The series looks at how seasonal changes powered by the sun cause shifting weather patterns and ocean currents, which in turn create the conditions for some of the planet's most spectacular wildlife events. Each episode focuses on the challenges and opportunities these changes present to a few key species. The series was first unveiled as a co-production deal with the Spanish independent Wanda Films, under the working title of Earth's Great Events. The title was subsequently revised and the Discovery Channel revealed as additional co-producers. The Natural History Unit's production team includes series producer Karen Bass and executive producer Brian Leith. The score was composed by Barnaby Taylor and Ben Salisbury, orchestrated and conducted by William Goodchild and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Views of the earth from space, that illustrate the climatic events around the world, were created by design company Burrell Durrant Hifle incorporating NASA photography. Filming took place over a 25-month period, an unusually tight timescale for a natural history production of this scale. In some cases, the events were not guaranteed to occur every year, so working to such a rapid schedule meant that the film crews ran the risk of having nothing to film. Producer Karen Bass described the series as "a minor miracle, given the constraints of luck and timing - we were totally dependent on events happening when they were supposed to." One of the most challenging sequences to film was the climax of the "The Great Tide" episode, featuring aerial and underwater footage of dolphins, sharks and gannets attacking a sardine shoal. In 2007, the sardine run didn't take place, and after weeks of fruitless searching, the crew had to give up. The following year, there was a second and final opportunity. Just in case they were unsuccessful again, the producers devised an alternative sixth episode which would have explored the science behind seasonal changes, looking at how the "Great Events" are triggered and how environmental change may be affecting them. As luck would have it, the sardine run returned for the first time in three years and the team captured the shots they needed. The BBC claimed a number of TV firsts achieved by the production team. Many of the filming techniques first used on Planet Earth, such as the gyroscopically-stabilised helicopter camera known as the Heligimbal, were adopted again, along with new technology. In "The Great Tide", some of the surface-water footage was shot from a boat-mounted stabilised camera, previously used in the Hollywood film industry. Innovations on "The Great Flood" included FrankenCam, a motion-control macro camera developed by Ammonite Films and capable of shooting extreme close-ups of tiny subjects. The team were also the first to film narwhals from the air, the first to film a humpback whale engulfing a herring bait ball underwater and the first to reveal how grizzly bears use their feet to scoop up dead salmon from deep pools. The crew of "The Great Migration" had the good fortune of witnessing the first eruption of a Kenyan volcano in 40 years, and managed to shoot aerial footage of the event. |
