Sir David Frederick Attenborough
- Age 91
- Studied in Cambridge
- Broadcaster and Naturalist
- Working with BBC since the 60s
- Narrated Blue Planet, the highest UK viewing figure 2015 with 14.1 million views
- Born the same year as the queen
- Doesn't count himself as an 'animal lover'
- •The only person to have won BAFTAs for black and white, colour, HD and 3D
- Rejected for his first job he applied for at the BBC
- Served 2 years in the navy
- Has more then 10 plants and animals named after him
- Thought to be one of the most well travelled people on the planet
- veteran english broadcaster and naturalist.
- Spouse: Jane elizabeth ebsworth oriel 1950-1997.
- siblings: richard, john, irene, helga.
- children: usan, robert.
- born: 1926 8 may, 91.
- british.
- born in middlesex.
- his parents fostered 2 jewish refugees from europe.
- best known for writing and presenting.
- former bbc manager.
- ONLY person to have won baftas for programmes in b&w, colour, hd, 3d and 4k.
- considered as a national treasure in britain.
- 2002 named one of 100 greatest britons.
- presenter of bbc radio 4.
Related merchandise
- Book, hard copy and Kindle version
- DVD, multiple different versions including 4K
- Box set of the two seasons
- Posters
- Blue planet two box set - DVD and Ultra 4k
- Blue planet two book by James Honeyborne
- Blue planet two t-shirt - black and white
- calendars
- books
- dvds
- stickers
Specialist equipment
- Low light camera
- Drones
- Underwater motion-control timelapse rig
- Submersibles
- high-tech submersibles carrying ultra HDand extreme low-light cameras
- macro-camera
- infrared cameras during night shoots and in the perma-darkness of the deep.
- One of the submersibles is fitted with 8K cameras in order to see the tiniest of creatures.
- The shots of the baby sperm whale attempting to dive with the adults for squid were only made possible by attaching cameras to the whales.These small orange camera tags were placed on the whales using a fishing rod, and remained stuck on the mammals' bodies using suction caps. They were automatically released after 30 hours and the crew could locate the devices using the radio tags.
- They designed new camera equipment – a specialist float rig. This meant the camera could glide along the same currents at the jellyfish.
- The close up of the stingers were done in a specialist filming pen that could be attached to the side of boat using a macro camera.
- Filming Walrus on iceberg: To get the shots, a specialist cameraman had to dive into the freezing Antarctic waters with a camera rig that weighs 50kg. It’s so big, it takes a team of three people to get it into the water.
- The Megadome
- Bespoke camera rig built specifically for the show, to film dangerous animals at water level, and minimise disturbance to the habitat. e.g. in the shots of the mother seal and her pup on a single iceberg.
- Three-seat filming submarine
- Built for the show at very high cost, used to film and explore deep sections of the sea, include the sea bed itself.
- Extreme telephoto zoom lens
The BBC
- Founded 95 years ago (October 18, 1922)
- Founder: John Reith
- BBC stands for ‘The British Corporation’
- The BBC is watched/listened by 96% of UK population
- Radio, TV and online programmes are available in 28 languages other than English
- It is Europe’s biggest provider of media and creative skills training
- 1 in 16 adults (worldwide) use BBC news
- The BBC license fee costs £145.50 a year (40p a day). It includes 4 TV channels, 10 national radio stations, network of local radio stations, internationally-acclaimed website, BBC parliament, world service, S4C, BBC monitoring and 5 orchestras and choirs.
- The broadcaster receives £3.7 billion a year
- Spends 76% of its fee income on TV content (more than any other broadcaster) (SKY only spends 34%)
- Headquarters are in London
Distribution
- England=
- Series premiere took place at bristols cinema de lux - 11/10/17- with special guest appearance of the producers, wild life experts and attenborough
- International=
- series broadcast on bbc earth channel
- pre-sold to several broadcasters - such as channel nine (australia) telefonica (spain) blue ant media ( canada. In China, the premiere took place at Shanghai's East China Normal University on 27 October 2017, with guest appearance by the producer Orla Doherty and Mike Gunton, the executive producer of Planet Earth II.
Critical reception
- Blue Planet 2 did exceptionally well, scoring 95% on Rotten tomatoes
- James Parker from the Atlantic said “Scenes of tremendous grandeur, thrashing pods of orcas, are switched dizzyingly with Attenborough's other specialty: the vignettes, the micronarratives.”
- According to the Guardian Blue Planet 2 was chosen by TV critics as the best show of 2017.
- Blue Planet 2 has proved a big success for the BBC and attracted more viewers than any other program this year.
- On IMDb Blue planet 2 is given 9.5/10
- The TV show Blue Planet II was the most watched show of the year in Britain
- The opening instalment of the show drew 14.1 million viewers
- Blue Planet II is the UK’s most watched natural history show in 15 years
- The third most watched show of any king in the last five years, trailing only the 2014 World Cup Final and the Great British Bake Off
- The BBC said that 2.3 million of the viewers were in the crucial 16-34-year-old demographic
Social media and viral trailer
- soundtrack Radiohead. audience appeal to fans of the group and of the song
- 'if the trailer of blue planet II is this good, I am going to lose my head when the whole thing comes out'
- Sir David explains how viewers are being taken on an ocean cruise unlike any other.
- direct mode of address talking to the audience keeping audience engaged with the soothing soundtrack relaxing audience
- "Its message, and the methods it employs to deliver it, makes this the most important television on right now." Hanh Nguyen, Indiewire
- Memes made on twitter, people re tweeting
Thanks to P block for submitting this research!