♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: The Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger.
NARRATOR: For over 65 years,
Sir David Attenborough has been the voice of the natural world.
He's taken audiences
to the most extraordinary places on the planet,
inspired generation after generation...
ATTENBOROUGH: The blue whale!
NARRATOR: ...and he's become one of the most loved
and respected broadcasters of our time.
ATTENBOROUGH: There it is.
NARRATOR: David Attenborough's life is one of the most remarkable
in broadcast history.
BROWN: He'll be remembered as the man
who created natural-history programming on such a scale
that it became a global phenomenon.
WHITWORTH: He had a way of explaining difficult issues
and taking people to these amazing places
that was deceptively simple.
ATTENBOROUGH: The Galápagos Islands.
These have been called nature's greatest experiment.
YENTOB: So, the truth is there's no one like David.
NARRATOR: In a career that spans the age of television itself,
David has produced some of its most iconic moments...
ATTENBOROUGH: Aha!
NARRATOR: ...and he's pioneered new filming technologies
to bring his stories to life.
ATTENBOROUGH: Nobody has ever dived as deep as this before
on the Great Barrier Reef.
NARRATOR: But audiences rarely get to see the man behind the lens.
ATTENBOROUGH: Don't you start that! Oh, dear!
Someone said, "If you're tired of the history of life,
you really must be tired of living."
I can't believe that's true.
That's utter [bleep]
[ Laughter ]
NARRATOR: Now, bringing together footage from behind the scenes...
ATTENBOROUGH: Yeah?
NARRATOR: ...intimate interviews filmed on location,
and highlights from his groundbreaking films...
ATTENBOROUGH: Oh!
NARRATOR: ...this is "David Attenborough's Life Journey."
♪♪
NARRATOR: As one of the world's most respected wildlife filmmakers,
Sir David Attenborough has dedicated over 65 years
of his life to traveling the globe,
gaining a unique insight into the changing natural world.
ATTENBOROUGH: I'm on a fantastic journey to look for the origins of life.
I shall be traveling not only round the world
but back in time
to try and build a picture of what life was like
in that very early period.
NARRATOR: The images of wildlife he's brought into
our homes have revolutionized our understanding
and appreciation of nature.
From below the waters of the Pacific...
to high above the tropical rainforests...
♪♪
...and even deep inside the secret world
of bugs and plants...
Attenborough's films have taken viewers to places
they'd never been before.
ATTENBOROUGH: He is, arguably, the rarest animal in the world.
NARRATOR: David's landmark series have been seen by billions of people
across the globe.
And this popularity now allows him to highlight
the extreme challenges facing our changing world.
ATTENBOROUGH: This is the planet on which we live.
It's the only one we've got, and we've got to protect it.
BROWN: I actually can't think of anybody else
who has had such a positive impact.
YENTOB: His ability to share things with people,
to make you look at the world in a way
that you hadn't quite before.
WHITWORTH: I mean, he's our greatest communicator.
♪♪
NARRATOR: But how did Sir David Attenborough become our planet's
most revered conservationist?
And why has he been loved and admired by so many for so long?
♪♪
David's fascination with life on Earth began
when he was a young boy,
collecting fossils near his home in Leicestershire.
ATTENBOROUGH: This is the Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire.
As a schoolboy I grew up near here.
NARRATOR: It was the discoveries David made here in the 1930s
that inspired his lifelong search to uncover the secrets
of the natural world.
ATTENBOROUGH: When I was a boy growing up in the Midlands,
in Leicester,
the rocks and limestones you found in the east of the country
were full of the most magical things.
You hit a stone, and it suddenly fell open,
and there was this amazing coiled shell,
beautiful and extraordinary,
and nobody had seen that for 150 million years, except you.
So I thought it was very romantic and exciting.
And it appealed to the small boy's instinct
of collecting things.
To be honest I don't think I've really lost.
But anyway, I certainly had it then.
NARRATOR: The awe and wonder first experienced by that 7-year-old
was nurtured by his academic parents.
David was the middle of three sons born to Mary and Frederick,
his eldest brother, Richard,
growing up to become an Oscar-winning
actor and director.
The family lived in the grounds of Leicester University.
ATTENBOROUGH: That was the university --
Well, it was, as the press were quick to point out,
a lunatic asylum,
and it was taken over by the University College, you see.
And we lived in that, which was the superintendent's house,
which is College House.
Then there's a big park, the Victoria Park.
And there's my father.
He was Principal of the University College in the 1930s.
And there he is, looking younger than me.
Though he didn't have any hair,
but not since he was about 28, I think.
[ Chuckles ]
NARRATOR: David's early passion for the natural world
won him a scholarship to Cambridge University.
This enabled him to indulge his growing fascination.
But though he would eventually go on to present
and narrate hundreds of hours of films,
surprisingly, his long career in TV began quite by chance.
ATTENBOROUGH: I saw an advertisement in The Times for a sound radio job,
which I applied for,
and didn't even get an interview but some week
or so afterwards I got a letter from someone
who said they'd got this new thing called television.
Was I interested?
And then they said they would pay me a thousand pounds
to go on the training course,
and that was three times what I was being paid
at the time in the publishers,
so I thought well, I'll give it a go.
NARRATOR: Television in the '50s was brand-new,
with the BBC broadcasting the first programs in Europe.
David had never seen a television program before,
but even so, began work as a production assistant.
ATTENBOROUGH: I was apprentice to a producer
who was regarded as a very experienced man
because he'd been there for three months
and he'd already produced one program, you know,
so he knew where everything was.
NARRATOR: Within a few years of joining the BBC,
David helped launch "Zoo Quest,"
one of the very first natural-history series.
It would give him the perfect opportunity to travel
and film the remotest parts of the world.
ATTENBOROUGH: I had a friend in the London Zoo
and he and I cooked up an idea
that the London Zoo should send out a collecting expedition,
which of course we wouldn't conceivably do now
but in those days it was possible.
And the idea would be that I would accompany this chap
who was an expert on snakes and I'd see him pouncing on a snake
and then from that film sequence we would go to him
in the studio live, with the same snake
and he'd be able to talk about the details,
and that was the basis called "Zoo Quest."
NARRATOR: At first, David's bosses rejected him as a presenter
because they felt his teeth were too big.
But then something unexpected happened.
ATTENBOROUGH: Jack Lester, who was the man from the Zoo,
had acquired a tropical disease.
He collapsed after the first show,
and the head of my department
or the head of television actually said, "Oh, look,
if Jack Lester can't do it the show's got to go on.
The only other person that could do it is Attenborough.
Tell him that he's got to leave the producer's gallery
and go down on the floor and do it."
BROWN: What I really remember about "Zoo Quest" is just adoring it
and making a date to watch it, and I was a really small child.
I was absolutely determined to watch David.
Now, I think the reason was that
he had this natural personal charm
but he also knew what he was talking about.
He has this massive fan base
that has been accruing over the years
and "Zoo Quest" was the beginning of it.
ATTENBOROUGH: We spent the first part of our trip in Paraguay...
NARRATOR: From those first moments in front of the camera,
David had plenty of time to hone a presenting style
that would become loved the world over.
MAN: Okay, David. And action!
ATTENBOROUGH: Nobody knows why he's pink.
[ Laughs ]
NARRATOR: But even after decades of practice,
delivering his lines takes more effort than meets the eye.
On location in Australia,
David's going through a ritual
he's performed thousands of times before.
MAN: So what is the piece in your head now?
ATTENBOROUGH: Um. [ Laughs ] Very good question.
You've got to convey something, some fact.
You've got to get it right.
In 1946 geologist Reg Sprigg found a fossil here
near the Ediacaran Hills.
And once having got it right in your mind,
you then try and put it into words.
Which, until that moment, had been -- until then. No.
And the first words that come out of my lips
at any rate are jumbled and confused and circumlocutory
and fumbling for exactitude.
But it was the discovery of, uh...
It's very difficult to think about anything
when someone's fumbling in your genitals.
[ Laughter ]
It's sort of tricky.
But it was a discovery in 1957.
I have to walk up and down and say it to myself
and hope I'll be able to say it to the camera.
GEFFEN: David is as close to a one-take wonder as you get.
Once he's gone through the "Attenborough preparation,"
it's just almost fail-safe.
It just comes out.
ATTENBOROUGH: In 1946, an Australian geologist,
Reg Sprigg, working here
in the Ediacara Hills of South Australia...
NARRATOR: David's trademark delivery has endeared him to millions,
and back in the '50s, the producers of "Zoo Quest"
saw this talent grow.
[ Up-tempo music plays ]
BROWN: It's this thing of being personable
and not talking down to people, talking to you.
NARRATOR: He was given the job of presenter on a permanent basis.
ATTENBOROUGH: I explained to the men as best I could
that I'd come to their valley
to try and get some of the birds of paradise alive.
♪♪
NARRATOR: David's ability to present his lines on the first take,
even under pressure,
is something his camera crews came to rely on.
On Loch Lomond in Scotland,
David's team is planning an ambitious sequence with swans.
But filming animals is never straightforward.
LEE: We want to film David with a group of swans
flying alongside him as he goes along the loch in a boat.
It should be amazing.
[ Swan honks ] NARRATOR: To do that,
the team would need the help of some very accommodating swans
and their handler, Rose Buck.
[ Swans honking ]
ATTENBOROUGH: She has this extraordinary empathy with animals,
and you can see her love and understanding
of them, and them of her.
♪♪
NARRATOR: For the sequence to work,
the birds have to fly within 10 feet of the camera.
With Rose positioned just out of the shot
and calling from the front of the boat,
the flock begins to follow.
But the big challenge is to get David to deliver
his lines together with the flying swans.
NARRATOR: They're doing their best, and they're following you,
but they don't necessarily understand exactly
where they ought to be for the camera.
They behave marvelously,
but sometimes they don't realize
that they should have been on the starboard side,
and they are on the port side.
I mean it takes a long time.
♪♪
NARRATOR: After several failed attempts,
the weather turns for the worse.
The team has one last chance.
♪♪
GEFFEN: Eventually the magic happened.
The swans absolutely hit it.
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: When you are close up to a flying bird
like this, you can see what a wonderful piece
of complex engineering their wings are.
Able to change their shape and their beat
to respond to every little change in the currents
of the air around them.
And so propel them forward and lift them upwards.
Ooh! [ Laughs ]
♪♪
NARRATOR: David had brought another spectacular sequence to life.
GEFFEN: I think that because David grew up in an era where, you know,
you only had one or two rolls of film, he knows
that you have to do things precisely.
You don't just film it constantly.
He is a man of the moment. He knows when the moment is big.
♪♪
NARRATOR: Over nearly 70 years of filmmaking,
David has encountered many different species of animal.
ATTENBOROUGH: There we are. Come on, boy.
NARRATOR: His love for them is famous
and has made him popular with audiences across the world.
But what's less well-known is that
when David started out presenting "Zoo Quest,"
he ended up taking some of the animals home.
ATTENBOROUGH: It didn't necessarily follow that the Zoo wanted everything
that I brought back.
And so I found myself doing all sorts of barmy things.
NARRATOR: David's family home became a menagerie,
with his wife Jane and children, Susan and Robert, helping
with the upkeep of the animals.
ATTENBOROUGH: We had a pair of lemurs at home.
And chameleons.
We had a breeding colony of bush babies.
They had an unfortunate habit of peeing on their hands
and then rubbing their hands together
and patting everything around to make them smell good.
Friends coming to dinner would arrive and open the door
and you could see them dilate their nostrils
and think, "That's not mulligatawny soup, you know.
What is it -- What are we having for dinner tonight?"
And I will regret to say it was bush baby urine.
So, after a bit, my dear wife thought
that this was not compatible with domestic hospitality
and one thing and another, and so we got rid of them.
NARRATOR: David's lifelong fascination with animals
is equaled by his unstoppable love of adventure.
In the forests of Borneo,
David wanted to film a rare tree frog
high in the canopy.
But to do this, David, the cameraman and all the equipment,
must be winched up over 100 feet.
MAN: Yeah.
GEFFEN: This just shows David's incredible zest for adventure.
At the age of 88, he's prepared to be pulled up a tree.
MAN: It feels like it wants to tip you out.
ATTENBOROUGH: Does it?
MAN: So that's why we've got the harness on
and we'll put a backup line on the harness.
ATTENBOROUGH: I knew there'd be a reason for the harness.
-MAN: Okay? -MAN #2: Good luck.
MAN: Up on orange. Down. Just face the tree.
Fend yourself off.
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: The suspense is killing me.
MAN: Is that a joke -- a hanging joke?
ATTENBOROUGH: [ Laughs ]
♪♪
NARRATOR: Filming 100 feet up in a tree is a major challenge.
But David knows the effort is worth it
because this frog can do what most others cannot.
ATTENBOROUGH: The tree frog has a remarkable trick for defense.
♪♪
It glides.
It has membranes between greatly elongated toes
so that each foot becomes a parachute
which slows the frog's descent
and so enables it to make a relatively safe landing.
♪♪
NARRATOR: Going to such extremes has made David one of the most recognized
and respected faces in television the world over.
-ATTENBOROUGH: I do my best. -MAN: Please keep it up.
It's the only stuff on telly worth watching.
NARRATOR: His popularity spans every generation.
And this level of fame was something
he had to get used to early in his career.
By the mid 1960s, David Attenborough had become
a household name.
BROWN: He was dashing.
He was always rushing around in slightly unbuttoned shirts
and just the excitement too.
Seeing him in these very sometimes incredible locations,
he somehow made them alive.
MAN: Mr. David Attenborough here.
NARRATOR: Then, still in his 30s,
an unexpected opportunity came David's way.
The BBC needed young blood
to run their brand-new channel, BBC 2.
ATTENBOROUGH: I remember deliberately saying to myself,
"Now you've got to make up your mind, Attenborough.
Are you a television man
or are you some kind of scientist?"
And I decided at that time
that I was really, at heart, a television man.
Therefore, if I was a television man, there could not
be a more interesting job in the whole of television
than that one that was being offered to me.
We shall continue to look for the new stars,
the experimental stars.
NARRATOR: As controller of BBC 2,
David introduced a new wave of programming
that would stand the test of time.
BROWN: He made BBC 2 a channel which could carry serious programs
but with a popular touch.
YENTOB: The BBC 2 that I came to run was the BBC
where the DNA had been implanted by David
with fantastic conviction and ambition and creativity.
NARRATOR: David also pioneered a whole new era of television
as the BBC raced to make Britain the first nation in Europe
to broadcast in color.
ATTENBOROUGH: And I was thinking, "Oh, you know,
come on, the BBC should be the first to color in Europe."
And it suddenly dawned on me we could use color cameras
in Wimbledon, and with just four or five color cameras,
which was all I think we had,
we could get hours and hours and hours of color television.
We would launch as soon
as we could do at least 50% of the programs in color,
and Wimbledon allowed us to do that.
[ Applause ]
NARRATOR: Even while David held this desk job,
he never lost his famous love of adventure.
And he escaped whenever he could to film in remote locations.
It's a passion he's kept his whole career.
MARTIN: Every day is a highlight for me.
ATTENBOROUGH: Of course it is, Martin, thank you very much.
MARTIN: This one is the best so far, definitely.
ATTENBOROUGH: What was wrong with yesterday?
MARTIN: Well, we weren't filming, David.
ATTENBOROUGH: Oh, yeah, you're quite right. [ Laughs ]
♪♪
NARRATOR: David is heading high into the Rocky Mountains.
He may be in his 80s on this shoot,
but David's determination is as strong as ever.
MAN: We've planned this in so many ways.
We've discussed having helicopters airlifting him
up in a sling underneath.
We've had the possibility of a sedan chair
to come up here, but actually David's perfectly fine
and perfectly willing
so all our anxieties are evaporating away really.
ATTENBOROUGH: I may be some time.
NARRATOR: The struggle will be worth it.
At the summit, David finds one
of the richest fossil locations in the world.
ATTENBOROUGH: Here, they are found all over the place.
They're called trilobites.
That's the head.
There's the middle bit.
NARRATOR: But filming at the top of a mountain
is not without hazards as the weather closes in.
ATTENBOROUGH: Okay, fellas, he says it's time we left.
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
-MAN: There you go. -ATTENBOROUGH: Thanks a lot.
-MAN: No problem, eh? -ATTENBOROUGH: Really great.
-MAN #2:How was it, David? -ATTENBOROUGH: Ah, terrible.
[ Laughs ]
NARRATOR: Back in 1973, David felt he wasn't getting to explore
and film these far-flung places as much as he'd like.
So he resigned from BBC management.
ATTENBOROUGH: I was fretting a bit and concluding that my life,
the rest of my life, was not to be spent behind a desk,
I couldn't bear it.
And so I managed to resign after 8 years of administration
and the first thing I did on having resigned
was the head of the natural history unit came to see me
and said, "Look, don't you think it would be a great idea
if we did a 12-part series about the natural world?
And would you do it?"
"Oh," I said, "what a good idea."
NARRATOR: The series was called "Life on Earth."
It gave David the opportunity to go to the places
he'd always dreamed of and to see the animals
he'd always wanted to see.
And it would define David as the world's
greatest natural-history presenter.
BROWN: What you find with "Life on Earth" is
you find him inventing really a new genre
for programs about the natural world.
It had a huge impact.
WHITWORTH: He talked very simply and explained things to those of us
who don't have degrees in botany or degrees
in zoology what was going on
and linked everything together so brilliantly.
NARRATOR: The groundbreaking series would produce one
of the most iconic moments in TV history.
ATTENBOROUGH: So, it seems really very unfair
that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolize all
that is aggressive and violent when that's the one thing
that the gorilla is not and that we are.
The reason we'd gone to gorillas
was in order to illustrate a point
I was making about the evolutionary significance
of climbing primates,
climbing mammals, who had to grasp branches,
and to grasp a branch you need to be able to put your thumb
and your forefinger together like that.
I suddenly felt a weight on my feet
and there's a baby gorilla undoing my shoelaces.
Well, it didn't seem to be the right moment
to be talking about the thumb and the forefinger,
and while I was concluding on that,
a hand came down on my head,
and there was the adult female
and she opened my mouth and put her hand,
a huge great hand, and stuck her finger in my mouth.
By this time I was in a sort of delirium really.
I mean, it just seemed paradisial,
absolutely extraordinary, took my breath away.
It did cause a huge sensation. I mean -- [ Laughs ]
It's quite odd.
BROWN: You're with him there and you're charmed.
He could charm a gorilla.
He could charm millions of people around the world.
NARRATOR: "Life on Earth" was the first series
in an extraordinary body of work for the BBC.
WHITWORTH: He went to these incredibly exotic places
and he made those places seem beautiful, fragile, important.
The effect was to say these are places
that we need to cherish and protect.
NARRATOR: Over 30 years, David set out to tell the stories
of every major animal and plant group on Earth.
Each series pioneered new technologies
that are still used today.
Cutting-edge time-lapse cameras, super slow motion,
infrared, and underwater photography
allowed David to showcase the natural world
in a completely new way.
MARTIN: David's always had a great interest
in exploring new technologies. It has defined his career.
Every new series he has worked on,
there's a new camera, a new style of filming,
something in the technology side
that has taken that series on to a new level.
WHITWORTH: He was a technophobe himself, really.
In his personal life he was about the last person
in Britain, I think, to own a fax machine
but he loved embracing the new technology for filmmaking
because he wanted to make films.
NARRATOR: In 2008, David finally completed
the last of the landmark series he'd set out to film.
And at the age of 82,
many assumed a comfortable retirement beckoned.
But then, in 2009, David set out for a new major location shoot.
Filmmaker Anthony Geffen
had tempted the legendary broadcaster back out
on the road with a project he couldn't resist...
"First Life."
GEFFEN: I'd known David for a long period of time.
I mean, I knew him when I was at the BBC 30-odd years ago.
I knew he was passionate about fossils, so in a way,
if he was going to make one series,
it was probably going to be about fossils.
But I knew one thing --
David always likes to do things differently.
He doesn't like to repeat things.
NARRATOR: Anthony suggested a new approach --
a series about the first animals on Earth
but one that would bring the past to life
with new scientific scanning and advanced computer graphics.
GEFFEN: His face lit up and I think
that whole idea of semi-retirement
probably fell away for a moment.
ATTENBOROUGH: For the last 30-odd years,
I've been filming the range and variety
of animals and plants that live on the world today.
What has been missing is the very beginning of the story.
We've always started at chapter two.
And so I just want to go back and show
where this whole thing started.
MARTIN: It was the prequel. It was the prologue
to his entire "Life on Earth" series,
and he always had in his mind
that he wanted to make this film.
And it wasn't until 2010
that the technology was there to do that.
ATTENBOROUGH: The really thrilling thing for me
is that, by using computer graphic imaging,
you can take these tiny little marks
and with total justification, scientific backing,
you can make that animal really come to life,
come out of that rock and move.
♪♪
NARRATOR: But before the fossils could be brought to life,
the team had to find the best specimens they could.
ATTENBOROUGH: We're here for trilobites.
Trilobites are the most extraordinary,
wonderful fossils.
Very, very fortunately the world's greatest expert
on trilobites, Richard Fortey,
an old friend of mine, is here to show us around.
FORTEY: It's a nice little specimen.
Well, ah, I've never seen a trident-bearer
with a great long flared medium prong on its trident.
So either it's true, in which case it's weird,
or it's been, let's say nature's been helped along a little bit.
ATTENBOROUGH: If it's fake, it's carefully done.
FORTEY: I've seen lots of different ones in my time,
but I've never seen that before.
Well, maybe it's pathological.
ATTENBOROUGH: Ah, A diseased trilobite.
FORTEY: We don't want none of them!
ATTENBOROUGH: [ Laughs ]
FORTEY: Not round these parts.
ATTENBOROUGH: [ Laughing ] No.
FORTEY: We don't want anybody catching anything.
MARTIN: It was a bit like being on location
with a couple of school kids.
I mean, they suddenly -- they seem to draw this sense of fun
out of each other.
It was great to see.
I mean, David was having a lot of fun in Morocco.
WHITWORTH: He loved it. He loved it.
He loved the camaraderie of being on the road with a crew.
NARRATOR: As filming moved to Australia,
the veteran filmmaker continued to relish the experience.
GEFFEN: I think the side most people don't know about
David Attenborough,
except you can see glimpse of him behind the scenes,
is that he has an amazing sense of humor.
ATTENBOROUGH: It's one of the rewards, you know, that you get,
the real joys of driving up there
and then they say, "Would you drive back?"
And then they say, "We think we'd like it a little faster."
Then they say, "We were wrong.
It was better slower, so would you go back again?"
It's actually not the pits of filming.
The pits of filming is when you have to walk
through the forest looking interested.
And not only interested but eagle-eyed.
Where will this experienced traveler suddenly spot,
and my goodness, there! That's hard doing.
There are variations.
You can give them the John Wayne, which is tight-buttocked
and I sort of strut like that.
That's one of my specialties actually,
but I'm not allowed to do it much these days.
I have to be more slouched and relaxed, you know.
But, of course, intelligent. That's the tricky bit.
[ Laughs ]
GEFFEN: When you're filming,
he's always chuckling away about something.
I think it sort of -- It's a way of disarming
that barrier that could be between the team and him.
NARRATOR: I loved it when you asked us to do it again
only just slightly faster.
What a thrill.
MAN: We only had your enjoyment in mind.
BROWN: What Atlantic Productions offered to David
was to be part of a team again.
He was in some ways I think after the death of his wife
a somewhat lonely figure,
and so this gave him a community really.
MARTIN: He loves the social side of being on
a shoot as much as anybody else.
ATTENBOROUGH: They only come in ones, do they?
MAN: No, no. Limited edition. Limited edition U2 wafers.
ATTENBOROUGH: Being part of a team is one of the pleasures.
It takes some time to become a team.
You can't just slot in like that
because it depends upon
knowing the personalities of the people you're involved with.
I suppose in one way
if you're going on long journeys together with people,
you ought to be...
to do a job, you ought to be sufficiently professional
to be able to get on with anybody
and if you find that the way they comb their hair
or something is irritating,
then you learn to suppress that irritation.
But then one of the ways, once you begin to sort that out,
you do begin to develop jokes between you.
NARRATOR: Although David and the crew
certainly had fun filming "First Life,"
the story of the very first living creatures on Earth
held huge importance for David.
ATTENBOROUGH: I'm on a fantastic journey to look for the origins of life.
GEFFEN: At the very end of the series,
pretty much the last sequence we were on,
in Heron Island, on the beach,
and it was sort of extraordinary.
I think this whole experience of going on the road again
and filming an international series
was a big thing for David.
And he actually got -- he doesn't get very emotional
very often, but he got very emotional,
and it took me by surprise.
ATTENBOROUGH: This program means a lot to me actually.
And rather surprisingly I didn't realize how much it meant to me
until I started doing it.
Because I have spent, over the last 25,
30 years, making a series of programs
about different groups of animals
as they've emerged through evolution,
and I've never made anything
about the very beginning of life.
So this series to a degree
which I really didn't fully appreciate
until I started working on it really completes the set.
Some creatures managed to crawl up onto the land,
but all of us alive today owe our very existence to them.
Well, in a curious way, in the end,
the end of my last making series like this, is my beginning.
♪♪
NARRATOR: Going back on the road had been such a rewarding experience,
David was keen to keep going. It was the start of a new
and hugely prolific phase in his career.
David understood that to reach out to a younger audience,
he had to work even harder.
And he saw that by cleverly combining CGI
and the latest camera technology,
he could once again tell natural-history stories
in a completely new way.
After advanced animation,
the next exciting leap in wildlife filming
was to add an entirely new dimension to the story...
3-D...
...a move that would take David away from the BBC.
WHITWORTH: When he was offered the chance to do things
like the 3-D films, he thought that was fantastic.
And that's why he went off to Sky
to do these things which the BBC were not doing.
ATTENBOROUGH: When the proposal came up
that we should do a program in 3-D, I was very excited
because when I started in 1952, we had black
and white cameras and then upgraded further into color
and now into high definition, and now into 3-D,
and I'm delighted to be around while it's happening.
I've never worked with a crew as big as this.
WOMAN: I thought we were doing quite well keeping our numbers down.
ATTENBOROUGH: Well, you are. How many are you?
-WOMAN: About 12. -ATTENBOROUGH: 12?
I normally work with two other people --
cameraman and recordist. [ Laughs ] Yes, yes.
MARTIN: 3-D is an incredibly difficult medium to work in.
It's almost like going back to working in film.
You've got these incredibly heavy cameras.
In fact they're two cameras bound together.
It's very technical. You've got to get the focus
and you've got to get the distance
between the cameras exactly right.
All these very technical things that make directing
a traditional documentary really hard.
You can't react to situations that well.
NARRATOR: Despite the challenges,
David was determined to take the 3-D cameras out into the wild.
He headed to the remote Galápagos Islands
of South America.
ATTENBOROUGH: 3-D properly used, it seems to me,
can give the viewer more of a feeling of being there,
more of a feeling of the reality.
So, we'll see if we succeed.
NARRATOR: The new technology would capture one of David's
most memorable moments.
MARTIN: Lonesome George was an icon of our time.
He was a representative of everything
the Galápagos stood for.
He was the last one left of his species,
the rest of his kind driven to extinction
by the pressures of living in the age of man.
ATTENBOROUGH: Nobody went to the Galápagos
without visiting Lonesome George.
I had met him before on earlier trips to the Galápagos,
but we asked to go and see him again.
And the authorities were, very properly, protective of him.
We could only do it before the gardens opened,
and we could only be allowed with him
for just a very few minutes. So we all got up in the dark,
and Lonesome George was asleep, so we got a camera in position
and I crawled in and waited for Lonesome George to wake up.
And I waited a long time,
and I thought maybe we've come too late,
and he isn't going to wake up at all.
But eventually he did.
MAN: Action.
ATTENBOROUGH: He's about 80 years old
and he's getting a bit creaky in his joints.
As indeed, am I.
He is, arguably, the rarest animal in the world.
Certainly, there can be none rarer,
for he is the last of his kind.
When he dies, the Pinta species
of Galápagos tortoise will be extinct.
But he is a very important animal.
Probably more than any other single creature,
he's focused the attention of the world
on the fragility of our environment.
I delivered my piece to camera
and then just at the right moment
Lonesome George heaved himself up and just moved slowly away
and that was that -- my interview was over.
Just 14 days after we filmed Lonesome, he died in his sleep.
GEFFEN: It was just one of those moments filming in
natural history because there was David and Lonesome George
and Lonesome George's last big appearance,
and it was -- it was really extraordinary.
NARRATOR: By the time filming wrapped on the Galápagos series,
the team had captured a breathtaking variety of animals
both on land and in the sea.
[ Tapping on glass ]
But arguably David's most surprising 3-D film
was captured much closer to home,
in one of London's iconic museums.
Remarkably, at the age of 86,
the legendary presenter completely reinvented himself
and bravely stepped into the unfamiliar world
of acting for "Natural History Museum Alive."
MAN: Take one.
ATTENBOROUGH: Funny way to earn a living.
GEFFEN: Here we were talking about a new genre
which had David acting where we were going to have to
create CGI in and around him.
NARRATOR: The team's first test is to bring to life one
of the most famous extinct animals of all,
the dodo.
-MAN: Speed mark it. -WOMAN: Seven, take two.
MAN: Camera set.
GEFFEN: Action.
ATTENBOROUGH: Ow! Hey! Well, that's a --
No, not very good. I'll do it again. Ow!
GEFFEN: It was quite hard for David.
It was quite a hard film to make.
Here he was, way out on a limb,
if you like, from being the Attenborough
that everybody knew before, having to act,
and that was right on the edge of his comfort zone.
David felt quite vulnerable.
ATTENBOROUGH: So no one knows how big it was.
But after tonight, who knows?
-GEFFEN: Cut! Brilliant. -ATTENBOROUGH: I'm not an actor.
It's not my skill, and so you do feel a bit of a "nana" really,
so when they say, "Look out, it's attacking you,
look horror," aaah!
In fact it may well have been adapted to crushing of stones.
Not very good.
I just hope it will work.
NARRATOR: When the final graphics are added to David's performance,
the scene starts to take on a magical life.
♪♪
What do you make of that? [ Laughs ]
Ow! [ Laughs ] That's a very powerful beak.
NARRATOR: But it wasn't until the first screening, a Royal Premiere,
that David would see the finished film
and his acting debut for the first time.
GEFFEN: David was very anxious going into the premiere.
He hadn't seen the final film and kept saying,
"Is it alright, is it alright?"
I said, "It's going to be fine, David.
Don't worry about it."
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: I suspect I'll find its look rather unnervingly familiar.
I was a bit worried as to
whether people would think it was too flippant.
But we took a lot of trouble to make sure
that each of the stories
actually had solid scientific information into it,
and it was very successful.
People apparently loved it.
[ Cheers and applause ]
NARRATOR: David's leap into the unknown
was rewarded with one of the industry's highest honors.
GEFFEN: I have to say that it is a pretty extraordinary night.
David Attenborough has now won in
black and white, color, HD, 3-D,
and now the first winner of a BAFTA Award, I believe, in 4K.
[ Cheers and applause ]
David always says awards don't really matter,
but he has a lovely habit which he goes home --
everything gets put away, none of his awards are on display,
but for a week after he wins an award,
you always see it on the mantelpiece in the hall,
and it's sort of his little thing
that he's won an award. [ Cheers and applause ]
NARRATOR: Despite having now won every major industry award,
David had no intention of slowing down.
At the age of 88 he was about to begin filming again for the BBC
on one of his most important series to date.
♪♪
The team traveled to Australia
to shoot a major series on the Great Barrier Reef,
somewhere David had first visited over 60 years ago.
In 1957, David filmed underwater here for the first time,
with nothing more than a single camera and scuba gear.
ATTENBOROUGH: It wasn't bad actually, paddling around in the water
and sticking my hand in a giant clam and looking brave.
But it was very primitive.
The camera was wound up by clockwork.
NARRATOR: But this time David had a new way to get underwater...
a state-of-the-art submersible.
GEFFEN: David was fascinated by the idea of going back
with the new technology, with the new science,
and seeing the reef
and uncovering the reef in a whole new way.
ATTENBOROUGH: This is the first time that a submersible like this
would ever dive on the Barrier Reef,
so it's a pretty important moment.
PAUL: The first time we went in,
we were both doing it together for the first time,
so we were both feeling the same excitement
of going underwater in this bubble.
♪♪
NARRATOR: David and Paul are rewarded with some spectacular sights...
ATTENBOROUGH: Ah, how beautiful.
NARRATOR: ...that prove why the reef is one
of the most dazzling habitats on the planet.
ATTENBOROUGH: Wow!
It's jolly nice that someone of my age
can be taken down in fantastic comfort.
He's coming right at us.
No problem about breathing, no problem about talking,
no problem about your movements.
Ah, there's a huge shark!
You're just sitting there, as it were, in an armchair
and looking at one of the most extraordinary places on Earth.
A privilege given to very few.
Don't you -- Don't you start that. Oh, dear!
NARRATOR: The series achieved all the spectacle and awe
that Attenborough films are expected to deliver.
ATTENBOROUGH: What I enjoy about making these programs is saying
"Look at this. Isn't it fabulous?"
and "Don't you enjoy looking at this?
Aren't you struck by its wonder?"
NARRATOR: But David was deeply affected by the changes
he saw in the reef, and in the final episode,
he added a very personal message.
ATTENBOROUGH: The Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger.
The twin perils brought by climate change,
an increase in the temperature of the ocean,
and in its acidity threaten its very existence.
If they continue to rise at the present rate,
the reefs will be gone within decades.
And that would be a global catastrophe.
DAVIS: David is very aware that this --
we're handing on the world to the next generation,
and I think that's all summarized beautifully
in his last piece to camera.
ATTENBOROUGH: They are among this planet's richest, most complex,
and most beautiful ecosystems.
Do we really care so little about the Earth
on which we live
that we don't wish to protect one of its greatest wonders
from the consequences of our behavior?
BROWN: I think he's angry
and I think that that anger was allowed to show.
WHITWORTH: For many years, his documentaries did not have
an overt environmental message in them,
so when he did speak, that was very shocking.
People were "Oh, wow.
This is something we do need to sit up and take notice of."
NARRATOR: During his lifetime,
David has witnessed enormous changes
across the natural world.
The ozone hole was discovered, global warming was detected,
and extinctions increased.
WHITWORTH: He gradually was becoming more outspoken about the environment.
ATTENBOROUGH: The abundance of life
and the variety of life touches the human imagination
and the human spirit, and it's very precious.
NARRATOR: Then, as David turned 90,
he had the chance to deliver his message on a new platform.
WHITWORTH: I think the real landmark
was when he was invited to the White House by President Obama.
OBAMA: Sir David Attenborough, thank you so much for being here.
As I was telling you on our walk over,
I have been a huge admirer of your work for a very long time.
WHITWORTH: I can't think of another example
when a president of the United States
invites somebody to the White House and interviews them.
OBAMA: What are the prospects for this blue marble that we live on?
ATTENBOROUGH: This is the planet on which we live.
It's the only one we've got, and we've got to protect it.
BROWN: The president of the United States is at his feet really.
I mean, they are both equals in that interview.
That's the thing.
And it did make Obama bolder in accepting
that climate change needed to be absolutely top priority.
NARRATOR: The historic meeting also gave David
increased confidence to speak out.
BROWN: It gave him a license really to be himself
and to actually say what he believed was wrong with the way
we were ruining our environment.
ATTENBOROUGH: Plastic is so permanent, so indestructible
that when you cast it into the ocean,
or indeed into your dustbin, it does not go away.
WHITWORTH: He really communicated for people in their living rooms
the threat that was facing the planet.
ATTENBOROUGH: If we don't take action,
the extinction of much of the natural world
is on the horizon.
Together we can make real change happen.
WHITWORTH: He was campaigning on the future of the planet
in documentaries
that were seen by hundreds of millions of people.
NARRATOR: Nearly 70 years after he first started out,
David Attenborough is once again changing
how millions of us look at the world.
PAUL: You encounter so many people who say
that their lives have been changed by David Attenborough.
There's scientists who say, "I wouldn't be doing this
if I hadn't watched those David Attenborough programs."
He's the voice of Mother Nature. I mean, he just --
when you hear that voice, you know
that you're not being fed a line.
You know you're getting the facts.
ATTENBOROUGH: I have to confess I'm fascinated by armadillos.
As far as I'm concerned,
they're some of the nicest
and most curious animals in the world.
I'm on the edge of a coral reef at low tide.
And top of the menu right now is salmon.
PAUL: He's irreplaceable.
There will -- Nobody can replace him
because he is totally unique.
GEFFEN: To have had the opportunity to work with one of the world's
greatest storytellers
and to have got to know him, I just feel incredibly lucky.
WHITWORTH: I think David will be remembered
as our greatest broadcaster.
♪♪
To learn more about what you've seen
on this "Nature" program,
visit pbs.org.
♪♪