Planet Earth II

[kernelbogey]

I've now watched the first five of the six episodes, the last of which was broadcast on Sunday evenng.

It is magnificent in every way, and a wonderful achievement for the BBC.

One tiny niggle for me was the music. A bit intrusive, and I became weary of those sequences of two chords, going down, going up... etc.

The music credits are to Hans Zimmer (who has many film scores to his name) and Jasha Klebe & Jacob Shea.

Any views on any of the above?

[BBMmk2]

Thanks for highlighting the music side of this. never really noticed! I was more or less concentrating on the actual programme itself rather than the other stuff that comes along ie the music :)

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks for highlighting the music side of this. never really noticed! I was more or less concentrating on the actual programme itself rather than the other stuff that comes along ie the music :)

Likewise - I seem to have a music filter which means I don't really notice it. It doesn't strike me as twee, at any rate. I notice when there isn't any music - that bit of the ibex on the cliff face, their hooves clipping on impossibly narrow footholds, gravel dropping into the void below....

The last programme - the camera crew "embedded", as the commentary amusingly had it, as if they were war correspondents, with the monkey troop....just magical, yet in no way sentimental. It was going badly wrong for those baby turtles.... I seem to remember reading somewhere that the urban leopard increase was also linked to the proliferation of feral dogs which has happened after the virtual disappearance of vultures.

[ardcarp]

The photography/camera-work is astonishing! The production team do feel the need to 'tell a story', which is fine because it helps to hook people in to the programme. I hear on the grapevine that sometimes they cheat a bit to create a narrative!

[Lat-Literal]

I have enormous respect for Attenborough and his team but I am of an age when I can't witness the cruelty and rawness in nature.

The series - what I saw of it - wasn't fluffy enough for me. I am more for domestic pets, creatures in the garden and farm animals.

[Thropplenoggin]

Agree about the intrusiveness of the soundtrack - the Zimmerisation of all media is almost complete. Anyone who has sat through a Christopher Nolan film in recent years will be familiar with the sountrack-as-totality of Zimmer's work, when silence is often so much more effective (see Hitchcock or Build My Gallows High). That said, his use of organ in Interstellar was well done. The most effective recent soundtrack I heard was Under The Skin.

Anyway, old Attenborough docs for the Beeb show how much more sensitively and nuanced the soundtracks used to be. And humorous - Flamenco castanets for crabs duelling, etc.

[jayne lee wilson]

I so, so wish I hadn't seen....those baby turtles....when they stopped and looked about, so small and so lost, bewildered by .....Bright Lights, Big City.
Heartbreaking.

I saved the one with the Snow Leopards. I look at them often, freezing the frame. Mountain sages, whose gaze is - lovely, dark and deep, but unutterably sad, as if in accusation of all we're doing to the planet and the creatures we should be sharing it with. "We won't be here long" it says, "and only you can do something about that. But you know that already don't you...?"

I cheer up feeding nuts to my semi-tame Grey Squirrel; "one-eye" who despite such mysterious trauma to his head (the other eye is almost closed and appears to be visionless) has survived here for at least two years. A smaller younger Squirrel comes too, but keeps its distance - perhaps one-eye's offspring. Hedgehogs will keep emerging in a mild wet winter - "aren't you supposed to be asleep!?" - cat food for them. We can at least look after what wild animals we still have.

[EdgeleyRob]

I so, so wish I hadn't seen....those baby turtles....when they stopped and looked about, so small and so lost, bewildered by .....Bright Lights, Big City.
Heartbreaking.

I saved the one with the Snow Leopards. I look at them often, freezing the frame. Mountain sages, whose gaze is - lovely, dark and deep, but unutterably sad, as if in accusation of all we're doing to the planet and the creatures we should be sharing it with. "We won't be here long" it says, "and only you can do something about that. But you know that already don't you...?"

I cheer up feeding nuts to my semi-tame Grey Squirrel; "one-eye" who despite such mysterious trauma to his head (the other eye is almost closed and appears to be visionless) has survived here for at least two years. A smaller younger Squirrel comes too, but keeps its distance - perhaps one-eye's offspring. Hedgehogs will keep emerging in a mild wet winter - "aren't you supposed to be asleep!?" - cat food for them. We can at least look after what wild animals we still have.

If you see a Hedgehog out and about during daylight it might need help Jayne

http://www.hedgehog-rescue.org.uk/leavealone.php

[johncorrigan]

For me there has been no greater, more exciting sequence on TV this year than marine iguanas and racer snakes...snakes hunting in packs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3OjfK0t1XM

Utterly mesmerising in what has been a fascinating series. Hand feeding hyenas on Sunday...now that takes courage. And the great Gordon Buchanan almost face-to-face with the urban leopard in Planet Earth diaries...wow! Occasionally the music bugged me but most of the time I didn't notice it.

[Richard Tarleton]

I so, so wish I hadn't seen....those baby turtles....when they stopped and looked about, so small and so lost, bewildered by .....Bright Lights, Big City.
Heartbreaking.

Interesting interview with the producer on PM yesterday - apparently the film crew were with the local wildlife group who regularly rescue the baby turtles (or as many as they can) and point them in the right direction. And so while they would not normally interfere in natural events, on this occasion (as this was a man-made disaster) the film crew, after filming the baby turtles' predicament, felt it was OK to help with the rescue.

He contrasted this to the recent series in which baby barnacle geese, after surviving their fall, were picked off by the local Arctic fox. This too was heartbreaking to watch but as it was an entirely natural event and the Arctic fox had a family to feed they resisted the temptation to throw stones at it.

[Ferretfancy]

I watched the series with the sound fed to a full range surround sound system, and as is so often the case the music was overwhelmingly loud, especially in the chase sequences.The team should appreciate the fact that we are not in the Odeon Leicester Square.
That said, it was a magnificent series and deserves all the praise.

One small quibble. Whatever the film is showing us, the actual sound of the animals is very hard to capture on location, particularly when so much is shot using telephoto lenses.
When I was mixing we resorted to all sorts of tricks to achieve the dramatic effect. As an example, two stags are fighting, so into the studio we went with a couple of wooden coat hangers and lo and behold the antlers were rattling!

This 'animal foley ' is quite tricky and time consuming, but adds a great deal to the sense of realism. In this series there were numerous instances when I felt that the effects were just a tad to loud to be realistic. Perhaps it's a bit difficult for me to switch off, and of course my days were the days of glorious mono!

[Richard Tarleton]

One small quibble. Whatever the film is showing us, the actual sound of the animals is very hard to capture on location, particularly when so much is shot using telephoto lenses.
When I was mixing we resorted to all sorts of tricks to achieve the dramatic effect. As an example, two stags are fighting, so into the studio we went with a couple of wooden coat hangers and lo and behold the antlers were rattling!

This 'animal foley ' is quite tricky and time consuming, but adds a great deal to the sense of realism. In this series there were numerous instances when I felt that the effects were just a tad to loud to be realistic. Perhaps it's a bit difficult for me to switch off, and of course my days were the days of glorious mono!

I'm shocked, ferret! I knew that's how they did things on The Archers (2 coconut shells, etc.) but it must be a long time since that sort of thing went on at the BBC Wildlife dept in Bristol? I thought directional mics were pretty sophisticated these days.... The sound effects I find most entertaining are the slurpy noises we get when a lizard or small rodent is chewing on a juicy insect.

[Ferretfancy]

I'm shocked, ferret! I knew that's how they did things on The Archers (2 coconut shells, etc.) but it must be a long time since that sort of thing went on at the BBC Wildlife dept in Bristol? I thought directional mics were pretty sophisticated these days.... The sound effects I find most entertaining are the slurpy noises we get when a lizard or small rodent is chewing on a juicy insect.

I can't speak for Bristol, but all I can say is that whenever we had a shot of a locust on a twig, chewing a stick of celery did the trick!

Of course directional mics are very good, but it isn't possible to eliminate background noise, and remember some effects have to be fitted across the stereo stage and it would be odd to hear a waterfall in the background moving left to right!
Incidentally the same complexities arise on other types of programme, and the problems really show up when the item is prepared in haste to meet a deadline. You only have to watch the News to see that.

I quite enjoyed cheating!

[Richard Tarleton]

I can't speak for Bristol, but all I can say is that whenever we had a shot of a locust on a twig, chewing a stick of celery did the trick!

Of course directional mics are very good, but it isn't possible to eliminate background noise, and remember some effects have to be fitted across the stereo stage and it would be odd to hear a waterfall in the background moving left to right!
Incidentally the same complexities arise on other types of programme, and the problems really show up when the item is prepared in haste to meet a deadline. You only have to watch the News to see that.

I quite enjoyed cheating!

Apparently Planet Earth ll was 3 years in the making - though time on any particular location was obviously at a premium. According to the 10 minute "how we did it" bit at the end of each programme, they invariably secured the winning shot on the very last day/hour, just before they had to leave.....

[Ferretfancy]

Apparently Planet Earth ll was 3 years in the making - though time on any particular location was obviously at a premium. According to the 10 minute "how we did it" bit at the end of each programme, they invariably secured the winning shot on the very last day/hour, just before they had to leave.....

The 'how we did it' bit is always fascinating, although a small voice inside me always whispers 'you don't want to know it's best kept a secret'