On the road with David Attenborough
By Rupert Barrington, Series producer for The Green Planet
a role he has not taken in a series for more than ten years
We were all excited when David said that he would like to be involved in a lot of filming for The Green Planet, not just in the UK but overseas too. This meant that he would guide the audience around the green world - a role he has not taken in a series for more than ten years. Any concern that his enthusiasm might have dimmed for the travelling, the long hours and sometimes uncomfortable conditions of shoots were quickly put to rest.
Through all of this he took great delight in interacting with plants.
He took up the oars to row a boat over a lake in Croatia, he tramped through the mud of the Costa Rican rainforest, he withstood bitter winter temperatures close to the Arctic Circle and searing temperatures in the North American desert. Through all of this he took great delight in interacting with plants. He shoved a gloved hand at a Cholla cactus to demonstrate its vicious defences. He stood in a ring of Creosote bushes in the incredibly dry Mojave Desert, exactly where he stood 40 years ago, for his series The Living Planet. He told how, in this inhospitable place, the bush had grown just one inch in all that time. He prodded the seed head of a Squirting Cucumber plant and laughed uproariously at its uncontrolled explosion of seeds.
He glanced at it and said, βThatβs fine, Iβll do thatβ.
We were concerned that he might baulk at our plans for a shoot to the USA. The problem was the sheer size of America. We had a list of locations we wanted to take him to, but David had just a 10-day slot available. The only solution was an intensive road trip – arrive, drive, shoot, sleep; get up early, drive, shoot, sleep. And so on. We raised this prospect with him and then, with trepidation, presented him with the schedule. He glanced at it and said, ‘That’s fine, I’ll do that’.
David spoke about the threats these seemingly indestructible giants now face from climate change.
Perhaps the highlight of that trip was filming in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, home to the world’s biggest trees, the Giant Sequoias. One grove in particular gave us all pause for thought. Six immense trees, thousands of years old. The ground was soft with fallen needles. The quiet and those great, towering trunks gave it a kind of cathedral quality. David spoke about the threats these seemingly indestructible giants now face from climate change. We were all moved.
Davidβs diary is usually filled up months ahead, so we had little room for manoeuvre.
The very first day of filming for the series with David was in the early summer of 2019. It set a strange pattern of weather that repeated throughout the whole production, in a way that became almost supernatural. We were to film on a beautiful stretch of chalk stream in Wiltshire and good weather was vital. For two weeks it rained and the forecast for the day of the shoot was more of the same. David’s diary is usually filled up months ahead, so we had little room for manoeuvre. The day before the shoot the forecast predicted, along with more rain, the odd pocket of sunshine, so we decided to take the risk and go ahead. It turned out to be perfect – blissfully warm and sunny, all day long. David was in a punt, telling us about the flowers, the crew were in waders in the river. The very next day the forecast was spot on again – rain and wind, for days and days.
The first few times this happened we thought our weather-luck was coming all at once, and soon it would run out.
The first few times this happened we thought our weather-luck was coming all at once, and soon it would run out. But it just carried on. It reached almost absurd levels on our shoot to Costa Rica. This was another, tightly-planned, 10 day shoot, to cover all sorts of rainforest plants. A forward team went ahead to shoot and to prepare. Rainforests can be wonderful places, but our unfortunate crew suffered the worst they have to offer – torrential rain day after day for two weeks, turning the ground to mud and causing mould to grow on clothes, bags and kit. Things got so bad that they considered telling us not to fly out with David, as it would be a waste of time. But by then the wheels were in motion. The first day of filming involved David travelling through the forest canopy in a kind of suspended tram. It dawned dry. We filmed for several hours and then, the very moment he finished his final piece, about the future of rainforests, it began to rain. But this turned out to be the weather’s last gasp. We suffered just one other rain shower over the next week and that was while we were changing locations. When we left…the rain began again.
We were all very relieved to ride our luck across two years and to film David bringing the plant world to life with passion and a deep understanding.
The Green Planet starts on Sunday 9 January at 7pm on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ One and iPlayer
