CRAFT
and we wanted to try and reflect that in the photography.”
Up close and horticultural
The NHU, early adopters of drones for filming, had evolved techniques on Seven Worlds, One Planet. For Green Planet they were inspired to use First Person View drones, where pilots use a headset to see the viewpoint of the drones. The results were stunning: capturing dynamic views of different plant worlds, skimming over forest floors, flying through tangles of branches, spinning around a tumbling waterfall.
landscape, the world of the forest and you also need to see at a macro level. We were very keen to be in amongst the weeds.”
NHU producer Paul Williams made it his mission to get in amongst the weeds. He discovered an ex-military engineer in the US, Chris Field who had been building robotics rigs in his basement as a hobby, creating systems that could move freely around a plant while filming it in time- lapse. BBC Studios formed a partnership with Field and the robotic timelapse camera rigs were installed in the studio of world leading time lapse cinematographer Tim Shepherd.
Time-lapse is the key
The technique allowed Shepherd to film in a way that nobody’s ever done before, explains Gunton. “This robotic camera can remember exactly where it has been at any time.” In the old days you’d have to stick a camera in one place, it would fire away and that would be its shot, you could never move it. “This rig allowed the cameras to take a shot of plant a and remember exactly where it was and go and take a shot of plant b and then back to the same place to pick up . Or to take a shot of plant a from four angles and still remember. It was like you had a multicamera studio that’s also running in this fifth dimension of time.”
The time-lapse development was a revelation. “This machine allowed us to open a little door and suddenly you’ve got this hangar space of opportunity,” describes Gunton. “We wanted to show the alienesque relationship between trees, leaf cutter ants and fungus. It’s hard to get your head round, but if you can connect by following
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an ant from a leaf to a fungus and back again. A plant’s life is going at one rate, the ant’s at another and the fungus another. We are watching it at another rate. And David [Attenborough] is standing in our world.”
“Tim Shepherd’s genius is he can create a botanical world in a controlled space keeping light levels right, stopping wind. A horticultural nightmare, having to create an ecology and tend to the plants, every one has a different need which he has to understand, or it doesn’t look right.”
“It was magical – the plant world is magical
PLANT WORLD IS MAGICAL AND WE WANTED TO TRY AND REFLECT THAT IN THE PHOTOGRAPHY
IT WAS MAGICAL – THE
They also developed new ways to film in close-up, working with an expert in Scanning Electron Microscopy in Germany who has designed a system allowing the camera to fly around minute subjects. “A significant amount of Green Planet you can’t see with the naked eye, you can only see it through the prism of the camera,” says Gunton. “It’s particularly rewarding to use photography to take the audience somewhere they couldn’t go themselves.”
He describes how the development of cinematography is part of the evolving work on innovation at BBC Studios NHU. “It’s very rarely that you get a complete eureka moment, almost always it’s inspiration, a jump of learning from the previous person and the benefit of a collaborative whole that bears fruit.”
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