TÉCNICAS E INSTRUMENTOS

Many of the associations on which Life on Earth depended were established during the production of the series World About Us. This strand, featuring 50 minute films on natural history and travel subjects, was screened in peak time on BBC 2, from 1967 to 1984. World About Us was commissioned by David Attenborough, controller of the new channel BBC2 (1965-1968) and in charge of overseeing its conversion to a full colour service. David Attenborough commissioned a package of programmes to sell colour to viewers of black and white televisions including the series Civilisation, the snooker programme Pot Black19 and the World About Us. World About Us, advertised as "a series of films from all over the world about our astonishing planet and all the creatures that live on it" (David Attenborough, NHU publicity brochure: iv), was placed at the start of the first full colour evening on BBC television on 3rd December 1967.

The technology of colour transmission renewed enthusiasm and opportunity for natural history films. As one contemporary reviewer observed:

"To see the scarlet ibis bird of Trinidad whirling in clouds over the blue mud banks, and to know that they are real is to be made aware of how beautiful the world is and how little of it one has seen. It is to be filled with longing and discontent" (Peter Black, quoted in Parsons, 1982: dust jacket).

The new colour service offered a sense of spectacle that had previously been missing from black and white images of natural history. It was assumed that red would be the most striking colour to raise the profile of the new colour service, and the visual exhibition of natural history was underlined by the opening programmes featuring footage of volcanoes and firebirds (Parsons, 1982: 254).

The series World About Uswas split between the Travel and Exploration Unit in London and the Natural History Unit in Bristol, both of whom had developed good intelligence links for tracking down the scarce colour film for transmission in the first run up to Christmas. The NHU was required to contribute 20 programmes a year for the World About Us. This demand meant it was sometimes necessary to transmit bought in films and the strand began a high proportion of bought in material from Jacques Cousteau, National Geographic and the RSPB film Unit (Parsons, 1982: 255). Gradually, the number of BBC commissions and specially shot programmes increased as the NHU reorganised its resources to develop the forms of film it had pioneered in Look into fifty minute colour specials. This new round of technological opportunity meant that the NHU was firstly able directly to 'repackage' some of its colour film previously transmitted in black and white, for example in a Sielmann special. Later

19_{Snooker was an obvious choice to demonstrate the potential of colour television and the frustrations of}

receiving this new service on a black and white set. Additionally it only required two fixed cameras and minimal cost.

programmes extended studies of animal behaviour used in Look, focusing on the life cycles of particular animals, or the communities of species found in specific habitats; using scientific advisors to provide up to date information on animal behaviour and new professional wildlife cameramen to present the best images available. These fifty minute programmes featuring all colour material to illustrate the lives and locations of a huge range of animals were to prove important in constructing the networks which would support the Natural History Unit into the future. These networks also changed the skills and the geographies of knowledge on which the Natural History Unit depended.

The Natural History Unit was able to maintain the commitment to naturalistic forms of film- making presenting 'natural' animal behaviour, also to increase the production quality of these images. It no longer relied on the combined field and filming skills of the amateur naturalist, but rather incorporated the expertise of professional scientists and dedicated natural history film-makers. In this way the NHU could extend the process of inscribing animals away from the limited expertise that could be mastered by one person, on individual species and or particular habitats. The growth of ethological research at field sites all over the globe, meant that animals were already under the watchful eye of scientists who could be used to guide film- makers to instances of animal behaviour. David Attenborough reflecting on his film making experience inLife on EarthandLiving Planetsuggests that:

"Experts are probably of greatest value in simply finding animals in the first place. These days, when ethological research is being sponsored by universities all over the world, you stand a pretty good chance of finding a researcher somewhere who is actually studying the animal you are interested in, in the field. So you go to him and say - we would like to see an aggressive display of the alpha male in your monkey troop and he will reply - 'Fine, you want to see Fred. He usually does his stuff at half past four on a tree by the river'. He takes you down there and sure enough Fred does his stuff on schedule" (David Attenborough, quoted in Burgess and Unwin, 1984: 99)

These networks of scientists were accessible to producers of the World About Us, and also to their sources of bought in material. For example, Jane Goodall's primate research at Gombe was sponsored by National Geographic, who retained the rights to all her filmed material. The BBC's involvement with scientists was never this direct, but their relationship supported the profile of this form of scientific research, and scientist were keen to help: "people have been amazingly generous every time" (David Attenborough quoted in Burgess and Unwin, 1984: 99). Large research sites developed in the field were access to animals could assured.

"You go back to the same places because it’s a very practical, you know, Because you can see them. Particularly the Serengeti where it’s the big animals in the big open spaces. But even things like rainforests. I think people tend to go to Costa Rica or Panama, or places in Borneo because you know there are scientists there and the animals are quite filmable" (Richard Brock, interview, 15.6.95).

The amount of data acquired on particular animal populations meant not only could the presence of animals be predicted, but so could the timing of their actions. However, although the films presented images of animals apparently performing naturally in the wild, many of these animals were habituated to the presence of people20. These images of natural history may have been captured without intervention, however, the claim to look and not touch does begin to seem questionable.

New filming technologies were also extending the limits of filming. The Special Facilities section of BBC Engineering Department in Bristol built a macro bench which enabled filming at magnifications of x10 to x32, and made features about the private lives of insects a possibility for the World About Us (Press Release, The Start of Another 25 years). The development of 600mm lenses meant that more animals could be filmed without the need to approach so near, and so again increased the choice of subjects. Infra-red photography produced grainy, but fascinating, footage of animals apparently in total darkness. Improvements in film stock increased the quality of film in low light levels and underwater, and remote control cameras further increased the ability of instruments to inscribe animal behaviour (These technological developments are outlined in Allaby, 1978). These technologies were exploited by a new wave of camera operators whose specialist film-making skills began to drive up production values. For example, the BBC was able to entice film-maker Alan Root away fromSurvival, and to support its own specialised in-house natural history cameramen.

The high costs of these production techniques were returned through increased income from new audiences and the sale of more expensive colour television licenses. BBC Enterprises in London was reorganised in the 1960s, and for the first time BBC commercial operations, like the Radio Times, books and programme sales, were intended to make serious contributions to the running costs of the BBC. The wildlife films produced by the Natural History Unit were a good proposition for overseas sales. As John Sparks explains, once the initial investment in filming has been made, there are no further costs and the value of the film endures:

"Wildlife films on the whole have a good long shelf life in terms of their selling. You’ve got no actors so therefore there are no profits you have to share. You’ve got no in vision people talking so you’ve got no language problems. So I mean all these things mean that wildlife films are fairly good commercial prospect. And they pull in the audience" (John Sparks, interview 13.6.95).

20_{“Gombe, particularly, represented as the solitary world of National Geographic's and Gulf Oil’s Jane}

Goodall, was for nine years a densely social, collective, international research site - perhaps more so than any other primate research site established by Western Observers. In 1972, about 50 scientific personnel - Tanzanian, European and Euro-American - lived and worked at Gombe. With their families and other staff, the population of the field station was about 100 souls, mostly living in individual huts in the forest. Between 1972-73, the study population of habituated named chimpanzees numbered about 14 adult males, 15 adult females, 19 dependent young, 2 adolescent males and 4 adolescent females. People from the community called ‘scientists’ considerably outnumbered chimpanzees at Gombe during the most intense years of research activity” (Haraway, 1989: 170).

The films pioneered in World About Us were the first wildlife films appealing to overseas markets. Companies like Warner brothers, National Geographic and Time Life expressed interest in co-producing those programmes for the series that featured an international focus. Co-production arrangements were made whereby companies would provide finance in advance in exchange for the rights to show the resulting programmes in their territories. The subjects and locations that were easily sold to these television executives and audience abroad were, in fact, fairly limited. The most popular films for overseas sales tended to feature the large, charismatic animals: the big cats, ungulates and elephants of the African Serengeti and the apes of the African and Asian continents, rather than the British birds and mammals that had been stars of early wildlife programmes. These constitute what Richard Brock calls the "National Geographic" animals, and David Attenborough the "romantic ones". As Attenborough suggests "Anyone who has been in our game for any length of time knows perfectly well that you are on a winner with apes, and by and large if your subject has more than four legs you are on a loser" (David Attenborough, quoted in Burgess and Unwin, 1984: 105). Attenborough focuses upon the popularity of animals like leopards, lions, penguins, elephants, polar bears whales and sharks with audiences; John Sparks however, suggests that this focus owes as much to the demands of television executives of commercial channels in the States as audience appeal in Britain: "in the States you can bring in co-producers on things like sperm whales, lions, hyenas, hunting dogs, and bald eagles. Sharks, oh say no more they'll take shark programmes. But if you come up against a programmes on Sulawesi it's actually extremely difficult" (John Sparks, interview 13.6.95).

The international attraction of these films was therefore defined according to the markets where they could be sold, rather than the geographical scope of their subjects. The overseas expansion of the market for wildlife films concentrated around Europe, the United States and Australia, as Adrian suggests:

"It is perceived to be an international story because it can be sold internationally. It might not be an international story, [for example] one that is obviously an African one. But if it is for the big markets of Europe, and the States, New Zealand, Australia then it is an international story" (Adrian, interview 26.7.95).

In this period the global networks of natural history film-making become part of an international trade in wildlife films. However, this is an uneven flow of images, as Gareth suggests: "It's quite colonial the whole thing, you know basically the rich nations send out there cameramen to film the wildlife of the poor nations, and the local crews are quite often frowned upon because they’re not very good, because they haven’t been trained" (Gareth, interview 11.7.95). The trade in images of charismatic animals becomes global in scope, but dominated by the flow of images of the indigenous wildlife of 'southern nations' to television owning audiences of the northern markets.

The Natural History Unit was particularly adept at using their administrative and production skills to manage these extending networks. Producers like Richard Brock, Chris Parson, John Sparks, Barry Pain and Peter Crawford could use their scientific background and the name of the BBC to forge and maintain relationships with scientists. The BBC resources meant that they could invest in cameramen, studio time and technological innovations, and the overseas sales networks of BBC Enterprises enabled then to sell their product in the States, Europe and Australia. The producers at the BBC managed these relationship and ensured a consistent quality and supply in film-making. John Sparks explains "My role here is essentially to bring teams together, nudge things in certain ways, doing post-production, coming down heavy on the stories, quality, scheduling, and things like that" (John Sparks, interview 13.6.95). In the 1960s and 1970s, the Unit was able to recommand the initiative it had lost to Survival in the late 1950s. Elizabeth suggests this was due to the capacity of producers at the BBC: "Survival has gone along tramlines from the very beginning. It's had wonderful cameramen, but they haven’t really had producers" (Elizabeth, interview 25.7.95). The experience of this cohort of producers at the NHU built up the expertise experience required to co-ordinate a programme like Life on Earth with complex financing deals, negotiating with hundreds of scientists, involving several filming crews in different countries, and moreover, bringing the results together into a coherent whole.

However, reflecting back on the genesis of Life on Earth, Elizabeth suggests that as well as producers, cameramen, money and technology, a pre-eminent natural history series was going to need something additional: a new figurehead for natural history that would reflect this professional status. In the 1960s and 1970s the programmes of Jacques Cousteau could obtain viewing figures of 14 or 15 million, which exceeded the achievements of the Unit. Elizabeth recalls the impact that his personality and story telling skills made not only on viewers, but also on producers in the Unit:

"I can remember the Natural History meeting, where we sat and said, how can we make our programmes get audiences like that? And you’ve got to say it was personality, it was the French voice, it was the adventure, you know. Would somebody die when they went down, you know, ’x’ thousand or ’x’ hundred feet under the ocean? He was very skilled, you know, at story-telling, which is drama" (Elizabeth, interview 25.7.95).

Chris Parsons, then a producer with the World About Us had had an attachment to Arts and Features in London where he talked to David Attenborough, then Director of Programmes. Together they had sown the seeds for the idea of a mega-series on natural history to follow up the popular appeal of Civilisation and the Ascent of Man. However, it required David Attenborough to move from behind the desk to in front of the camera to provide personality, adventure and storytelling for the Natural History Unit. Attenborough had experience of filming and presenting natural history from hisZoo Questprogrammes in London in the 1950s. He was a skilled story teller and keen amateur zoologist who was able to inject the appropriate

levels of drama and adventure into the specialist, natural history knowledge of the Unit. He had moved rapidly through the BBC as presenter, producer, channel controller and in January 1969, he had became Director of Programmes with editorial responsibility for both the television networks. In 1973, after eight years as an administrator he returned to freelance programme making with the travelogues and natural history series Eastwards with Attenborough. David Attenborough was one of the new television professionals who had grown up with the medium, both in front of and behind the screen, and who understood perfectly the constraints and strengths of television science, and how to balance an academic subject with popular appeal.

David Attenborough was, therefore, able to mediate between the different entities enrolled in the network, as an interested naturalist, a skilled presenter and writer, and a broadcasting professional. David Attenborough was provided a new figurehead under which the Unit could pull together to produce documentation of their coming of age. Life on Earthwas a definitive and collective statement which summarised the Unit's experience, and David Attenborough was able to speak for the networks that the Unit had constructed up to 1979:

"Life on Earthtells the story of biological evolution. It is more than just a major series through. In a sense it sums up the experience of the Unit as a whole, so that it becomes a kind of collective statement. More than any other programme or series, it is the property of the whole Unit, the kind of public declaration that looks curiously like a line drawn beneath all that has gone before." (Allaby, 1978: 4).