 but the whole pride is here. 319 00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:11,440 There are 30 of them, 320 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:14,800 and they are specialist elephant hunters. 321 00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,000 THUNDERCLAPS 322 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,480 This remarkable behaviour could not have been filmed in any other way, 323 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,320 and it proved conclusively what many others had doubted - 324 00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:51,480 that a big pride of lions can indeed bring down and kill 325 00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:54,640 an animal as big as an elephant. 326 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,720 Other cameras were developed that worked simply by concentrating 327 00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:04,040 what little light comes from the stars and moon. 328 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,960 And we used such a starlight camera to record an encounter I had 329 00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,240 with a wonderful New Zealand nocturnal bird, 330 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:14,080 the kiwi. 331 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,400 We heard of a place where kiwis came out of the bush 332 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:18,800 and walked along the beach 333 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:20,520 looking for sandhoppers. 334 00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,960 Now they find their way by smell, 335 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,800 so I thought, how can I conceal myself? 336 00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:33,360 So I lay on the tideline where all the rotting seaweed was lying. 337 00:25:33,360 --> 00:25:35,120 And I just lay on it. 338 00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:39,840 And this little...enchanting little creature came slowly along, 339 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,000 probing its beak into the sand. 340 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,840 Phwff! Blowing out the sand. Coming closer. Phwff! 341 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,760 'Probing sand with your nostrils is all very well, 342 00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,080 'but it does clog them up. 343 00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,760 'So you need to blow them clear every now and then.' 344 00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,520 'It's sense of smell is so acute, 345 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,240 'it can pick out the largest juiciest hoppers deep in the sand 346 00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:11,040 'without even seeing them.' 347 00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,520 Our starlight camera can see much better than I can. 348 00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,840 'I need a torch to see this extraordinary creature properly. 349 00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,040 'But he doesn't seem to mind.' 350 00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:26,240 OCEAN CRASHES NEARBY 351 00:26:32,120 --> 00:26:36,600 He comes right up to me because his eyes are very small. 352 00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:38,920 Poor eyesight is putting it mildly. 353 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,600 But he can smell, but he didn't. 354 00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,520 Because the seaweed was even stronger smelling than me. 355 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,160 There are other ways of filming in the dark - 356 00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:56,440 by using thermal cameras like this one. 357 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,480 Up above me there are a lot of bats. 358 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,240 And the camera shows them as different colours. 359 00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:13,720 The yellow lights here are bats that have just flown in 360 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,360 and are still warm from their exertion. 361 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,800 as well as revealing where animals are, 362 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:25,600 the thermal cameras can also reveal something of the condition they are in. 363 00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,200 For example, my face now, because I'm rather hot, 364 00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,800 is likely to be an orange colour. 365 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:39,520 Where I am cooler it will be red, and this probably, is verging on blue. 366 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:46,040 But if I take a bottle of cold water, that's likely to be black. 367 00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,440 Ahhh! Very good, too. 368 00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,440 Thermal cameras also proved useful in the Galapagos, 369 00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:58,840 to demonstrate some 370 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:03,000 of the remarkable physiological adaptations of reptiles. 371 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,560 Once they are thoroughly warmed up, 372 00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,160 marine iguanas can maintain their body temperature 373 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,480 just about as constantly as I can. 374 00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,120 And what's more, at about the same level, 375 00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:21,440 or indeed, slightly higher - around 37 degrees centigrade. 376 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:26,160 But when they go into the cold sea to feed on submerged seaweed, 377 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,720 their temperature falls very rapidly. 378 00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:38,040 A recently emerged iguana is black. It's chilled to the bone. 379 00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:45,800 Now they need heat in order to be able to digest that meal of seaweed, 380 00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,200 and they get that by spread-eagling themselves 381 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,920 on these black, hot, sun-baked rocks. 382 00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,240 So, thermal cameras reveal just how skilled 383 00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:06,000 reptiles are at harnessing the power of the sun. 384 00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,920 One of the things we discovered when starting work 385 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:16,200 on the Trials of Life 386 00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,160 was a new lens which enabled you to have an object close to the camera - 387 00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,280 a small little creature, perhaps - 388 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:27,760 and yet have all the distance to the far horizon in complete focus. 389 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:32,840 So I would be able to walk up from the distance to something close to camera, 390 00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:34,960 all the time being in focus. 391 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,080 It's not always easy to decide in these partnerships, 392 00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,240 which is exploiting which. 393 00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,520 The balance of advantage is often very delicate. 394 00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,320 Take for example these ants in Australia. 395 00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,080 They are extremely ferocious, 396 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:51,280 and normally they will 397 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:52,800 rip apart any caterpillar. 398 00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:54,880 But see how they're treating this one. 399 00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,880 When we first saw that shot in the viewing theatre... 400 00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:03,760 We all went down to the canteen for a cup of tea and talked about it, 401 00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,760 and I heard someone next to me, who'd just joined the team 402 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:14,800 talking to her friend, and she said, "Fantastic stuff they've got in Australia. Amazing! 403 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,200 "But I would never want to go there myself, 404 00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,800 "because they have caterpillars there that are two feet long!" 405 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:26,320 So, sometimes with all our optical tricks, we can get too clever. 406 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,240 BIRDSONG 407 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:35,360 Never the less, insects filmed in close-up are truly fascinating. 408 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,000 These are tree ants in Borneo, 409 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,800 and they have a wonderful way of making their nests. 410 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:46,560 I first tried to film how they did so, 411 00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:50,320 when I was here in Borneo back in the '50s. 412 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:54,880 'Then we noticed this group 413 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,640 'with their jaws locked tight in the lower leaf, 414 00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,440 'and their hind legs attached to the upper leaf. 415 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,520 'The colony is constructing a new nest. 416 00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:08,320 'And these patient workers 417 00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,920 'are holding two leaves of the future nest in position, 418 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:13,400 'so that other members 419 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:15,000 'can fasten them together 420 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,520 'to form the outer wall of their new home.' 421 00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:24,480 To get those shots, we had to tear apart the nest to get 422 00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,080 the ants to work out in the open. 423 00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,760 These days we can do better than that. 424 00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:34,080 This is an optical probe that I can make mover forwards or 425 00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:38,120 backwards and even...from side to side. 426 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:43,280 And so with that, you can go into the nest 427 00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,320 and get shots of the ants behaving totally naturally. 428 00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,400 That is a stranger in the nest. 429 00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,960 That is a little bug which they are attacking. 430 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,320 It was technical developments like these that allowed us 431 00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:11,000 eventually to enter the world of the insect. 432 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,960 A motorised jib arm enables filmmakers to suspend a camera above 433 00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,880 a column of aggressive driver ants and watch the organised way 434 00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:22,560 they hunt through the forest. 435 00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,640 Workers carry the colony's larvae. 436 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,720 Ferocious soldiers link legs to form a defensive roof and walls, 437 00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,800 enclosing the column. 438 00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,720 Were the camera or cameraman to accidentally touch 439 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,520 just one of these soldiers, they would all immediately attack. 440 00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,440 But they're blind, 441 00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,520 and they can't see the camera hanging just centimetres above them. 442 00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,280 So we can track along with them as the army takes its prey 443 00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,960 back to the bivouac where the queen is waiting. 444 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:14,040 Wildlife film-making can take a lot of patience. 445 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:16,720 Cameramen may have to spend hours and hours, 446 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,040 if not days and weeks, to film one particular action. 447 00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:25,000 But that can be helped using modern security technology. 448 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,920 And we used such technology to get a shot of something 449 00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,280 that as far as I know, had never been filmed before in the wild. 450 00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,080 Rattlesnakes hunting. 451 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,240 Scientists working in New York State had implanted radio transmitters in 452 00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,560 a group of rattlesnakes so that each could be found by using an aerial. 453 00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:54,640 There he is. 454 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,640 The camera crew placed remotely controlled cameras 455 00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,880 and infrared lights next to a snake lying in ambush. 456 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,280 The cameras were attached to motion detectors that would turn them on 457 00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,760 if anything moved in their field of vision. 458 00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,840 The following night I checked the replay. 459 00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,120 There's a mouse. 460 00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:31,560 It's pitch dark and the mouse clearly has no idea the snake is there. 461 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,320 Bu the snake is well aware of the mouse. 462 00:34:38,240 --> 00:34:42,720 He's worked out that that is the path along which the mice run. 463 00:34:47,720 --> 00:34:49,480 Oh, my goodness! 464 00:34:55,720 --> 00:34:58,200 That's a dead mouse, all right. 465 00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:04,480 So it was that technology designed to keep burglars out of our homes, 466 00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:10,520 enabled us to record the rattlesnake's hunting strategy in the wild. 467 00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,760 Another revelatory film technique involves playing with time - 468 00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:21,800 slowing down the action. 469 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,000 Cameramen have long down that, 470 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,040 simply by increasing the number of images taken per second. 471 00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,240 Kestrels are known as wind-hoverers, 472 00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:36,040 because of their apparent ability to hang motionless in the air. 473 00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,480 And slow motion photography enables us to see details 474 00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,280 of their flying technique that we can't see with the naked eye. 475 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:49,640 By filming this trained bird, with this special camera, 476 00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,160 we can slow down the motion and see exactly how they do it. 477 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:57,880 It's flying at the same speed as the oncoming wind, and the air 478 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,240 flowing over its wings provides just enough lift top keep it airborne. 479 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,400 By flying as slowly as this, they risk stalling, 480 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:12,600 because the windflow over the wing doesn't provide enough lift. 481 00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,320 Slowing down the action by ten times, we can see how the 482 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:21,800 kestrel extends the finger-like projection on the leading edge of its wing 483 00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:27,560 and spreads its tail-feathers to generate more lift. 484 00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,320 Commercial airliners do the same thing 485 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,920 when they adjust their wing flaps to slow them down for landing. 486 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:42,440 If a kestrel is to see its prey successfully while hovering, 487 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,720 it has to keep its head perfectly still, 488 00:36:44,720 --> 00:36:49,000 not easy when the wind is constantly trying to blow you off position. 489 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:50,480 But in slow motion, 490 00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:55,920 you can see how the kestrel responds immediately to changes in the wind. 491 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,240 Constantly adjusting the set of its wings 492 00:36:58,240 --> 00:37:02,600 and allowing it's neck to stretch and contract. 493 00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,560 So that while its body is constantly moving, 494 00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:12,320 its eyes stay fixed and can spot the slightest movement on the ground below. 495 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:19,000 One of my favourite slow-motion moments 496 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:25,120 was when I was able to fool a lovesick hoverfly with a peashooter. 497 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,960 It might seem that he's absolutely motionless, 498 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:38,440 but, in fact, he's having to make continual changes to adjust for slight currents in the air. 499 00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,560 It's an amazing piece of acrobatics, 500 00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:47,480 far better than anything that we could do in a helicopter. 501 00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:52,040 And it's all done in order to impress the female 502 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:58,120 to show her that he is superb at holding his territory. 503 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,840 With his superb eyesight, he's ready to spot anything 504 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:08,240 that might whiz by him at high speed that could be a female. 505 00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:13,400 And I might just be able to fool him with a peashooter. 506 00:38:20,240 --> 00:38:25,440 By watching his response slowed down by about 50 times, 507 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:31,120 it's clear that the male is indeed so hyped up that he will pursue any fast-moving object 508 00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:35,080 that comes near him in the hope that it might be a female. 509 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:39,480 Those poor males must have been exhausted by the time I'd finished with them. 510 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,600 By combining the best macro-lenses with digital slow-motion cameras, 511 00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:54,880 we were able to reveal the extreme athletic prowess of some even tinier creatures. 512 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:05,840 These springtails, as they're name suggests, have a rather novel way of jumping. 513 00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,160 They have a tiny two-pronged lever beneath their abdomen. 514 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:19,800 One small flick from it can catapult them six inches, some 15 centimetres, into the air. 515 00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:29,920 It's the equivalent of a human being jumping over the Eiffel Tower. 516 00:39:35,720 --> 00:39:37,440 So with slow-motion cameras, 517 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:44,920 we can watch actions and distinguish details that are impossible to see with the naked eye. 518 00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:19,080 At the other end of the scale, we can manipulate time to speed up excessive slow action. 519 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,000 This is a time-lapse studio 520 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,800 where you can control lights and cameras very precisely. 521 00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,640 A film camera shoots 25 frames per second, 522 00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,960 but if you modify one so that it only shoots one frame per second 523 00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,440 and then show the film at normal speed, 524 00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,400 well, then, you increase the speed of action by 25m times. 525 00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:46,040 And as the sophistication of time-lapse photography has increased, 526 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:52,480 so we've been able to show that plants can be as competitive and aggressive as many an animal. 527 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:06,400 And it was the mastery of time-lapse that allowed us to make a series called The Private Life of Plants. 528 00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,200 Condense three months into 20 seconds, 529 00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:24,800 and the desolation of winter quickly warms into the riot of spring. 530 00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,320 Speed a week into a minute, and you can sense the urgency 531 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,160 with which the ground-living plants race to unfurl their flowers. 532 00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:55,200 Of all the woodland plants, the humble bramble is one of the most aggressive. 533 00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,280 It waves its shoots agitatedly from side to side 534 00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:02,240 as if feeling for the best way forward. 535 00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,320 The invading stem's backward-pointing spines 536 00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:17,640 give it the grip it needs to climb almost anything that stands in its way. 537 00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,600 It can advance as much as seven centimetres in a day. 538 00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:31,720 Now digital cameras allow us to see how a shot is developing while we are still taking it, 539 00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:37,360 instead of having to wait till it was finished as we used to have to do with film cameras. 540 00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:41,440 And we can also use computers attached to small motors 541 00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:46,040 to move a camera in-between exposed frames, 542 00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:51,760 so that the camera can, in fact, travel alongside the plant. 543 00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:17,480 Using this new technology, it became possible to condense the arrival of spring in a woodland 544 00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:18,600 into a few seconds. 545 00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,080 But the wonderful thing about wildlife film making 546 00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:36,880 is that no matter how much you've seen and filmed, 547 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,320 there's always going to be something to surprise you. 548 00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:41,720 I remember back in 1994, 549 00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:47,760 we were filming nepenthes rajah, the largest pitcher plant in the world, 550 00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,840 growing up in the mountains of Borneo. 551 00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:56,040 And I made an assumption about how it obtained its nitrogen fertiliser. 552 00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:02,800 I guess this one... 553 00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:08,560 contains... two or three pints of liquid. 554 00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:14,600 It's so big that it catches not just insects but even small rodents. 555 00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:20,520 And one was recorded that has in it the body of a drowned rat. 556 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,680 So if ever there was a carnivore among plants, this is it. 557 00:44:25,240 --> 00:44:26,880 But I was wrong. 558 00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:32,880 In 2010, scientists discovered that the plant gets its nitrogen 559 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,240 in a quite different way. 560 00:44:35,240 --> 00:44:41,520 And we couldn't resist going back to see of we could find out what the truth was. 561 00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:46,120 Mount Kinabalu in Sabah is home to many rajah pitcher plants. 562 00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:50,880 BUZZING They certainly seem to attract insects. 563 00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,800 that fall into their bowls just as other pitchers do, 564 00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,280 but they also have larger visitors. 565 00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,520 A tree shrew. 566 00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:07,200 It's licking the underside of the lid 567 00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:13,200 where the pitcher secretes nectar with which it lures visitors. 568 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,280 But even though its backside is hanging over the bowl, 569 00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,640 it doesn't seem to be in any danger of falling in and drowning. 570 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:24,040 So what's going on? 571 00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:25,080 It leaves a clue. 572 00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:26,120 A dropping. 573 00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,320 So the pitcher is a tree shrew toilet. 574 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:38,440 The tree shrew feeds by licking the secretions from the pitcher plant's lid 575 00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:45,320 and the pitcher plant gets its fertiliser by collecting the tree shrew's droppings. 576 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:51,240 Wildlife cameramen are always trying to film 577 00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:55,640 some piece of animal behaviour that no-one has ever see before. 578 00:45:55,640 --> 00:46:00,560 And aerial photography enable then to do just that. 579 00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:09,960 In the early days, we occasionally managed to get up in a small plane to get a shot of the landscape. 580 00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:16,680 But the plane vibrated so much that you couldn't use long lenses to get close-ups of animals 581 00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:20,240 and if you went low the roar of the engine frightened them. 582 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,880 So we tried other forms of aerial transport. 583 00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:35,680 Balloons were a little quieter, but they took you where the wind blew them, not where you wanted to go. 584 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,200 And getting steady shots was still difficult. 585 00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:49,560 It wasn't until the invention of a kind of mount 586 00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:55,080 that could hold the camera almost miraculously free of vibration 587 00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:58,120 that it was possible to use the long lenses necessary 588 00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:02,560 in order to film animals from a height and they didn't even know you were there. 589 00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,880 It's almost impossible to follow a wild dog hunt at ground level 590 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,800 through the treacherous swamplands of the Okavango Delta in Africa. 591 00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,160 But the Planet Earth series used a helicopter 592 00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,640 with a new stabilising mount that kept the camera vibration-free 593 00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:31,000 and you could get close-ups from so high up that the animals below didn't know you were there. 594 00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,920 There they go. They're racing. They're racing. 595 00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,640 Four dogs all spread out. 596 00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,680 Tighten up a much as you can. 597 00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,880 By inter-cutting aerial shots and shots from the ground, 598 00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,080 we could show how the dogs worked as a team, 599 00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:51,160 with fresh animals joining the hunt to harry their prey and cut off its escape. 600 00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:57,040 This new perspective gives us the big picture, 601 00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,280 helping us to understand behaviour we could only see fragments of before. 602 00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:11,080 Stay with him. He's almost got him! 603 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:15,320 They're heading towards the water. 604 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,040 Ooh! The croc's gonna get the impala. 605 00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:36,280 So now we have the techniques to film almost anything on land or in the sea or in the air. 606 00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:42,440 But to get pictures of animals that lived in the past, you have to recreate life. 607 00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,400 In the early days, our attempts were pretty crude. 608 00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:53,320 We used solid models of extinct fish placed in swamps to show the arrival of amphibians on land. 609 00:48:53,320 --> 00:49:01,400 We moved on to line drawings of dinosaurs and I even appeared alongside one. 610 00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:06,960 It's easy to imagine some 12 foot species of peragasaurus like Dimetrodon 611 00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:11,320 lying basking on the rocks in the early morning sun. 612 00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:16,920 And then we began to animate the drawings, but not very realistically. 613 00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:21,640 It would take the advent of computer animation to make them move like real animals. 614 00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:28,640 We wanted to use these new computer techniques to bring to life a moa, 615 00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:33,040 the giant, extinct ostrich-like bird on New Zealand. 616 00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:38,360 First of all, I had to walk into a woodland glade 617 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,560 holding a moa bone. 618 00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:44,400 Then what would happen would be that 619 00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,640 that bone would be suspended, I would take my hands away, 620 00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,800 and all the rest of the bones and the skeleton would appear from nowhere 621 00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,240 and materialise to form the complete skeleton. 622 00:49:53,240 --> 00:49:56,040 So I had to walk in, hold the bone, 623 00:49:56,040 --> 00:50:00,080 then take my hands away and let it drop, which seemed a silly thing to do. 624 00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:04,680 But electronic trickery made it stay there 625 00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,960 and then added the rest of the bones of the moa's skeleton. 626 00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:11,760 It had just three toes. 627 00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:18,960 Its pelvis and its spine lead up to an extraordinarily long neck. 628 00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:27,880 This bird stood over six feet, two metres tall. 629 00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,280 But then we wanted it to walk away. 630 00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:36,320 And so what the computer expert got us to do was to imagine where it was going to stand 631 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,720 and then conceal ourselves in the vegetation, 632 00:50:39,720 --> 00:50:44,040 each of us holding a bit of fishing line attached to a branch. 633 00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:48,360 And with our computer expert conducting us as though he was conducting an orchestra, 634 00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,440 the moa came in, this branch was brushed away, 635 00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,840 and then it reached up and pecked another leaf and the leaf moved 636 00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,360 and then it moved away and the bushes moved. 637 00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:01,280 It was really quite convincing. 638 00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:06,280 The first human settlers on these islands 639 00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,480 saw these giants alive and called them moas. 640 00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:16,240 Among them were the tallest birds that ever existed, that weighed over 200 kilos, 400 pounds. 641 00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:24,160 So now we could recreate extinct creatures whenever we liked, 642 00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:27,400 in their entire full-colour, animated glory. 643 00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:43,280 A succession of technological advances has certainly changed the way we make natural history films. 644 00:51:47,240 --> 00:51:49,680 These days, with every year that passes, 645 00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:53,040 we seem to get more and more equipment. 646 00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,560 Longer lenses, more electronic bits of kit. 647 00:51:56,560 --> 00:52:01,560 But in the end, often the most memorable shot comes 648 00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,640 from just one camera and one person 649 00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,880 with a deep understanding of the natural world. 650 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:14,560 To film a wild snow leopard 651 00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:19,200 was once the ultimate challenge for a wildlife cameraman. 652 00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,040 Doug Allen went to the Himalayas 653 00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,120 to attempt to do what so many cameramen before him 654 00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:33,200 had tried but failed. 655 00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:37,200 I guess this is where you could say it really starts. 656 00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,640 We're up here in snow leopard country. 657 00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:46,240 You look around and anywhere and at any time, you might just see it. 658 00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:52,080 These are big, big mountains and there are not many snow leopards. 659 00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:57,280 Nevertheless, Doug took to his hide and waited. 660 00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:01,320 HE SIGHS 661 00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:04,360 This is tedious stuff. 662 00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:05,840 Not a sign. 663 00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:15,920 If you got just a little bit of a hint, a wee bit of a sighting now and again, 664 00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:18,080 your spirits would be lifted. 665 00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:23,400 But right now, I'd swap a little bit of this animal's charisma 666 00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:25,960 for a little bit more visibility. 667 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:30,960 And things didn't improve, even after two weeks. 668 00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,080 Yeah, of course, it's boring. 669 00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:34,880 It's as boring as hell. 670 00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:49,560 After seven weeks of patiently sitting and watching 671 00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:53,520 these distant shots are all Doug managed to film. 672 00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:55,720 So he had to return home empty-handed. 673 00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:05,280 The following winter cameraman Mark Smith took up the challenge and tried a different location 674 00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:07,440 this time in Pakistan. 675 00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:13,880 We've just got a lot of snow and we'll be able to track snow leopard. 676 00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:19,920 So we'll have a lot better chances of filming it. It's just fantastic. 677 00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:25,760 After that promising start, things didn't go so well for Mark. 678 00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:31,080 He and the crew spent a fruitless month trudging through the snow. 679 00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:38,760 Mark spent all Christmas in the mountains with no sign of a snow leopard. 680 00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,360 But it was a much happier New Year. 681 00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:49,280 Just... We just got a report that there's a snow leopard up on the ridge. 682 00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:51,720 And we were too low where we were before, 683 00:54:51,720 --> 00:54:55,640 so we're just trying to get some height to get a better view of it. 684 00:54:55,640 --> 00:55:00,240 Finally, Mark was rewarded with his first ever glimpse. 685 00:55:00,240 --> 00:55:02,120 I looked up onto the ridge 686 00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:05,240 and I could see this leopard-shaped rock, 687 00:55:05,240 --> 00:55:08,120 which I'd seen a million times before. 688 00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:13,840 And I looked through binoculars and it was a leopard just sat there. 689 00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:16,640 It was perched just on the top of a rock 690 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,280 and it looked down at us and sat down 691 00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:21,880 in a sort of sphinx-like posture. 692 00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:26,200 A few days later, Mark's patience paid off. 693 00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:33,920 There was not jut an adult female, but with her a one-year-old cub. 694 00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:49,680 Overall, Mark spent eight months in Pakistan. 695 00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:57,120 And his dedication enabled him to document the most intimate moments of a snow leopard's life. 696 00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:04,000 Including a hunt. 697 00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:10,440 Silently she positions herself above her prey. 698 00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:43,760 BLEATING 699 00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:49,360 SCREECHES 700 00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,880 The revelations brought by wildlife films today 701 00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:08,720 were beyond my imagination when I set out 60 years ago. 702 00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:25,760 They have transformed not only our understanding of the natural world, 703 00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:28,720 but our attitudes towards it. 704 00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:41,720 There have been a lot of changes in the way that we've filmed the natural world 705 00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:43,520 during the last 50-60 years, 706 00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:47,840 but there's also been a great change in the way we understand that world 707 00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:52,000 and that's what I'll be looking at in the next programme. 708 00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:55,040 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 64773

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