Into the wild
Magical Land of Oz is a three-part natural history series showcasing the beauty and devastation of Australia’s environment. Director Tosca Looby takes DANIELLE MCGRANE through the inspirations behind, and making of, this beautiful new series.
What inspired you to make Magical Land Of Oz?
Executive producer of Magical Land, Karina Holden, and I met in 1996, two natural history buffs at the ABC Natural History Unit. We’ve wanted to make a continentwide, blue-chip natural history series – for Australians and by Australians – since.
There are so many stories out there to be told, and so many extraordinary species in Australia that are unfamiliar to the majority of our population. While children learn about tigers and elephants and pandas, they are missing out on the equally fascinating, complex and beautiful species which inhabit their own backyard.
Have you always been interested in natural history?
In every photo of myself as a little girl, my arms are wrapped around an animal. I didn’t care if it was a dog or a goat or a snake. I loved them all and still do. I’m still surprised when my human companions aren’t captivated by a flock of yellow-- tailed black cockatoos flying overhead, or a skink sunning itself long enough to let you gaze at its little chest beating and the brilliant camouflage it’s pulling off. Some people look at cars or trains. I look at animals. They never cease to amaze me.
How did you decide what to cover in the series?
It was very difficult to whittle down the natural history of Australia to fit three hours of television. There are just so many stories to be told. By breaking episodes into distinct geographical zones – oceans, land and the human world – we were able to focus our storytelling.
The ocean is such an important presence in any story of Australia, surrounded as we are by three very different oceans. The land episode then became a logical follow-up to the ocean episode.
In it we explore the extraordinary diversity of Australia’s landscapes, from its northern floodplains to its frozen peaks, and how species have learnt to survive what are often very harsh habitats.
Finally, as natural history film-making worldwide acknowledges the rapid change humans are generating on this planet, we were compelled to report on what we were discovering on our travels. Australia’s animals, in urban centres as well as remote regions, are scrambling to adapt as their world is so rapidly transformed.
Did you notice the effects of climate change in the making of this series?
There wasn’t a landscape we visited, or species we filmed, that wasn’t in some way impacted by a change in weather patterns and its myriad knock-on effects.
Sometimes these effects are very subtle, even invisible to the human eye. This is the case in our story about koalas. In other cases, the impact is far more stark.
What are the difficulties you faced in making a natural history series?
The biggest challenge in Australia has to be the fact that most of Australia’s animals are extremely shy and elusive. Many are nocturnal. This makes heading into the field a constant gamble. Even the most meticulous research will often deliver us a whole lot of nothing.
Natural history film-making generally offers no safety net. If the animal doesn’t turn up, there’s no alternative we can use to entertain our cameras. The flipside is that animals are full of surprises and there were occasions when animals not only turned up, but performed in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
Magical Land of Oz is narrated by Barry Humphries, how did he come to be involved?
I approached him to do the voiceover last year and, after showing him the glorious images, he agreed. Although he’s spent so much of his life outside Australia, he is still – very much – an Australian, and he loved making the series with us. He also made us laugh until our sides ached.
Magical Land of Oz
Sunday, 7.40pm on ABC