Early film (pre-1900) consisted of simply displaying an event, notable examples being a train pulling into a station and works exiting a factory. These were all single-shot events that were captured on film; originally called “actualities”, the term “documentaries” wasn’t coined until 1926. Most of these films were recorded by Auguste and Louis Lumiére and were less than a minute in length due to the technology they had.
Robert J Flaherty directed “Nanook of the North” in 1922, which embraced romanticism and kick-started his passion for the movement, leading on to him creating several more heavily staged romantic films.
Newsreels were sometimes staged however often recorded re-enactments of actual events such as war footage.
During the 1920s-1940s, documentaries were created and used for the purpose of propaganda, typically with the hopes of installing patriotism within the country’s soldiers. One of the most notorious propagandist films is Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will.”
The very nature of cinéma vérité meant that it was dependent upon technological advancement in film with respect to lighting, camera and sound. This was popular throughout the 50-70s, where the filmmakers took advantage of the smaller, handheld cameras and its ability to synchronise sound, meaning they could film events as they were acted out. A noteworthy example of cinéma vérité is D.A Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back”, a documentary covering Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour.
Modern documentaries are much more diverse/light-hearted, and have became increasingly successful with releases such as Supersize Me, March of the Penguins and Earth.
Director Background
Sir David Attenborough has been known as the face of naturalist documentaries for over half a century, best known is his presentation of the Life series, and is a former senior manager at the BBC. He has also worked on numerous other projects including Life on Earth, State of the Planet and The Truth about Climate Change. Even though he’s now 85, he currently still works on several projects including Frozen Planet, a new series for BBC one looking at the effects of climate change on polar regions.
He has gained international recognition thanks to his wildlife documentaries, and has been called “the greatest broadcaster of our time”. His programmers are often cited as an example of what public service broadcasting should be like, and has influenced a generation of filmmakers. He has received numerous awards including his Knighthood (1985), a special recognition award in 2006 and a BAFTA in 2009.
Reason for Selection
One reason I have selected this documentary series to analyse is that it’s widely acknowledged as the best documentary of all time, and contains many incredible shots that are excellent for analysis. Another reason is that I have seen a lot of work from David Attenborough already, and his documentaries are extremely interesting and entertaining.
Textual Analysis
The Planet Earth series promotional poster is graphically very well put together, it’s clearly had a lot of time put into its creation and is effective in attracting the viewer’s attention. The poster features a herd of elephants travelling across a grassy landscape, with a flock of birds circling overhead. The elephants are extremely out of proportion with respect to the size of the planet they’re walking across, which has been done to make them observable by the viewer and give an insight to what the documentary is about. The sun is on the verge of rising over the horizon, illuminating the far side of the planet, allowing the overall design of the poster to steadily darken towards the bottom. The title of the series is placed conventionally at the top of the poster, with its tagline underneath. Planet Earth is in all lowercase, and the “e” which begins “Earth” is outlined by a bluish tint, giving the effect that it is symbolising the earth. The tagline reads “prepare to see it [planet earth] as never before”, and ends just before the sun’s rays. As a graphic piece, we can really appreciate the effort which has been put into it to make it appear as professional and attractive as possible; the poster simultaneously fulfils its aims of catching the viewer’s eye and displaying what the documentary will be about without seeming cluttered and text-heavy.
Reception
The credentials of the filmmaker, the large amount of promotional material, the high-profile marketing campaign, and a primetime BBC one slot are all elements which resulted in Planet Earth attracting huge audiences upon its debut and receiving multiple awards. Planet Earth won a Natural History award in 2007 at the Royal Television Society’s programme awards, a Judge’s award and a Photography award. The series also received two awards for Best Documentary Series and Innovation in Broadcasting from the Broadcasting Press Guild, was nominated for 3 separate BAFTAs and that still isn’t a complete list of awards. In terms of audience reception, the first episode (which I have chosen to analyse) From Pole to Pole received over 11.5 million views, and received the highest audience appreciation score of any British programme in 2007.
The series has a rating of 9.7/10 on IMDB.com, making it the website’s highest rated documentary (be it film or series) and the highest rated TV series.
There is no official trailer for the Planet Earth series on YouTube, however when conducting a search for “Planet Earth David Attenborough”, the top videos each have around 1 million hits. There is also a YouTube video of the lyre bird, which has 8 million hits within itself. I have quoted these two statistics in an attempt to give some perspective on just how popular Planet Earth and other works by David Attenborough really are.
The clip with 8 million views.
Audience
I think that the target audience for this series is extremely broad, which is one of the reasons it received such high viewings. Documentary as a genre has its own target audience, and I believe that anyone remotely interested in documentaries would have been interested by Planet Earth. As a demographic, the series targets people who are interested in wildlife and nature, which I think would typically be either middle-aged or teenage males; however the topic is so relative to human nature that anyone can appreciate it. The series also attracts people who enjoy learning, which would be students/teachers, a large demographic.
Genre/Form
This documentary is undoubtedly a nature documentary, and David Attenborough had a huge influence on this sub-genre of film. Nature documentaries have their own codes and conventions, generally taking a scientific approach to educate the viewer; however they often include shots of animals simply for viewing pleasure (this show being no exception). In nature documentaries, interaction with wildlife can vary greatly, ranging from full interaction with animals (classic to Attenborough’s style) to simply explanatory voiceovers. Some nature documentaries stage interaction with animals and instead of recording the clips of animals in nature, they are taken of animals in captivity.
Footage of nature documentaries are being increasingly more exploited by production companies, selling the footage to schools, libraries, museum exhibitor, advertisers etc.
Plot/Narrative
From Pole to Pole reveals the effects that climate change has on seasonal transitions and animals in their habitats. Emperor penguins suffer through 4 months of darkness in Antarctica, where temperatures can plummet to below -70 degrees. At the same time, spring is just arriving in the Arctic and polar bears transition out of their hibernation with their cubs to greet the ever-depleting amount of ice. In Northern Canada, three million caribou begin to migrate 3,200 kilometres across the arctic tundra. Meanwhile, the world’s rarest cat - the Amur leopard - faces difficulties with hunting for prey in eastern Russia due to the destruction of its habitat. Birds of paradise also make a feature, as well as African hunting dogs, elephants, seals, sharks and more.
This particular episode identifies the effects of climate change and the polar ice caps, as well as the destruction of other animal’s natural habitats and the dangers (such as extinction) that they face.
Textual Analysis
The show opens to an establishing shot of earth, with the sun slowly coming into view as earth continues its orbit. There is a non-diagetic musical score playing in the background, which synchronises with the light, a loud pristine note plays as the light from the sun fully immerses and blinds the shot. The title “planet earth” slowly fades in throughout this shot.
Several establishing shots of earth play over the opening scene, as Attenborough’s voice introduces the show. His calm, steady voice compliments the soft musical piece playing in the background whilst he talks about how rapidly the human population has risen over the last century.
The first truly awe-inspiring shot we receive is that of a flock of birds, which starts out with what would be an extreme-close up on the flock, then pans out to a long shot to reveal an astonishingly huge flock. A soft musical piece plays in the background to show how majestic nature really is when undisturbed. For the aerial shots throughout the show (such as this one), a special airborne camera was used with a 400mm lens that was able to zoom into single animals from a kilometre away without disturbing them.
The transition from the bright skies to the shot we receive afterwards is a huge contrast, a close-up of several emperor penguins enduring the blistering cold in Antarctica. The soft music we heard before has completely gone, replaced by the diagetic sounds of the blizzard/wind gusting past the penguins. Again, the camera eventually cuts to a longer shot to show the size of the herd, another eye-widening moment.
Again, we receive another contrast as Attenborough explains how Spring has just begun in the Arctic. The mood completely switches here, the sounds of the blistering winds are replaced by the original soft music, the lighting is much brighter, and the images the viewer receives are much friendlier and send off an “aww” factor in the form of a long shot of two polar bear cubs emerging from hibernation.
In the next scene, we are displayed a large herd of impala, running freely across open plains. Soft music plays in the background to slow-motioned clips, and the shots play at a gentle pace, reflecting the nature of the impala. However, the camera then cuts to a shot of an African hunting dog, the music turns sharper and more ominous as a dog singles one of the impala calves out, and through clever use of quick-cut editing and increased music sharpness, a tense atmosphere is created and the viewer finds themselves rooting for the calf to get away. Unfortunately for the calf, he is caught by the impala; however the music stops here and does not darken, perhaps suggesting that although it’s a sad moment, it’s simply the nature of these animals.
During a forest scene, there are much more close-ups than in the other scenes so we can view individual birds of paradise, as these kinds tend to travel alone. The diagetic sounds of wildlife can be heard over Attenborough’s excellent narrating. The cameraperson also manages to capture an exquisite close-up shot of one of the birds attempting to attract a female by spreading it’s feathers (much like how a peacock would) to display it’s design which resembles a face smiling.
The non-diagetic musical pieces often reflect the mood of each shot extremely well, and often synchronise with the diagetic sounds within the clip. For example, during one scene where a giant shark catches and devours a seal, the music is ominous, dark and foreboding. This reflects the mood of the shot well and adds to the atmosphere.
Production
The project took 40 camera teams shooting at over 200 different locations all over the world for more than five years to complete.
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