70 years in the broadcasting world. What an amazing career. His newest film, Ocean, is opening today.
Thank you Sir, for your vision and all your amazing work that truly is of global proportions.
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David Attenborough started broadcasting nature content in the early 1950s. Way before your time, Robert.
Do you remember the first time you were exposed to his content? Did it play a role in shaping your love for nature?
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Blue Planet and the Planet Earth series were some of the first docs I ever watched. Nature docs are my way of connecting with nature when I canāt leave the city, especially with those special places that are so far away that I may never get the chance to visit myself. Sir Davidās work has been key to so much of that.
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One thing Iām always reminded of when I watch Davidās work (and others), is how fake ALL nature documentaries are.
No production company in the world can afford to pay for staff salaries, hotels, catering, equipment rental, etc., for weeks or months, just so they can camp out on location, waiting for something cool to happen, so they can film it.
So there is always an element of things being contrived or set up beforehand in some way. The more you know about nature, the more easily you can spot this.
Iām not taking anything away from Attenborough and the BBC. When it comes to making things realistic, they are among the best to ever do it!
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Some nature faking is part of any nature show. Just donāt do it on iNat.
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YouTube compilation about Attenborough: 95 years in 95 seconds
(From Robertās previous post about this topic)
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Fake is not the right word. Itās not set out there with the purpose of fooling the audience. What we are shown is selective. Itās enhanced by narrative and music and cinematography, and removed from the potentially unpleasant parts of actually being there (the harsh weather, the biting insects, etc ). However, (at least in a good documentary) it is highlighting the amazing things that actually occur in the natural world rather than some contrived script (itās about knowing when and where to look, rather than waiting around for something to happen). Hopefully, all the extra enhancement that goes into the documentary making has the positive effect of helping people connect with nature in a way they otherwise could not. Ideally, that connection also translates to protective policies as well.
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Yeah, ādocumentaryā =/= unedited footage
It isnāt the same thing as a livecam or someone with a videorecorder walking around and filming whatever happens to cross their path.
The material is always selected to tell a particular story. This doesnāt make it āfakeā any more than a history book or a news broadcast is fake.
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I used my book of Life on Earth to give me examples to sprinkle throughout my A-level Zoology exams in 1984 (I got an āAā - my teacher said it was partly because I seemed to be able to offer so many extra-curricular examples). Not one now, I was a creationist back then, but was fascinated by evolution as a concept: Attenboroughās descent into the Grand Canyon was an amazingly powerful eye-opener to me, as it wound back the universeās clock. I had the series on Betamax and would just wind my way forwards and backwards through it too (literally, for those of you who remember videos!) - nothing Iād ever seen before seemed quite like it; I even persuaded my then-girlfriend to sit and watch it with me, although she was clearly quite horrified by the giant salamanders (we parted company soon after).
I think what David Attenborough did for me as a teenager, was to transform my childhood view of myself from that of explorer-in-waiting (expounded in the Willard Price novels I devoured, and the Arthur Twidle butterfly collector paintings I ogled), to observer-in-humility: of anything and everything. I still collect, but I collect pictures and ideas rather than specimens.
Thankyou Sir David!
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The most amazing part of your story that landed for me, as my family also had a Beta machine:
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Colin Fletcherās book, The Man Who Walked Through Time (p 1968), did this for me back when I was becoming an avid backpacker. I was fortunate enough to join a small group of friends to do a one week trek through some of the canyon back in 1982.
A truly powerful presence to walk through. In just a couple days, our youthful bantering between ourselves quieted down to a kind of reverential silent awe as we descended deep into the lower granite canyon.
The complete absence of any clue of human existence (but the trail), was deeply felt. Timelessness seems to permeate this place.
Lots of desert wildlife. Agaves as big as cars with razor-sharp sword blades (donāt stumble!). Lizards, wild burros, and one night a desert cat (a kind of desert raccoon) was spotted in a tree right in our campsite!
Sleeping in the open under the desert sky with the rustling of the mice (right over our sleeping bags!) and the rustling movements of tarantulas around the pitted boulders. Once in a wash gully with (ironically) water-rounded boulders (we were warned to avoid those spots in seasons with risk of flash rainstorms, which was not the case for us).
One night, with all of us staring up from our sleeping bags at the galactic blaze and pointing out paths of passing satellites, a large meteor, straight top center, blazed a trail of glowing disintegrations.
It was probably about three seconds but it seemed like thirty. As big as the moon in size but so much brighter.
An intense 10 second pause followed, folowed by group-wide spontaneous cheers and applause. Unforgettable. (Thank you universe!)
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Happy birthday Sir Attenborough!
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I watched The Life of Birds and Blue Planet many times as a kid.
When I watch documentaries now I feel like I overthink too much (how did they get this shot, how are they choosing to present this scene, are they making any mistakes etc.), Iām sort of envious of my past self for having the free time and simple sense of awe to appreciate them over and over again haha.
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āThe Deepā from blue planet was my absolute favorite episode from any documentary when I was little. I had to have watched it at least fifteen times. Happy birthday indeed!
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