Africa

[johncorrigan]

I can get a bit blasé when it comes to Sir David's programmes - take it all a bit for granted. Last night's programme about the Kalahari was just that kind of thing - huge underground fossil loch swimming with blind yellow catfish while upstairs they're crying out for water; mad lion pride noising up the waterhole allowing the ostrich chicks in for their first drink; scary armoured crickets; drongos confusing meercats; colossal night skies with cavorting, snorting black rhinos; getaway cartwheeling spiders rolling down dunes - to name a few. All backed by a bit too much music perhaps, but you get sucked in - and then they hit you with the main event (as if it hadn't all been enough). An old desert bull giraffe is lording it over a bit of scorched earth for the sake of some juicy leaves and its mate - along comes a young one who fancies his chances. If I see a piece of TV this year that is as exciting and fascinating as the fight that ensues I'll be mightily surprised - brutal and strangely elegant. I had a bit of concern over Sir David's closing remarks but can't say anything because you don't want to know the result. Great TV.

[BBMmk2]

It certainly was great TV. I thought that fight that those giraffes had was something else! Who would've thought it?

[Flosshilde]

I've seen film of giraffes fighting - it is very strange.

[Anna]

I saw a quarter of the last half of tonight's programme. After his Frozen Planet series was revealed as having some scenes not shot on location I have been a bit sceptical and tonight the fight between two bull elephants, in close up, from four different angles, made me wonder if I was looking at computer generated images or some Pixar movie.

[mercia]

I wonder which comes first in the making of an Attenborough programme, the script or the images

e.g. last night in the Congo we see a snake apparently warming up then moving off, is that because Sir D said to his team, bring me back some 'footage' of a snake lying in the sun then moving through the undergrowth to fit in with my scientific point that snakes need to warm up but not overheat

alternatively in amongst the hours and hours of film they brought back was observation of a snake and when DA sees that he realises he can make something of it


if you see what I mean

[Richard Tarleton]

I wonder which comes first in the making of an Attenborough programme, the script or the images

Neither - when the programme is at the initial planning stage, they look for "stories". I've collaborated with a number of (smaller!) BBC wildlife programmes in the UK over the last 34 years as a site manager, and the same applies here. Having decided the overall theme/subject matter they wish to cover, the researchers then work with the experts on the area/theme/species/whatever to work out what "stories" they want to tell and how they might tell them. They know what they want to cover before the filming teams get sent out. In the case of last night's programme, the chimpanzee/honey story was one their local experts had told them about. In the case of the man up a tree filming elephants in the dark, they'd clearly started with a question - what do elephants do in the dark. There was a suggestion that the incubating rock python was actually filmed in a "filming chamber", unless I misheard, rather like the polar bears.

The filming team have a mission - get footage which tells this story. They don't just go out collecting random wildlife footage, although they may well come up with unexpected stories on the way.

The script comes last, when the footage is being edited into story form. In a classical Attenborough programme, when the great man is on site, he'll do pieces to camera which he's made up on the spot which will be included in the programme, but the commentary on the cliff-nesting birds or kick-boxing frogs will have been written to go over the final story.

This series appears to be a co-production with the Discovery channel and is a bit more Disneyfied than we're used to from David Attenborough - the only hint we get that there are actually any people in Africa is when we get the occasional glimpse of the native guides, usually in the 10-minute slot at the end. I thought he said in an interview that he thought time lapse in wildlife programmes was overdone - there's plenty of it here. And we only seem to see these clashes between large animals in slow motion.

[Stunsworth]

This series appears to be a co-production with the Discovery channel and is a bit more Disneyfied than we're used to from David Attenborough...

I'd say a lot more. The photography has been stunning, but the script is dreadful IMHO. Anthropamorphic (sp) comes to mind.

[johncorrigan]

This series appears to be a co-production with the Discovery channel and is a bit more Disneyfied than we're used to from David Attenborough - the only hint we get that there are actually any people in Africa is when we get the occasional glimpse of the native guides, usually in the 10-minute slot at the end. I thought he said in an interview that he thought time lapse in wildlife programmes was overdone - there's plenty of it here. And we only seem to see these clashes between large animals in slow motion.

Thanks for that Richard. They certainly did say that the python was recorded in a filming chamber - sort of reality TV - have to say that part was very interesting about her gathering heat to the point of overheating to incubate the eggs and that it would take about three years to recover from. I liked the chimp and the honey too - wish I could hold a hammer with my toes. The skimmers were pretty fabulous too. But though the aerial shots are pretty amazing, as with the flamingoes last week, I really feel they're a bit overdone (as is the weather).
However this programme was much better than last week's, I thought, but agree that it does get a bit Disneyish, though not in a Colonel Hathi kind of way. The cameraman caught up the tree by a trunk-to-trunk butting elephant was a bit scary - glad it wasn't me.