The result is an astonishing view of an ecosystem in which fungus, ants and trees are locked in a game of “strike and counter-strike”, says Attenborough. Getting a smooth shot was no mean feat – one knock or a raindrop on the lens would mean restarting the whole process. When mounted on a sliding ladder, it was able to capture a multi-angle tree’s eye view of leafcutter ants from 7000 different points on the insects’ trail, tracking them as they harvested leaves high in the canopy and carried them deep into their underground nest. A computer-controlled robotic camera, developed over a decade by a US ex-military engineer in his garage and dubbed The Triffid, is one example. Shot over a year and distilled into just a few minutes of screen time, it speaks to both the ambition and the practical challenges of the project.Īs regular viewers of the BBC’s natural history output will no doubt expect, The Green Planet makes a feature of these challenges and the groundbreaking technology that was employed to overcome them.
A Monstera that is making a dash for the canopy is lassoed by a vine seeking to hitch a ride, before both are overtaken by a fast-growing balsa. A sequence in episode one that focuses on tropical rainforests captures the race for sunlight fought from the forest floor. The footage of these battles, shot using time-lapse cameras to put the viewer on “plant time”, is surprisingly dramatic. Through advances in filming techniques and scientific understanding, The Green Planet shows plants not only as we have never seen them before, but as we struggle to even imagine them: locked in vicious competition for resources, strategising to gain the upper hand, helping each other and even communicating. It is even a step up from last year’s incredible A Perfect Planet. As a spectacle, it is a world away from The Private Life of Plants, the BBC’s last in-depth look at plants from 25 years ago. Presented by David Attenborough, The Green Planet reveals the secret lives of plants in the same way The Blue Planet opened our eyes to the oceans.
#SHOP BLUE PLANET REVIEW SERIES#
The latest documentary series from the BBC seeks to join those dots and spur us into action. Yet as our homes become greener than ever, plant growth is in decline across the globe.
Then, through the pandemic, they rose even further as we sought to bring nature indoors. According to the US National Gardening Association, sales rose by nearly 50 per cent in the three years up to 2019.
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