In Costa Rica, between the lush foliage of the rainforest, the white-haired David Attenborough, still in good spirits, said to the audience: "Welcome to the green planet." ”
At the age of 92, the white-haired Attenborough traveled to Costa Rica to bring "Green Planet" in the rainforest.
This is the BBC-produced nature documentary Green Planet, which has just aired. The first episode shook the audience's eyes with its visual spectacle. While it's about plants, the use of cutting-edge photography techniques — from dazzling time-lapse photography to special weapons for photographing ants — gives you a glimpse into a magnificent and dynamic world of plants that is no less magnificent and dynamic than the animal world.
Green Planet, five episodes. It has been broadcast every night on CCTV Documentary Channel and Bilibili website every Monday night from January 10.
Divided into five episodes, the documentary tells the story of plants from different perspectives, such as environment and species: millions of biomes in the rainforest, desperate places in the snowy wasteland or desert, diverse aquatic worlds in rivers and streams... The first episode is about tropical rainforests, and although they cover only a small part of the earth, the flora and fauna that live here account for more than half of the known species.
However, what the documentary wants to tell me is that although it is a paradise of life, it is also indispensable to the competition between you and me. Under the high-speed camera, these scrambles, which were impossible for the naked eye to observe, become like lions and antelopes on the African savannah, full of suspense and tension. David Attenborough said, "This is the battlefield!" ”
Time-lapse photography gives us a visual spectacle.
Sunlight is the most precious resource in the rainforest. A turtle-backed bamboo that spreads its leaves to absorb sunlight may lead to the demise of other plants that are obscured. In a race for sunlight, all plants have to grab the vantage point from the first moment, while another life in the rainforest, the vines, are looking forward to hitchhiking with other plants. We can see their swaying tendrils, waiting in the air, seemingly blind and powerless, but may have found their target.
But how can the "battlefield" be so easily divided into victory and defeat, the leaves of the balsa wood are covered with fluff, and the vines are finely tentacled and constantly trying, but they can never climb. And they grow lightly, and within a year they can grow ten meters and become temporary victors.
The tentacles of vine plants are looking for plants that can be climbed.
In addition to this, you can see balsa flowers filling and refilling nectar seven times overnight to attract the pollinators they need, as well as the huge King Key's flower spreading out their blood-colored petals to meet the scavenger-loving flies; the fungus known as the "Chimpanzee Fire" in Congo glows in the dark as it releases hundreds of millions of spores into the air...
The opening process of König's king flower.
The spores of the fungus travel through the air.
Congo, the beautiful "Black Star Fire" is actually the spore of the fungus. Still
The nectar of balsa can be regenerated after being eaten by honey bears, repeated seven times.
Whenever you think you can catch your breath at some point, the next shot is probably even more spectacular, including a world of fungi a few meters underground in the darkness and dampness of the naked eye, where fungi are also participating in this battle for survival, and they drive leaf-cutting ants to feed on them — legions of leaf-cutting ants walk through the rainforest, the sound of their powerful jaws cutting mahogany leaves is clearly audible, and even when mahogany protects itself and releases toxins, leaf-cutter ants look for other food sources.
Leaf cutter ants cut leaves for easy handling.
Viewers will wonder how these eye-opening and jaw-dropping images were captured. In the tidbits, we meet the behind-the-scenes hero - "Triffid". Unexpectedly, it was a ready-made machine, but it came from the garage of former American military engineer Chris Field.
Years ago, he was fascinated by nature documentaries, especially time-lapse photography techniques, so for the past 10 years he has spent his spare time combining the right camera with motion control, culminating in the "Triangle Tree"—a time-lapse camera robot that can be remotely controlled, with long barrel lenses that can even shoot through small holes between leaves. So many breath-taking shots in Green Planet, including stories of leaf-cutting ants and fungi, were filmed with it.
A "triangular tree" perched in the rainforest.
The Legion of Ants returns to the fungus with the loot.
However, of course, the machine alone can not be all right, and the team behind the scenes is also tired of it, they stay under the same tree for two weeks, using 7,000 camera positions, just to shoot the ants back and forth between the plant and the underground, the main film also appears for a few seconds.
"Wake up every morning, shoot ants, fall asleep, dream about ants, wake up, shoot ants, fall asleep, dream about ants... That's what assistant producer Louis Rummer Duning describes rainforest life.
The photographer is working hard. Still
As a nature documentary, its mission is not only to bring about the wonders of nature, but also to realize that this is a fragile world that needs to be protected when the interest and awe of the viewer is aroused. Nothing can shock us more than a panoramic shot, when the lens is detached from the microscopy of a flower and a tree, overlooking this land, the audience will be shocked to find that the original rainforest has been like an isolated island fighting for each other, separating them by human highways, trucks, rubber forests, farmland...
Isolated rainforests in human crops. Still
At the moment the bat appeared, David Attenborough's face lit up.
There is no doubt that at the age of 92, David Attenborough is still as curious, passionate and loving about nature as he was when he first entered the documentary industry when he was young. His face seems to sparkle as he closely observes a nectar-sucking Coptis long-tongued bat, so how can we not be moved when he rides in a cable car in the rainforest at the end of the episode and calls on the world to unite to protect the rainforest and at the same time protect all living beings on this green planet?